May 15, 2018 • 48 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
For a lot of people. You know, why are you when?
Do you know what you want to do? And this
is something you want to do and do it. I'm
a hustle sid hustle do it. I'm a hustle sod
s hustl do it. I'm a hustle slow. I'm a
hustle side slow. I'm a hustle side side hustlo. Come
on ask about me, yo yo. It's the side Hustless
(00:25):
podcast we call the Root. Okay, welcome to another episode
of Side Hustlers Podcast. I am not in a studio.
I'm a a gets a storage closet of some sort,
hanging out in Hoboken, New Jersey with my friends John
and Steve. Say, Hi, guys, Hello, that was that's John. Okay.
So they and you've probably seen me post about them before,
(00:47):
heard me or even Anthony talked about them before. They're
the creators, the masterminds behind Roosevelt's rs v lts dot
com because fowls exactly exactly. Okay, it's kind of our mantra.
You guys have created this. I don't even know what
to explain it as I didn't even know you guys
when you started this and That's why I'm excited to
get your story. But the two of you have created
(01:08):
this giant company out of I don't want to say nothing,
but really you started from the ground up. You have
this sick office in Hoboken, New Jersey, you had people
working for you. So I guess explained what Roosevelt is
now and then we're going to get into the entire story. Okay,
you got um. Yeah, Roosevelt is an apparel brand. We're
based in Hoboken, New Jersey. We started as a marketing
company doing campaigns for different brands, and kind of as
(01:31):
a side gig to that marketing company, we started making
some T shirts m with our logos on it. And
I think you know the long and short of it is,
you know, we started seeing names come across as sales
that we didn't recognize, not family and friends, and I
think at that moment we knew there was a business there.
And I think ever since that, you know time, we've
evolved into a pretty decent sized apparel brand. But you
(01:52):
guys didn't start us that. What did you guys originally
start us? So summer of I think Steve was the
director of marketing for kind of an online slash seasonal
print magazine called co Ed, and I had actually lost
my job from like the two thousand and eight recession.
I was right out of school, had a sick job
as a junior art director, and after the recession hit,
(02:16):
when the company went on there, I lost my job
and I started doing demolition, like real, real Hansy stuff. Yeah.
So I was working for co Ed at night and um,
you know, just doing like freelance stuff, doing a little
bit of writing here in their graphic design. Steve and
I had known each other just from from college, and
one night, I think we were like drinking or stuff,
and we were just kind of like, hey, let's do
something fun this summer. All right, let's do it. Like
(02:37):
I have a flexible job now because I'm just knocking
down walls all day, so let's figure it out. Let's
make something happen. We you know, threw some stuff up
against the wall. And we both were huge baseball fans,
and we decided to um pitch a couple of different
brands kind of an experiential marketing campaign that would send
us across the country to every single baseball stadium. That's yeah,
(02:59):
it's it's crazy, but it's been done before. So then
we tried to figure out how do we make this
It's we had no idea what we were doing exactly.
It's been done before by company X, and like all
this stuff, hitting people up cold calling, like Volkswagen because
we thought it'd be a cool road trip idea. They're like, no, see,
this is a driving challenge and you know if you
crash or something, we're gonna be super liable for that.
So I think the long and short of that is
(03:20):
we we were winging the entire thing. Yes, So then
we we were doing everything under the co ed umbrella,
just because we needed a platform for this campaign to
live under. So then after after a couple of failed pitches,
we we found uh the PR agency for Nokia at
the time, the phone company pitched on this cool idea
that would send us across the country on this kind
(03:41):
of like rat race style thirty ballpark excursion. But the
caveat was we'd have to accomplish this in thirty days.
If you're a baseball fan, you know that there are
thirty baseball stadiums and thirty teams in the MLB, so
it would not be an easy feat. But after like
two months of scheduling stuff out. We figured out at
most of the teams that have two teams in in
(04:03):
one city, they don't play in the same day. So
like the Yankees, for example, will play a four game
home stretch and then they'll leave. Then the very next
day the Mets will have their four game home stretch.
Same thing with the Cubs in the White Sox, same
thing with the Dodgers and the Angels. So the trick
was to try and get two games out of that
region in you know, one after the other, and then
kind of drive around that specific region and hit you know,
(04:26):
nine or ten stadiums without having to fly because we
couldn't fly that much, but we somehow we did it.
Probably should have died a few times. I never I
never wanted to eat another hot dog after going to
thirty baseball stadiums in thirty days, and along the way
we had to actually do various activities each stadium, like
go up into the bleachers, eat hot dogs. At every stadium,
(04:46):
we ranked and reviewed various aspects of each stadium. So
you know, by the end of that trip, I think
we were retired sick, but I do think it was
probably one of the coolest months we've ever had, you know, collectively,
it was one of the coolest things I've ever done. Personally. Yeah, hey,
we got to see the whole country be There's nothing
like a like a professional baseball stadium. There's nothing like it.
You can argue, you know, football stadiums around the country
(05:08):
are cool. You could argue, you know, different basketball arenas
are cool. There's nothing as unique as a baseball stadium.
It has its own identity. They're all completely different. I
mean the fields are different. The fields are completely different,
they're different sizes. So you know, some of these stadiums
have been around for a hundred years, some of them
have are brand new and our state of the art. Uh.
(05:28):
They all have different signature foods, and this is all
stuff that we were writing about. So we would rank
and review these stadiums and make it more about the
the experience than about the actual baseball game. We would
rank how easy it was to buy the cheapest ticket
in the stadium, and and and sneak down to the
best seats. Obviously you would rank every hot dog, and
then signature food and then um, you know, just aesthetics
of the stadium and you know what was a piece
(05:50):
of ship and what was you know, like, what stadium
you need to hit before you die? Don't go to Oakland, sorry,
old never go to Oakland. Yeah, based off of the
story you're telling me, now, I guess I never put
us together. You guys really started with baseball and where
you're at now, I mean, i'd say you're the unofficial
apparel of just baseball baseball fans really at this point
now in two thousand eighteen, Yeah, absolutely, we have a
(06:11):
lot of baseball players wearing our stuff. You know, a
lot of things happened between that that uh, you know,
amazing month that we had UM to where we are now.
You know, I think our company has probably evolved four
or five times since then. You know, we actually didn't
even have a company at that point. We were working
under the umbrella of a media company called co Ed.
But I think out of that um experiential campaign that
(06:33):
we produced for Nokia, it was it was kind of
a light bulb went off, you know, the brand loved
the idea. We were on ESPN and we did a
ton of morning shows and you know, I'm almost kicking
ourselves now because we did it for for next to nothing. Um,
So I think we could have made more money out
of it. But at the end of the day, you know,
the brand saw great value in what we were doing
and it was a wild success. And from there they
(06:55):
re up to with us for another campaign. The following summer,
we started producing campaigns for other ends, and I think
by the following summer John and I really knew that
we might have stumbled upon a business model, you know,
just out of the the idea of having fun this
summer and what could we pitch to a brand and
get them to like pay for Basically, we went on
an all expenses paid baseball trip across the country. We
(07:15):
noticed that, you know, with the the emergence of social
media around that time, UM, it was a really cool
way to interact with fans and the brand Noki. I
have to give them a lot of credit. You know,
a lot of people said no to it, but they
believed in the vision. They loved it. I think it
was probably one of the coolest campaigns that they had
done that entire year. UM. And from there, you know,
like I said, we we saw a business model. We
(07:36):
kind of ran with it and you know, started producing
more of those campaigns for different brands. So you're producing campaigns.
What about a year later is that when you guys
officially said okay, let's make a company and let's call
it Roosevelt's. Well, initially we kind of had to launch
our own company, um and it was under it was
another company called Agency X, So that was more of
like our marketing slash media company. And that was just
(07:58):
almost just because we needed to create an LLC at
that point, and then we were approached by Roosevelts actually
came about. We were approached by another for another baseball
campaign through Microsoft. A couple of years later, after we
were producing these campaigns every other month or so, they
hit us up and they said, oh, listen, we want
to do something similar. We want to do like a
bucket list campaign where you do, you know, the most
(08:20):
sought after stuff and in the best baseball cities in America.
But all the magazines that we were working with to
kind of put these campaigns to to let these campaigns
live under they were all kind of like maxim esque,
we want to say, like very girl heavy, girl centric,
and Microsoft is a very conservative brand, so we really
(08:41):
we didn't have we didn't have many options, so we
asked him if we can create more of a brand
friendly PG thirteen editorial site targeted toward men, and we
didn't have a name for it, and they were like yeah, sure.
