A good pair of cowboy boots used to cost five hundred dollars.
Not because leather costs five hundred dollars. Because of everything that happened between the tannery and your feet.
The bootmaker sold to a wholesaler. The wholesaler sold to a retailer. The retailer needed rent, staff and margin.
Each step roughly doubles the price. That is not greed, that is how the chain works.
Tecovas started in Austin with a simple idea. Skip the chain entirely. Make the boots, sell them yourself, charge half.
It worked spectacularly, and it is now one of the standard playbooks in American consumer business.
But there is a catch that nobody mentions, and it is worth understanding before you buy anything from a brand that talks about cutting out the middleman.
Let me show you both halves.