So we were scrambling and we're like, all right, what
do we call it? The Roosevelt was actually a campaign
that we had kind of in our pocket, uh, and
(09:01):
we were just kind of like waiting for the right
brand to kind of align it with, and it just
so happened. We were like, all right, what do we
call the magazine The Roosevelt? And they were like, yeah,
that's awesome. You're you're selling them short Like this was insane.
We pitched a new site. We had zero content, zero
idea what this is gonna be, and just as a
shot shot in the dark, we threw a hail Mary
pass and said, well, you know, all these sites are
(09:21):
a little too gratuitous for your brand, but we're gonna
launch a site. And yeah, and they not only did
they love it and embrace it, they gave us almost
basically startup capital to start this website. You know, they
fully funded it for like the first six months. Just
so yeah. So at that time, Steve was still at
co ED and we were kind of we were doing
(09:42):
these things it's too much, And it was like the
writing was on the wall that you know, he was
gonna have to leave soon. Um, And I was doing
it full time when Steve left, just trying to put
together new pitch decks, so we weren't demoing walls anymore
at this point. I think after the second campaign, I
was like, you know what I've I've broken too many fingers.
I'm not made out for this. Yeah, So Steve ended
up quitting his job and Microsoft gave us like three
(10:04):
months runway to basically create content. Like we were not
only putting together this insane bucket list that we were
going to have to travel around the country for again
for like the fourth the fourth time, I think for
the summer. But at that time we were kind of
we were a little more acclimated to how you know
travel quick travel works. But we also had a great content.
We were writing five six articles per person per day
(10:27):
because by the time this went live, this had to
seem like not only a legitimate site, but like we
needed people to get a feel and a and a
vibe for what the Roosevelt was. So yeah, I mean,
but it was fun, you know, like we were writing
like we were writing every day all day and then
we were creating this awesome campaign that we knew was
gonna come into fruition. And you know, a few months
(10:48):
and thank god, we worked with the most awesome people
in Microsoft that believed in us, and and they really did.
I mean, they gave us enough capital so Steve could
really come on full time. We were still eating Ramen
every night, I think a couple of years of ramen.
That's the entrepreneurial journey, right right, Yeah, So, um, but
(11:09):
what happened and it worked out. You know, we we
we accomplished our probably fourth or fifth campaign and and
from there it was just like all right, off to
the races. But so you kept saying you had a
campaign in your back pocket that was called the Roosevelt.
What was that campaign? Originally the Roosevelts was supposed to be. Yeah,
it was still the Roosevelt, but it was supposed to
(11:30):
be a kind of a an experiential club that we
would invite influencers and you know, men's lifestyle editors from
Men's Health or g Q or Esquire, just because we
ran in the same circle of a lot of these
you know, pr agencies, brands and and editorial friends. So
we said, all right, what we can do is we
can end up maybe creating this this club where we
(11:53):
would give you, you know, like your own Roosevelt's card,
and we would send you to Scottsdale, Arizona, under the
umbrella of bud Light, and you'd spend a weekend there
and you would ride ride dune buggies through like the
Apache Trails and go to a gun range or you know,
go hiking and go or go golfing. I don't know,
(12:14):
and it would all be you know, funded by bud Light,
and there would be some sort of brand messaging attached
to it. So that was the initial like back pocket
Roosevelt's Club. But we were just kind of you know,
we had we had probably ten of these in you know,
in our archives of all right, once we can align
this brand with the school, campaign will execute it. So
the Roosevelts was just like something random and we just
(12:36):
needed we were scrambling to find a name for this magazine. Um,
and then we were we tried to buy the Roosevelts
dot com. Yeah, because it's your website is rsb lts.
It doesn't spell out Roosevelts. It kind of worked out
it worked out for the best. But we tried to
buy the roosevelts dot com and some webs shark owned it.
(12:57):
He probably owned it since the nineties, and we're like, well,
how much do you want for it? And he was
just like, give me a price if we didn't have
any money. We didn't offered him like a thousand dollars.
We're like, we're throwing a hell. Mary passed at this
point and he was like nope. We're like all right.
He's like no, not even close by, guys. And that
was it, Like we we we have enough money to
buy it. So Steve had the idea to create to
(13:19):
basically remove the vowels and just make it R s
v l t s, which at first was a little confusing,
but it's weird because more and more brands are doing
it now. Yeah, no, I've noticed that, and it's great
because like this is just so this is something you
think about, like in media, I guess, but you always
own the you know, with all these different social media
(13:39):
platforms coming out, you always own like the forward slash
R s v l t s, where someone else might
own like you know, Facebook dot com slash Roosevelts, No
one's gonna have why would anyone have ours? F LT Yes,
so what why did you Steve think of the screw
the vowels thing? I honestly don't know. I remember it though.
I was crossing the street to go to the Delhi
by Manila, where we all us to live, and I
(14:01):
was like, what are we gonna do? Because this guy
wants twenty five thousand dollars for the Roosevelts dot com
And I was like, I don't even know where I
would get twenty five dollars from. So yeah, I think
it was just, uh, you know, like you said, the
writing was on the wall with kind of the age
of social media really emerging then and seeing other brands
kind of removing the vowels, and I was like, this
could work. It's short, we have all the social here.
I immediately fired up Go Daddy and saw I was available.
(14:23):
Was like, all right, well this is it. We talked
about it, and I think we both agreed that it
was catchy, almost incognito, like you see it and you're like, well,
what the hell is that? You know? I think it
was just a good situation for us to grab that. Listen.
I love I'm a fan of I'm loving learning this
story though too. It was it was Americana too, Like
you know, I think the vision of the company was
sort of at that time headed towards that Americana vibe,
(14:45):
and I just think that was like our aesthetic and
having Teddy Roosevelt kind of be our leader for the
whole company made it seem well, we were kind of
always we were based on Our company was really founded
on seeing the country. I mean, traveling across the country.
We've probably driven across the country four times collectively, you know,
So yeah, I mean that was that was It was
(15:08):
like one of the most badass Americans and you know,
being like a men at that time, we were a
site for men too, And you know, I think it's
it's something to aspire to. The guy's rustic and a
traveler and an adventurer, and he just seemed like a
good person to kind of base a content strategy around
and have just a general mantra of adventure and seeing
the world and uh just doing good for the world too.
(15:28):
I mean, he was a conservationist and I think he
just checked all the boxes in terms of somebody that
we would aspire to. When I first met you, guys
who were already selling T shirts. It was like your
basic stuff, but you mainly had articles on your website.
So now you guys are opposite. Actually, so the way
the apparel stuff kind of started. And it's funny because
(15:50):
our website, our store website is still registered under stadium
street Tease, which was like this first idea we had
during the baseball campaign. You know, we'd walk around baseball
stadiums and see people selling like these knockoff funny T
shirts outside stadiums. Were like, well, if somebody lives in
Seattle and they're Yankees fan, how are they going to
get this shirt that's only sold outside Yankee stadium. You know,
(16:11):
there's just no place to get these like really funny
shirts um across the country. So the original idea for
you know, doing apparel was to produce like just really
funny sports sports T shirts for people around the country
that don't necessarily have access to the baseball stadiums in
their hometown. So that that's how that idea started. And
I guess from there, we wanted to just put our
(16:31):
logo on some shirts to give him to family and friends,
and you know, we learned about shopify and all this stuff,
and we made our first round of shirts on customing
dot com and then we made a couple of hoodies
on customing dot com. And now I laugh because I'm like,
I would never do that again. I mean, our businesses
evolved and changed so much since then, but at the time,
it was a really good move for us. So, you know,
we listed those shirts on Shopify, and you know, it
(16:53):
didn't take off right away. I think we may be
made twenty shirts and sold ten of them, and we
probably still have some here. Uh they we haven't sold.
But that kind of kick started the second wave of
what our company became, which really allowed us to evolve
and do an apparel company. That was how that all started. So, now,
what are your roles within the company? Because you guys
started it was just like throwing things at the law'll
(17:15):
see what happens. But you guys have completely different roles
from each other. And I guess from what you started
with two a little bit, I guess kind of explain
what each of your roles are for Roosevelts. Yeah, I mean,
I guess I do a lot of the logistics stuff,
so you know, when it comes to you know, sourcing,
um handling, the tariffs. I never ever thought, you know,
if you asked me five years ago if I knew
(17:35):
anything about tariff rules or you know, importing and exporting,
or how to set up a fulfilming company. And now
we have we're going on our third warehouse. You know,
I just knew nothing about that. So I guess my
role is just to figure stuff out. That That's kind
of what I do. We're like, Okay, we have an idea,
and all right, I'll figure it out. You're like the
ultimate Google. Yeah, I definitely have a knack for figuring
(17:57):
things out. And you know, our our businesses, it's sometimes
comes crazy because it's evolved slow and steady. You know,
we started at with a Shopify site without even accustom
you r L, and then we figured that out how
to get our r L and then you know, we
were producing some other shirts and a couple of our
shirts went viral and we're literally like, we're packing these
shirts up for eight hours a day. Hiring outside helped.
(18:18):
Trying to do it in our small office at that point,
which was basically my bedroom. Um, and we just couldn't
do it anymore. So the next thing was, all right, well,
how do we logistically figure this out. So then we
figured out how to get a warehouse. So yeah, I
guess my role is just figuring stuff out. And I
think that's a perfect title. I actually think there, if
you had a title, it would be like problem Solverer
Like there, it is just like when because we're we're
(18:41):
still new with this. I mean as far as apparel
production goes. I mean, we're not like going to the
local screen printer and getting twenty shirts made anymore. We're
producing tens of thousands of units. So we have to
shift that stuff across the really across the world, and
and you know, figure out how much more expensive it
(19:01):
is to ship air versus c um and how how
far in advance we have to make these things. You know,
like everybody knows how fashion Week is coming up in
New York. Not that we're Fashion week status, but you
know what I mean, like why people come out with
their Spring nineteen line now and now it makes sense? Oh,
because you know it's it's one tenth the shipping if
(19:23):
they ship it, you know, in in July and get
it in the spring. Your role head fashion, Yeah, yeah,
I'm the Mugatu of the creative. Creative Yeah, creative director,
I guess would be my role. So I guess I'm
in charge of most creative strategy, whether it's um advertising, marketing,
(19:44):
apparel design, pattern design, pretty much the facade of the company,
which is really like keep going towards like this Iceberg reference,
but it really is because when I tell people that
this is an apparel company, like it is, it really is.
It's an a power company now, But that's really just
like the like the icing on the cake. That's what
people think that we do, but it really is so
(20:07):
much more. It's it's logistics, it's production, it's it's like
the every engine. I think, what we've what we do
better than anyone else, and I will I will put
us against any other agency is social advertising. Social social
advertising is so much better than anyone else. And I
think that's why we're so successful, is because your product
(20:28):
is only as good as the people that see it.
Figuring out audience pools and our target demos and you
know who we can sell this stuff too, and if
there's even a market to sell it to. We don't
really produce anything without knowing if there's an audience for it. Uh,
And I think that's why we're very good at what
we do. It's because like Steve's wearing our pizza shirt now, Like,
if there wasn't an audience for people who like pizza
(20:49):
or want to wear pizza on their body, we wouldn't.
We want to make the shure We're like, our clothes
are always advancing, and the cuts are always going to
get better, and the materials I was going to get better.
That stuff that that's inherently going to progress. But the advertising,
advertising and marketing is really what we do better than
anyone else, and it's the reason why we're able to
really do what we do. I mean, so many people
(21:10):
want to start these T shirt companies and clothing companies,
and you know, it's great. I mean, people probably have
better ideas than we do, but it really I think
our ideas are phenominal. But but at our core, we're
just I really do like I have the utmost confidence
that whatever we create, whatever we produce, we'll be able
to figure out a person that wants to buy it.
So what is I guess speaking to that what has
been an epic failure? Is there anything that just completely flopped?
(21:34):
To be honest, I don't, I don't think so. I
mean we've had a couple of close calls. I think
a cool story is the Samot stuff that we were
working on that story. Yeah, so that's I think a
movie that kind of defines a generation. I think everybody
loves that movie. I think it's maybe even more popular
now than it was when it first came out. Told
them how how we landed on Soundloud is the most interest.
(21:55):
But I don't even know this. Yea so well, and
just what makes me really quick? You guys have an
entire stand loot collection of clothing. Absolutely, You've you've got
T shirts, you've got button downs, You've got a cool
story because we can talk about how that idea even
came out, and then how that really has led the
direction of the company moving forward and and everything that
we do. It really helped us scale and understand our
(22:17):
business model. Now, so probably what was that three years ago?
We put out a pole and this is when we
were really focused only on editorially were we really weren't
a full blown apparel company at that time, or at
least it wasn't our number one revenue generator. But we
put out a pole of American movies. What is the
most American movie of all time was what the poll
was called. And it wasn't just like who Rah, It
(22:39):
was you know what movie has the American undertones? You
know that the themes basically, what is the best movie
of all time related to America? And it was you know,
in the list, it was top Gun and you know,
Rookie the sand Loot was on there, and a bunch
of other movies, Rambo rock movies. Yeah, I think it was.
So we published that story onto the belts and we
(23:00):
used social advertising to make sure everybody that checks out
our site saw it on Facebook. And we had fifteen
thousand votes for it, so it was a pretty pretty
good uh survey total, and sand Lot came out on top, like,
hands down, best one of all of them. You know,
we had fifteen thousand votes spread over maybe fifty movies
and sand Loo got like forty percent of the vote.
(23:20):
Scores Baseball, you know, iconic characters, babes, all that stuff,
Benny the Jet. So yeah, yeah, there's just the themes.
I mean, it really is, in my opinion, the best
most American movie of all time. And you know the
nineties are super trendy, and I think people have that
nostalgic flare, so the sand Loot killed it, and I
think from there we just started seeing the audience and
(23:43):
and everything related to that list, and we landed on
this hambino design that we thought we might be able
to put on a T shirt. At that time, we
didn't know about licensing and you know, even how to
cut and so shirts or all that. So we basically
took that sand Lot Top fifth list and turn that
into some apparel and put it on the store and
it sold out in like three days. I mean, we
(24:05):
didn't order massive amounts of of shirts, you know, at
this time, we were doing cutting so over in China,
but I think we probably sold five shirts over the
course of three or four days. So I think at
that very moment we knew we were onto something. We
started doubling down on sand Lot. So you fast forward
about two years this time last summer, and we have
three or four sand Lot designs. You know, we're running
(24:27):
huge social ads. We're really kind of figuring out the
full force of what our company could become, you know,
as an apparel brand, and we're well aware. We're also
well aware that we're infringing. We didn't have a sand
lolough we we were. We knew that there was a
gray area, and we didn't call it the sand Lot,
and we didn't call it the you know ham We
I think we were trying to be pretty sly about
(24:50):
calling it something that would really infringe on on the
actual movie. And at the time, again we were wrong.
I mean, we we looked into this stuff and you know,
with artistic license, yeah, you know, I think we we
knew that, you know, there was a chance that we
could get a season desist. But from you know, our
standpoint at that time being people that didn't go to
college for this stuff, really trying to figure it out
(25:11):
on our own. You know, we really didn't know too
much about it, so we thought we were okay in
terms of the artistic license. And I remember, like Aaron
Judge wore one of your shirts on TV in an
interview that was that was a moment. We we had
some celebrities and some mostly some mostly athletes where um
where our gear and kind of post about it, and
I was like, oh my god, that's awesome. But it
just so happened Aaron Judge hit a five hundred foot
(25:35):
bomb and after the game he wore the Great Hambino
shirt and it almost like trumped, like in the in
the postgame interview he was wearing it. They're almost like
Trump his home run. Because it was the longest one
run of the decade. It was like bomb but viral,
and I was like, I know those guys. It was
the coolest my phone. My phone was buzzing for like
(25:56):
two days straight, literally NonStop, like seven non stop of
people making purchases and then also seeing it on ESPN
Daily News. I mean, the media coverage from that alone
for our brand was massive because it just opened up
the Roosevelts to so many people, and people were buying
that shirt, but because they bought the shirt and loved it.
You know, every time we wear one of our shirts
and you wear around, it's a conversation starter. You will
(26:18):
literally stop you on the street and go, oh, six shirt,
where'd you get it? So I think that exposed us
to a whole new audience. So that was really opened
the door. That was our pivotal like game changes, right.
So that was like a really great high. Absolutely that high.
That was high. And then a month later, month later,
maybe like six weeks after, you know, we're in Atlanta.
(26:38):
It was Anthony's birthday. You were actually supposed to fly there. Yeah,
so I was in Seattle. I was driving to the
mall in Atlanta because we were going to go to
like a Braves game, so I wanted braves out. We
were we were in Atlanta for another shirt that we had.
It was Super. Yeah, we we have we had a
super shirt, and it just so happened we found the
inventor of the super so um Lon E. Johnson. He's
(27:00):
also a NASA engineer. He's an aerospace engineer that just
so happened to make the super Sooker back in the nineties.
So yeah, he's somehow it's his publicist got ahold of
the shared gave it to him. He loved he throws hilarious.
And then he kind of found out what we did
on more of like the logistics and marketing side, and
was like, why don't we have a meeting? So we
were in Atlanta. We went to his amazing facility where
(27:23):
he he does like all his legitimate like crazy as
science experiments guys, and he was like, well, I want
to do this thing and it's like the anniversary of
the Supersocer, and I was wondering if you guys can
help us out and we're like, uh yeah, like whatever
you need, like where at your disposal? And he's like, oh, well,
you know, I still own the patent for the design
of the super socer right, And I was like we
were just like okay, he goes and you are infringing
(27:45):
on the design and we were like, uh, He's like
but it's cool. He's like, so we're you know, it
was another it was like another moment like this guy
could crush us right now. I think we knew that
because of the designs that we have, we were always
kind of skirting around you know, copyright and trademark stuff,
and you know that all came crashing down that on
(28:07):
that trip, I almost drove off the road, actually died
because I was in a red light check my phone,
and then the red light turned green and I saw
an email come through that I could not not check.
It was Cease and Desist twenty one century Fox, and
I swear to God, I like my heart fell to
my feet. Funds over Like we always knew this moment
could could like come, and it was kind of inevitable
(28:30):
that it would eventually come the more sudlet stuff we
were producing. So it was just like that feeling that
it was like when you guys told me we were crushing. Yeah,
we were. I mean we were. We were on the wave.
We were selling that we ever had. You know, more
and more people were asking about the brand and getting
familiar with the brand, so we had a lot more
(28:51):
customers coming back. And then all of a sudden, we
were just like we We called our lawyer up and
he's like, you guys, it's like I've been telling you this.
It's like you idiots, you knew this is gonna happen.
We were like, yeah, but I mean it was good
while it was awesome, so you pulled it all. Fox
was cool actually, so I think they appreciated the design
(29:13):
flare that we had, and they liked the shirts. I mean,
it wasn't a matter of us selling the shirts. It
was a matter of us not having a license for it.
So they didn't want to completely screw so they gave
us seven days to sell as many shirts as we
could and then we had to take them off the
So we we pushed a lot of shirts, and I
think at that moment we thought that the good times
were over, but it just so happened that, Um, you know,
(29:36):
I think that was our moment where we decided to
really grind and try to figure this out. We didn't
want to just give up because we knew we had
an awesome shirt, great potential with other products that we
could you know, build off that sandlotline. So we started
making phone calls. We we called this guy who ended
up saving our ass because he kind of told us
the ins and outs of licensing and said, you know,
(29:57):
Fox might actually want a license this from you. You know,
you've sold a lot of these things and they might
see it as a great opportunity to make extra revenue
off a movie that's been you know, on the shelf
for twenty years, twenty five years. But you know, he
was very deeply involved in the licensing industry and had
you know, a huge career. I mean, he's like the
godfather of licensing. And he gave us a lot of
really good advice and said, don't give up on this.
(30:18):
This is an amazing product. Your sales figures are there,
you have very streamlined um logistics, You're you're a legit
company selling a legit product. It's time to start treating
it as such. So he gave us some advice on
how to maybe handle the Cease and Desists, and he
connected us with a licensing agent and really kind of
held our hand through this whole process because John and
I really had no experience with this and we were
(30:40):
a little bit out of our league. So it turns out,
you know that that shirt from Cease and Desists bugging out,
Fox actually loved the design. We pitched them on getting
an official license, and they loved it and gave us
a license to actually start selling the product. Legitimately, the
design was there and the design was really cool, but
um to pitch to pitch this like this all over print,
(31:02):
which wasn't I mean, they were right right now, the
Hawaiian shirts cool, right, Like everybody's got these all over
print shirts. But back then it was they were just
starting to trend. So to pitch this crazy but all
over button down shirt to a company like Fox was
kind of a shot in the dark. But I think
what helped us was the sales figures. So we went
in there with all these sales figures and said, listen,
(31:23):
like this isn't just a mock up. People are buying
these shirts, like the proof is in the pudding, Like
it these shirts sell. It would be a shame if
they just disappeared. We have the audience we've taught, We've
we've already built out these amazing audience pools and demographics
and you know we hear are like more concepts that
we have for the future. You just please let us
start selling these shirts again, like you know where we
(31:45):
have the s c O if he searched Sandlan shirt,
Like we own that ship on Google. So like logistically
everything was in place. We just like people were like,
where the funk are these kind of cersonale? Where where
are these shirts? Like we know you guys sell these
where they go, you know, so we'd have to send
some emails back and just say, oh, you know, we're
we're sold out, We're we're in the process of making
this legit and you know, just just hold off. Well,
(32:10):
so they yeah, a lot of back and forth. I mean,
we had to make pitch decks, We had to go
into meetings with them, showed them our sales figures. But
we had a proof of concept. We made forty two
pitch decks, revisions forty two. It was it was like
it was like this summer and summers our bread and butter.
We we honestly couldn't sell shirts in the summer. But
at that point the ball was kind of rolling and
we were making decent money selling our other shirts, you know,
(32:34):
like shirts that would last us till till the fall.
And thankfully, by then we came to an agreement with
Fox and you know, their their head of licensing is
an amazing guy, and he was all about it, like
he he helped us. He honestly helped us out along
along the way. I think, I think something that we
do really well and something Fox appreciated was our And
(32:55):
this is a testament to John and the creative people
that we work with, and I think also a testing
into our marketing. But they really appreciated the design elements
that we had in our shirts. They're so used to
getting these really bland ideas from I'm not gonna throw
them under the bus, but I guess I kind of
am you know, like Target. Target will take a screen
grab from a movie, put you know, a line of
text under a shirt and that's it, and that's the level. Yeah.
(33:20):
So that's the level of creativity that a studio like
Fox has got over the last twenty years. You know,
basically slim to none. There there really was no creativity.
So I do think when Fox saw the shirt, they
were first. I mean they even said it. They were
a little shocked that they saw this popping up on
their social fee and they're like, well, we don't know
about this. So that's where the season deciss came from.
(33:40):
But I think the partnership and relationship that we had
with Fox came about because it was an original idea.
They really liked our design elements, They liked the way
we were marketing these shirts and you know, partnering with
influencers and getting into the hands of all the right people.
They just thought it was really cool and they thought
it was something that they would wear and it really
represented the Samlot brand end well. And I think that's
(34:01):
how that relationship came about, and from that, you know
where our business has now evolved. We saw a formula.
We saw a formula for taking iconic moments from these amazing,
nostalgic movies and turning them into you know, designs and
putting them on apparel. So, you know, from that Fox
meeting and the license that we got with them, it
(34:22):
really opened up the door for us to pitch other
movies studios, from Paramount to MGM, NBC Universal and take
their Bob Yeah, Bob Ross, Bob Rosse. Second license we
ever got, and it was amazing. We were at it's crazy.
We were in a cafeteria in Las Vegas meeting with
Fox about the sand lot, and our licensing agent goes, oh,
(34:43):
there's my friend over there. She represents Mike Tyson and
Bob Rosster like Jackpot, so she flagged the person over Saturday,
we gave her an on the fly, like five minute
elevator pitch of Roosevelt's and we said, we've all we
we actually were talking about doing Bob raw stuff. And
it's like an angel felt from the sky into our
lap and she came down and yeah, we we gave
(35:03):
her this five minute pitch about Roosevelt, showed her some samples.
She's like, this is phenomenal, this would be amazing for
Bob Ross, and like basically on the spot, gave us
the go ahead to start doing Bob raw stuff. It was.
It was an amazing chain of events. It was just
like Bob Ross appeared and within five minutes we had
a contract written up and ready to go. And you know,
that was the second license we ever got, and the
(35:24):
formula of taking these these nostalgic things, making you know,
amazing designs for them, putting them on unique pieces of apparel,
and then marketing them with all the social tactics that
we have an influencer marketing. It really was a cool
formula that we had, and we pitched that to all
these movie studios and it really opened up the door
to you know, do further licenses with some really cool
(35:45):
uh yeah, some really cool brands that we're gonna be
announcing the summer. What. Yeah, I got a lot of
things in the work. Okay, So you guys went from
making up campaigns what eight years when was started, we
were traveling across the country going to baseball games, and
you became a men's lifestyle website that you we quit
our jobs, but your jobs started a men's lifestyle site.
(36:06):
So we were doing at that time, we were juggling, um, yeah,
we were juggling experiencial campaigns but also creating editorial. So
we're doing the same thing. But it was like we
were trying to make ourselves into a legit media company
that had an editorial arm. Then somewhere along the lines,
you got a sick off. Yeah, well, we were working
out of our apartment in Jersey City at Manila, and
(36:27):
then we went to a coworking space, which was awesome. Yeah,
but for us, you know, we were doing a lot
of video production, editorial. We had a writer at that time,
and we were spending so much money running out studios
to do video shoots, Like, could we find a place
that really has the space that we need that we
can kind of turn into our own. And we walked
in and we're sitting in here now, but and it
(36:47):
looks great. But when we first, dude, when we walked
into the office that we have now and you can
go online and see the pictures, it's really nice. But
at the time when we walked in, it was scary.
I mean, there's no other word for it. The carpet
was black, the windows were busted out. It was really
just not a great office. But as with a lot
of the stuff that we do, you know, it comes
back to even when we get samples of shirts, you know,
(37:08):
we might not like it at that time and it
might be a horrific either design or office space, but
we see the potential, you know, we saw the potential
for what this this office could be if we fixed
a bunch of the windows and ripped the carpet out
and did a paint job, and you know, from that moment,
we signed the lease on the spot, locked it in
and you know, I think we turn this office space
(37:28):
into something that is a good reflection of what our
what our business has become. And we'll post pictures. But
if you're listening, it's kind of like the New Girl
aloft if you're watching New Girl on Fox, that's what
it reminds me of the New Girl off Yeah, yeah,
we got views of the city. It's it's a good
spot to work out. I mean, it's enough space for
us to grow and it just keeps us excited to
come back to work. You know, we're not working out
(37:49):
of nothing. Again, there's nothing wrong with working out of
your living room. I actually sometimes I missed the days
of working out of the living room because there's like
a sense of energy and care free nature that comes
with at you know, those early days of grinding in
that entrepreneurship. But yeah, we have this pretty sick spot,
so that's kind of you also have employees. Now, yeah,
that's the craziest part. I don't even I don't even
(38:12):
think we're we think of them as employees just because
we we kind of treat them more as peers than
anyone else. And I think that's important, and I think
that's why a lot of people like working for us,
is you know, we all get our ship done, we
all have roles, and we don't micromanage. So if you don't,
you know, if you're not going to do your job like,
you can go get a job somewhere else. Like I'm
not going to tell you how to do your job
where like when to come in. Just get your stuff done.
(38:34):
Just just just get your ship done. And if you
have the same fire in your eyes that we had
when we started, you'll be with us forever. And I
think we've done a very good job of curating that
and and bringing on like minded people who either eventually
want to go out on their own and do something
and just kind of want to learn how to be
an entrepreneur, or just like what we're doing and want
(38:55):
to be a part of the team because we are
as far as far as I think, I mean, we're
still on the ground floor. I mean, we've we've been
doing this for a long time, but we've had to
pivot here and there, like a lot of entrepreneurs do.
But that's kind of part of the process. And I
think it's a hard process and and it's something that
we weren't always happy doing, but it's I wouldn't even
(39:16):
I I describe it as more of like a learning experience, right,
Like you learn one thing from doing this, Like, all right, editorial,
we're not we still do editorial, but we're not focused
on it. But what we learned from editorial was advertising,
right for arbitrage and content or you know, like those
display ads that you see. Figuring out how to advertise
content was really really hard, but we got really really
(39:37):
good at it. So now do using that same strategy
that we that we used on content for a product
that we're making decent margins on is now like not
that it's easy, but it's worth it. Whereas you know,
for three years grinding and really figuring out how to
hit content and um, you know, just different articles, we
were making sense on the dollar, and now we're making
(39:58):
dollars on the dollars, So you look at it that way,
it was kind of a probably the most pivotal learning
experience that we've ever had. I would say, where do
you guys see Roosevelt's going, Is it always going to
be a parable Like what's next? Maybe is that old company?
Can Kitchen really want to make a kitchen appliances stainless? Yeah,
Rose Gold, I don't know. I think I think of
(40:21):
Roosevelt's as as a brand, and that's kind of it.
So you know, we're right now are making apparel. But
logistically we can make anything anything we want. You can
do that campaign our audiences there. I think we want
to build a rock solid brand that is a household
name at the end of the day. And I think
more so than anything, we want an audience that believes
(40:41):
in what we do and truly wants to follow our
our story and you know, the just follow along the
history of Roosevelt's and see where we go from here.
And as long as we can keep the audience engage
and enjoying all the products that we're putting out and
the content that we do and all the new projects
that we work on, as long as they're there, will
really be able to do anything that we want. I mean,
you can do that original idea of what Roosevelt was.
(41:03):
People so weird like the world is. And this is
so cliche to say, but like the world is so
small today, you can really you can. You can figure
it out, Like you can figure out as long as
you have this like weird foundation in place where you
have somewhat of an organic audience, you can do whatever
the funk you want, Like you can you can build
this army that we'll say, oh well, I mean they're
(41:24):
making apparel now, but like why can't they make surfboards
next year, or skateboards or you know something else, Like
why not? As long as the product and the quality
of the product is there, people will believe in you,
and people will align with your brand. But yeah, I
mean it's all about I mean, it's all about the ride.
I mean, you know, like being an entrepreneurs. Like it's
like four fox in one yes, And a buddy of mine,
J Schroeder, told me that once and it's it's so true,
(41:47):
Like you just say fuck fuck fuck fuck yes, fun
fun fun funck yes, But that yes is so worth it.
So when when that when that yes clicks, it's worth it.
But I mean that's part of the ride. It's crazy
here your story because I've never i guess I've never
heard the full story, and it makes me like even
more excited about, you know, loving your brand and as
(42:08):
like a friend, of course I'm going to love it.
But what you guys have created, it's cool for me.
When I see people wearing your shirts at Safego at
a Mariners game, I freak out and I go up
to them like I know them, and they must think
I'm crazy. But you see, I've witnessed you, Steve witnessed
people wearing your shirts and you're like, oh my god.
All the time. We were in Austin last year and uh,
(42:29):
some kid came up to us. He's like, oh man,
I own that shirt. I was just like, well, that's crazy,
and uh yeah. We well we started talking and it
was just a really cool, cool experience just see somebody
in the wild. And you know, it happens more and
more often now, but that was kind of the first
moment where I was like, oh my god, this is real.
People are actually buying the stuff that we don't know
um and they're wearing it and having the same experience
(42:50):
that we do. You know, if you wear one of
our shirts to let's say a music festival, you're most
likely going to get stopped every hour by somebody just saying, hey,
I really like that design. Is that anyone met their girlfriend,
because yeah, actually they have some guy. Some guy actually
on that same Austin trip, we met him at a
bar and he said, yeah, I'm dating a girl now
because of that hurt. She stopped and said, I like
(43:11):
the shirt, and he realistically is now dating and may
one day I have kids because of And I'm sure
there are a million stories like that. We have enough
enough shirts in the market that I think that happens
probably quite a bit, I think now, just because it
was such like a mind blowing experience, like have someone
come up to you. I think it was from that
Austin trip. Actually, we produce these little golden tickets there.
(43:33):
They look like business cards, but they have a promo
code on them and they're they're actually gold and they
just say like Roosevelts in the wild, like thanks for
being a rough rider, Roosevelt Ambassador or something, and we
give them out to all our friends and they just
have to carry one or two on them and if
they see anyone wearing our stuff anymore, you, um, all
you have to do is give, you know, give that
person the ticket that says it's ten or off or something.
(43:53):
It's just like we'd appreciate you. You're the reason why
we do what we do. At this point, can we
make this podcast us a golden ticket and give out
my promo code? Absolutely? What do you want the promo
code to bate? Can I do Carla Marie? So I
can be Anthony's promo codes? Okay, use Carla Marie. So
get that done by the time I post this, and
he sucks? Try both to either Carla Marie or Anthony sucks.
(44:14):
Promo codes here Carla Marie twany and Anthony sucks twenty
and let's see over the course of a month. Will
promote it and see which one comes out on top.
We'll share the results on R S v LTS Instagram. Okay,
we'll do that. And one thing I always ask everyone
favorite app that you guys use for your company that's
not Instagram? You can have a different one for our company,
(44:36):
company or social or just know, any app to use
or it doesn't have Actually, it could be anything that
helps you. So if it's a meditation app that you
use the end of day, anything that helps you be
better at your job, and that's not Instagram. Okay, my,
can I give a couple Okay, can I give you
like what we've been using that I think have been
really helpful, Like team Team drop boxes are amazing because
(45:00):
it's like a collaborative file drop for for everything that
you can share across multiple companies because we have, you know,
a couple of different companies that we're working with. I'm
loving wee chat and Skype to talk to suppliers. You know,
Slack is a good team working app. Which one Slack, Yeah,
but I think my number one and I guess this
is very e commerce heavy, but it really is Shopify's
(45:21):
e commerce app, you know. To be able to dive
into that and just see it's amazing. Like I just
I almost look up every single transaction that comes through,
just to look at the person and see, you know,
where they're from and what they bought, and how many
orders they've purchased from us, and you know how many
times they've actually visited the site where they came from.
It's just really cool because we don't have a retail store,
(45:42):
you know, we don't have you know, a brick and
mortar in Hoboken, So in theory, it's like it kind
of gets lost sometimes that we actually do have. In theory,
we do have a store. It's it's the Roosevelt Store.
It just happens to be online. But to go on
shopify and see, wow, right now, there are forty two
people on our sto or if you really take that mentality, yeah,
(46:03):
that's the thing. It's like, if we had a brick
and mortar store, there would be forty two people in
here shopping, and what are they doing in our store?
You know what, why are they walking out of the
store without purchasing anything? You know, why are they buying
this item and not this item? So, you know, the
Shopify app allows us to kind of dig into the
analytics and and put ourselves in the mentality of that
one customer and see, you know, okay, yeah they visited
(46:25):
a couple of times, they came in from Instagram. You know,
they bought this item. Maybe we can, you know, in
the future, send them an email and give them a
promo code to buy more stuff. So I really, I guess,
long and short, I love the Shopify app because it
gives you real time analytics, deeper analytics into customers, you
know where they're from, and all this kind of cool
data done. Favorite app um shop death Shopify is definitely
(46:45):
number one as far as running the business goes, as
far as creative stuff goes. If you're on your phone,
um an app called dark Room for photo editing if
you if you're not in front of a computer, is
probably the best photo editing app I've used. If you
make memes, not Instagram, but for Instagram, Tank Sinatra's app
Momus m o m us is very cool and really
(47:08):
well put together just for producing social content. And then
I guess kind of an ancillary app that's not really
associated with running the business, but just so you don't
go fucking crazy, is uh. I use Headspace every every
single day. I think you need to get on. I
think it's just well, I mean, when it's good, it's good.
But when it's you know, it's a it's a meditation app.
(47:29):
So could you see me meditating? Now? Who I am? Like?
I could ever meditate everywhere, laughing, going crazy, dude, it's
ten minutes and listening. It is when because when it's
nice and when it's nice and sunny out like today,
it's like you don't need it. But when it's the
dead of winter and ship is hitting the fan and
(47:50):
you're like like staring at the ceiling for six hours
out of the night like this. This app if you
are you know, if you feel like you're burning out
and you have like that entrepreneurial burnout. Headspace is where
it's out when I'm staring at the ceiling and like,
let's do I just go on vacation. Okay, this is
(48:10):
who we're gonna end this podcast. This was by far
my absolute favorite podcast. I love these guys. I hope
you love them as much as I do. Help them out.
Check out roosevelts dot com. That is rs B l
t s dot com. Follow them on everything at Roosevelt
and remember promo codes. Carla Marie twenty and Anthony sucks. Thanks.
(48:31):
Hanging out another episode of Side Hustlers
For a lot of people. You know, why are you when?
Do you know what you want to do? And this
is something you want to do and do it. I'm
a hustle sid hustle do it. I'm a hustle sod
s hustl do it. I'm a hustle slow. I'm a
hustle side slow. I'm a hustle side side hustlo. Come
on ask about me, yo yo. It's the side Hustless
(00:25):
podcast we call the Root. Okay, welcome to another episode
of Side Hustlers Podcast. I am not in a studio.
I'm a a gets a storage closet of some sort,
hanging out in Hoboken, New Jersey with my friends John
and Steve. Say, Hi, guys, Hello, that was that's John. Okay.
So they and you've probably seen me post about them before,
(00:47):
heard me or even Anthony talked about them before. They're
the creators, the masterminds behind Roosevelt's rs v lts dot
com because fowls exactly exactly. Okay, it's kind of our mantra.
You guys have created this. I don't even know what
to explain it as I didn't even know you guys
when you started this and That's why I'm excited to
get your story. But the two of you have created
(01:08):
this giant company out of I don't want to say nothing,
but really you started from the ground up. You have
this sick office in Hoboken, New Jersey, you had people
working for you. So I guess explained what Roosevelt is
now and then we're going to get into the entire story. Okay,
you got um. Yeah, Roosevelt is an apparel brand. We're
based in Hoboken, New Jersey. We started as a marketing
company doing campaigns for different brands, and kind of as
(01:31):
a side gig to that marketing company, we started making
some T shirts m with our logos on it. And
I think you know the long and short of it is,
you know, we started seeing names come across as sales
that we didn't recognize, not family and friends, and I
think at that moment we knew there was a business there.
And I think ever since that, you know time, we've
evolved into a pretty decent sized apparel brand. But you
(01:52):
guys didn't start us that. What did you guys originally
start us? So summer of I think Steve was the
director of marketing for kind of an online slash seasonal
print magazine called co Ed, and I had actually lost
my job from like the two thousand and eight recession.
I was right out of school, had a sick job
as a junior art director, and after the recession hit,
(02:16):
when the company went on there, I lost my job
and I started doing demolition, like real, real Hansy stuff. Yeah.
So I was working for co Ed at night and um,
you know, just doing like freelance stuff, doing a little
bit of writing here in their graphic design. Steve and
I had known each other just from from college, and
one night, I think we were like drinking or stuff,
and we were just kind of like, hey, let's do
something fun this summer. All right, let's do it. Like
(02:37):
I have a flexible job now because I'm just knocking
down walls all day, so let's figure it out. Let's
make something happen. We you know, threw some stuff up
against the wall. And we both were huge baseball fans,
and we decided to um pitch a couple of different
brands kind of an experiential marketing campaign that would send
us across the country to every single baseball stadium. That's yeah,
(02:59):
it's it's crazy, but it's been done before. So then
we tried to figure out how do we make this
It's we had no idea what we were doing exactly.
It's been done before by company X, and like all
this stuff, hitting people up cold calling, like Volkswagen because
we thought it'd be a cool road trip idea. They're like, no, see,
this is a driving challenge and you know if you
crash or something, we're gonna be super liable for that.
So I think the long and short of that is
(03:20):
we we were winging the entire thing. Yes, So then
we we were doing everything under the co ed umbrella,
just because we needed a platform for this campaign to
live under. So then after after a couple of failed pitches,
we we found uh the PR agency for Nokia at
the time, the phone company pitched on this cool idea
that would send us across the country on this kind
(03:41):
of like rat race style thirty ballpark excursion. But the
caveat was we'd have to accomplish this in thirty days.
If you're a baseball fan, you know that there are
thirty baseball stadiums and thirty teams in the MLB, so
it would not be an easy feat. But after like
two months of scheduling stuff out. We figured out at
most of the teams that have two teams in in
(04:03):
one city, they don't play in the same day. So
like the Yankees, for example, will play a four game
home stretch and then they'll leave. Then the very next
day the Mets will have their four game home stretch.
Same thing with the Cubs in the White Sox, same
thing with the Dodgers and the Angels. So the trick
was to try and get two games out of that
region in you know, one after the other, and then
kind of drive around that specific region and hit you know,
(04:26):
nine or ten stadiums without having to fly because we
couldn't fly that much, but we somehow we did it.
Probably should have died a few times. I never I
never wanted to eat another hot dog after going to
thirty baseball stadiums in thirty days, and along the way
we had to actually do various activities each stadium, like
go up into the bleachers, eat hot dogs. At every stadium,
(04:46):
we ranked and reviewed various aspects of each stadium. So
you know, by the end of that trip, I think
we were retired sick, but I do think it was
probably one of the coolest months we've ever had, you know, collectively,
it was one of the coolest things I've ever done. Personally. Yeah, hey,
we got to see the whole country be There's nothing
like a like a professional baseball stadium. There's nothing like it.
You can argue, you know, football stadiums around the country
(05:08):
are cool. You could argue, you know, different basketball arenas
are cool. There's nothing as unique as a baseball stadium.
It has its own identity. They're all completely different. I
mean the fields are different. The fields are completely different,
they're different sizes. So you know, some of these stadiums
have been around for a hundred years, some of them
have are brand new and our state of the art. Uh.
(05:28):
They all have different signature foods, and this is all
stuff that we were writing about. So we would rank
and review these stadiums and make it more about the
the experience than about the actual baseball game. We would
rank how easy it was to buy the cheapest ticket
in the stadium, and and and sneak down to the
best seats. Obviously you would rank every hot dog, and
then signature food and then um, you know, just aesthetics
of the stadium and you know what was a piece
(05:50):
of ship and what was you know, like, what stadium
you need to hit before you die? Don't go to Oakland, sorry,
old never go to Oakland. Yeah, based off of the
story you're telling me, now, I guess I never put
us together. You guys really started with baseball and where
you're at now, I mean, i'd say you're the unofficial
apparel of just baseball baseball fans really at this point
now in two thousand eighteen, Yeah, absolutely, we have a
(06:11):
lot of baseball players wearing our stuff. You know, a
lot of things happened between that that uh, you know,
amazing month that we had UM to where we are now.
You know, I think our company has probably evolved four
or five times since then. You know, we actually didn't
even have a company at that point. We were working
under the umbrella of a media company called co Ed.
But I think out of that um experiential campaign that
(06:33):
we produced for Nokia, it was it was kind of
a light bulb went off, you know, the brand loved
the idea. We were on ESPN and we did a
ton of morning shows and you know, I'm almost kicking
ourselves now because we did it for for next to nothing. Um,
So I think we could have made more money out
of it. But at the end of the day, you know,
the brand saw great value in what we were doing
and it was a wild success. And from there they
(06:55):
re up to with us for another campaign. The following summer,
we started producing campaigns for other ends, and I think
by the following summer John and I really knew that
we might have stumbled upon a business model, you know,
just out of the the idea of having fun this
summer and what could we pitch to a brand and
get them to like pay for Basically, we went on
an all expenses paid baseball trip across the country. We
(07:15):
noticed that, you know, with the the emergence of social
media around that time, UM, it was a really cool
way to interact with fans and the brand Noki. I
have to give them a lot of credit. You know,
a lot of people said no to it, but they
believed in the vision. They loved it. I think it
was probably one of the coolest campaigns that they had
done that entire year. UM. And from there, you know,
like I said, we we saw a business model. We
(07:36):
kind of ran with it and you know, started producing
more of those campaigns for different brands. So you're producing campaigns.
What about a year later is that when you guys
officially said okay, let's make a company and let's call
it Roosevelt's. Well, initially we kind of had to launch
our own company, um and it was under it was
another company called Agency X, So that was more of
like our marketing slash media company. And that was just
(07:58):
almost just because we needed to create an LLC at
that point, and then we were approached by Roosevelts actually
came about. We were approached by another for another baseball
campaign through Microsoft. A couple of years later, after we
were producing these campaigns every other month or so, they
hit us up and they said, oh, listen, we want
to do something similar. We want to do like a
bucket list campaign where you do, you know, the most
(08:20):
sought after stuff and in the best baseball cities in America.
But all the magazines that we were working with to
kind of put these campaigns to to let these campaigns
live under they were all kind of like maxim esque,
we want to say, like very girl heavy, girl centric,
and Microsoft is a very conservative brand, so we really
(08:41):
we didn't have we didn't have many options, so we
asked him if we can create more of a brand
friendly PG thirteen editorial site targeted toward men, and we
didn't have a name for it, and they were like yeah, sure.
So we were scrambling and we're like, all right, what
do we call it? The Roosevelt was actually a campaign
that we had kind of in our pocket, uh, and
(09:01):
we were just kind of like waiting for the right
brand to kind of align it with, and it just
so happened. We were like, all right, what do we
call the magazine The Roosevelt? And they were like, yeah,
that's awesome. You're you're selling them short Like this was insane.
We pitched a new site. We had zero content, zero
idea what this is gonna be, and just as a
shot shot in the dark, we threw a hail Mary
pass and said, well, you know, all these sites are
(09:21):
a little too gratuitous for your brand, but we're gonna
launch a site. And yeah, and they not only did
they love it and embrace it, they gave us almost
basically startup capital to start this website. You know, they
fully funded it for like the first six months. Just
so yeah. So at that time, Steve was still at
co ED and we were kind of we were doing
(09:42):
these things it's too much, And it was like the
writing was on the wall that you know, he was
gonna have to leave soon. Um, And I was doing
it full time when Steve left, just trying to put
together new pitch decks, so we weren't demoing walls anymore
at this point. I think after the second campaign, I
was like, you know what I've I've broken too many fingers.
I'm not made out for this. Yeah, So Steve ended
up quitting his job and Microsoft gave us like three
(10:04):
months runway to basically create content. Like we were not
only putting together this insane bucket list that we were
going to have to travel around the country for again
for like the fourth the fourth time, I think for
the summer. But at that time we were kind of
we were a little more acclimated to how you know
travel quick travel works. But we also had a great content.
We were writing five six articles per person per day
(10:27):
because by the time this went live, this had to
seem like not only a legitimate site, but like we
needed people to get a feel and a and a
vibe for what the Roosevelt was. So yeah, I mean,
but it was fun, you know, like we were writing
like we were writing every day all day and then
we were creating this awesome campaign that we knew was
gonna come into fruition. And you know, a few months
(10:48):
and thank god, we worked with the most awesome people
in Microsoft that believed in us, and and they really did.
I mean, they gave us enough capital so Steve could
really come on full time. We were still eating Ramen
every night, I think a couple of years of ramen.
That's the entrepreneurial journey, right right, Yeah, So, um, but
(11:09):
what happened and it worked out. You know, we we
we accomplished our probably fourth or fifth campaign and and
from there it was just like all right, off to
the races. But so you kept saying you had a
campaign in your back pocket that was called the Roosevelt.
What was that campaign? Originally the Roosevelts was supposed to be. Yeah,
it was still the Roosevelt, but it was supposed to
(11:30):
be a kind of a an experiential club that we
would invite influencers and you know, men's lifestyle editors from
Men's Health or g Q or Esquire, just because we
ran in the same circle of a lot of these
you know, pr agencies, brands and and editorial friends. So
we said, all right, what we can do is we
can end up maybe creating this this club where we
(11:53):
would give you, you know, like your own Roosevelt's card,
and we would send you to Scottsdale, Arizona, under the
umbrella of bud Light, and you'd spend a weekend there
and you would ride ride dune buggies through like the
Apache Trails and go to a gun range or you know,
go hiking and go or go golfing. I don't know,
(12:14):
and it would all be you know, funded by bud Light,
and there would be some sort of brand messaging attached
to it. So that was the initial like back pocket
Roosevelt's Club. But we were just kind of you know,
we had we had probably ten of these in you know,
in our archives of all right, once we can align
this brand with the school, campaign will execute it. So
the Roosevelts was just like something random and we just
(12:36):
needed we were scrambling to find a name for this magazine. Um,
and then we were we tried to buy the Roosevelts
dot com. Yeah, because it's your website is rsb lts.
It doesn't spell out Roosevelts. It kind of worked out
it worked out for the best. But we tried to
buy the roosevelts dot com and some webs shark owned it.
(12:57):
He probably owned it since the nineties, and we're like, well,
how much do you want for it? And he was
just like, give me a price if we didn't have
any money. We didn't offered him like a thousand dollars.
We're like, we're throwing a hell. Mary passed at this
point and he was like nope. We're like all right.
He's like no, not even close by, guys. And that
was it, Like we we we have enough money to
buy it. So Steve had the idea to create to
(13:19):
basically remove the vowels and just make it R s
v l t s, which at first was a little confusing,
but it's weird because more and more brands are doing
it now. Yeah, no, I've noticed that, and it's great
because like this is just so this is something you
think about, like in media, I guess, but you always
own the you know, with all these different social media
(13:39):
platforms coming out, you always own like the forward slash
R s v l t s, where someone else might
own like you know, Facebook dot com slash Roosevelts, No
one's gonna have why would anyone have ours? F LT Yes,
so what why did you Steve think of the screw
the vowels thing? I honestly don't know. I remember it though.
I was crossing the street to go to the Delhi
by Manila, where we all us to live, and I
(14:01):
was like, what are we gonna do? Because this guy
wants twenty five thousand dollars for the Roosevelts dot com
And I was like, I don't even know where I
would get twenty five dollars from. So yeah, I think
it was just, uh, you know, like you said, the
writing was on the wall with kind of the age
of social media really emerging then and seeing other brands
kind of removing the vowels, and I was like, this
could work. It's short, we have all the social here.
I immediately fired up Go Daddy and saw I was available.
(14:23):
Was like, all right, well this is it. We talked
about it, and I think we both agreed that it
was catchy, almost incognito, like you see it and you're like, well,
what the hell is that? You know? I think it
was just a good situation for us to grab that. Listen.
I love I'm a fan of I'm loving learning this
story though too. It was it was Americana too, Like
you know, I think the vision of the company was
sort of at that time headed towards that Americana vibe,
(14:45):
and I just think that was like our aesthetic and
having Teddy Roosevelt kind of be our leader for the
whole company made it seem well, we were kind of
always we were based on Our company was really founded
on seeing the country. I mean, traveling across the country.
We've probably driven across the country four times collectively, you know,
So yeah, I mean that was that was It was
(15:08):
like one of the most badass Americans and you know,
being like a men at that time, we were a
site for men too, And you know, I think it's
it's something to aspire to. The guy's rustic and a
traveler and an adventurer, and he just seemed like a
good person to kind of base a content strategy around
and have just a general mantra of adventure and seeing
the world and uh just doing good for the world too.
(15:28):
I mean, he was a conservationist and I think he
just checked all the boxes in terms of somebody that
we would aspire to. When I first met you, guys
who were already selling T shirts. It was like your
basic stuff, but you mainly had articles on your website.
So now you guys are opposite. Actually, so the way
the apparel stuff kind of started. And it's funny because
(15:50):
our website, our store website is still registered under stadium
street Tease, which was like this first idea we had
during the baseball campaign. You know, we'd walk around baseball
stadiums and see people selling like these knockoff funny T
shirts outside stadiums. Were like, well, if somebody lives in
Seattle and they're Yankees fan, how are they going to
get this shirt that's only sold outside Yankee stadium. You know,
(16:11):
there's just no place to get these like really funny
shirts um across the country. So the original idea for
you know, doing apparel was to produce like just really
funny sports sports T shirts for people around the country
that don't necessarily have access to the baseball stadiums in
their hometown. So that that's how that idea started. And
I guess from there, we wanted to just put our
(16:31):
logo on some shirts to give him to family and friends,
and you know, we learned about shopify and all this stuff,
and we made our first round of shirts on customing
dot com and then we made a couple of hoodies
on customing dot com. And now I laugh because I'm like,
I would never do that again. I mean, our businesses
evolved and changed so much since then, but at the time,
it was a really good move for us. So, you know,
we listed those shirts on Shopify, and you know, it
(16:53):
didn't take off right away. I think we may be
made twenty shirts and sold ten of them, and we
probably still have some here. Uh they we haven't sold.
But that kind of kick started the second wave of
what our company became, which really allowed us to evolve
and do an apparel company. That was how that all started. So, now,
what are your roles within the company? Because you guys
started it was just like throwing things at the law'll
(17:15):
see what happens. But you guys have completely different roles
from each other. And I guess from what you started
with two a little bit, I guess kind of explain
what each of your roles are for Roosevelts. Yeah, I mean,
I guess I do a lot of the logistics stuff,
so you know, when it comes to you know, sourcing,
um handling, the tariffs. I never ever thought, you know,
if you asked me five years ago if I knew
(17:35):
anything about tariff rules or you know, importing and exporting,
or how to set up a fulfilming company. And now
we have we're going on our third warehouse. You know,
I just knew nothing about that. So I guess my
role is just to figure stuff out. That That's kind
of what I do. We're like, Okay, we have an idea,
and all right, I'll figure it out. You're like the
ultimate Google. Yeah, I definitely have a knack for figuring
(17:57):
things out. And you know, our our businesses, it's sometimes
comes crazy because it's evolved slow and steady. You know,
we started at with a Shopify site without even accustom
you r L, and then we figured that out how
to get our r L and then you know, we
were producing some other shirts and a couple of our
shirts went viral and we're literally like, we're packing these
shirts up for eight hours a day. Hiring outside helped.
(18:18):
Trying to do it in our small office at that point,
which was basically my bedroom. Um, and we just couldn't
do it anymore. So the next thing was, all right, well,
how do we logistically figure this out. So then we
figured out how to get a warehouse. So yeah, I
guess my role is just figuring stuff out. And I
think that's a perfect title. I actually think there, if
you had a title, it would be like problem Solverer
Like there, it is just like when because we're we're
(18:41):
still new with this. I mean as far as apparel
production goes. I mean, we're not like going to the
local screen printer and getting twenty shirts made anymore. We're
producing tens of thousands of units. So we have to
shift that stuff across the really across the world, and
and you know, figure out how much more expensive it
(19:01):
is to ship air versus c um and how how
far in advance we have to make these things. You know,
like everybody knows how fashion Week is coming up in
New York. Not that we're Fashion week status, but you
know what I mean, like why people come out with
their Spring nineteen line now and now it makes sense? Oh,
because you know it's it's one tenth the shipping if
(19:23):
they ship it, you know, in in July and get
it in the spring. Your role head fashion, Yeah, yeah,
I'm the Mugatu of the creative. Creative Yeah, creative director,
I guess would be my role. So I guess I'm
in charge of most creative strategy, whether it's um advertising, marketing,
(19:44):
apparel design, pattern design, pretty much the facade of the company,
which is really like keep going towards like this Iceberg reference,
but it really is because when I tell people that
this is an apparel company, like it is, it really is.
It's an a power company now, But that's really just
like the like the icing on the cake. That's what
people think that we do, but it really is so
(20:07):
much more. It's it's logistics, it's production, it's it's like
the every engine. I think, what we've what we do
better than anyone else, and I will I will put
us against any other agency is social advertising. Social social
advertising is so much better than anyone else. And I
think that's why we're so successful, is because your product
(20:28):
is only as good as the people that see it.
Figuring out audience pools and our target demos and you
know who we can sell this stuff too, and if
there's even a market to sell it to. We don't
really produce anything without knowing if there's an audience for it. Uh,
And I think that's why we're very good at what
we do. It's because like Steve's wearing our pizza shirt now, Like,
if there wasn't an audience for people who like pizza
(20:49):
or want to wear pizza on their body, we wouldn't.
We want to make the shure We're like, our clothes
are always advancing, and the cuts are always going to
get better, and the materials I was going to get better.
That stuff that that's inherently going to progress. But the advertising,
advertising and marketing is really what we do better than
anyone else, and it's the reason why we're able to
really do what we do. I mean, so many people
(21:10):
want to start these T shirt companies and clothing companies,
and you know, it's great. I mean, people probably have
better ideas than we do, but it really I think
our ideas are phenominal. But but at our core, we're
just I really do like I have the utmost confidence
that whatever we create, whatever we produce, we'll be able
to figure out a person that wants to buy it.
So what is I guess speaking to that what has
been an epic failure? Is there anything that just completely flopped?
(21:34):
To be honest, I don't, I don't think so. I
mean we've had a couple of close calls. I think
a cool story is the Samot stuff that we were
working on that story. Yeah, so that's I think a
movie that kind of defines a generation. I think everybody
loves that movie. I think it's maybe even more popular
now than it was when it first came out. Told
them how how we landed on Soundloud is the most interest.
(21:55):
But I don't even know this. Yea so well, and
just what makes me really quick? You guys have an
entire stand loot collection of clothing. Absolutely, You've you've got
T shirts, you've got button downs, You've got a cool
story because we can talk about how that idea even
came out, and then how that really has led the
direction of the company moving forward and and everything that
we do. It really helped us scale and understand our
(22:17):
business model. Now, so probably what was that three years ago?
We put out a pole and this is when we
were really focused only on editorially were we really weren't
a full blown apparel company at that time, or at
least it wasn't our number one revenue generator. But we
put out a pole of American movies. What is the
most American movie of all time was what the poll
was called. And it wasn't just like who Rah, It
(22:39):
was you know what movie has the American undertones? You
know that the themes basically, what is the best movie
of all time related to America? And it was you know,
in the list, it was top Gun and you know,
Rookie the sand Loot was on there, and a bunch
of other movies, Rambo rock movies. Yeah, I think it was.
So we published that story onto the belts and we
(23:00):
used social advertising to make sure everybody that checks out
our site saw it on Facebook. And we had fifteen
thousand votes for it, so it was a pretty pretty
good uh survey total, and sand Lot came out on top, like,
hands down, best one of all of them. You know,
we had fifteen thousand votes spread over maybe fifty movies
and sand Loo got like forty percent of the vote.
(23:20):
Scores Baseball, you know, iconic characters, babes, all that stuff,
Benny the Jet. So yeah, yeah, there's just the themes.
I mean, it really is, in my opinion, the best
most American movie of all time. And you know the
nineties are super trendy, and I think people have that
nostalgic flare, so the sand Loot killed it, and I
think from there we just started seeing the audience and
(23:43):
and everything related to that list, and we landed on
this hambino design that we thought we might be able
to put on a T shirt. At that time, we
didn't know about licensing and you know, even how to
cut and so shirts or all that. So we basically
took that sand Lot Top fifth list and turn that
into some apparel and put it on the store and
it sold out in like three days. I mean, we
(24:05):
didn't order massive amounts of of shirts, you know, at
this time, we were doing cutting so over in China,
but I think we probably sold five shirts over the
course of three or four days. So I think at
that very moment we knew we were onto something. We
started doubling down on sand Lot. So you fast forward
about two years this time last summer, and we have
three or four sand Lot designs. You know, we're running
(24:27):
huge social ads. We're really kind of figuring out the
full force of what our company could become, you know,
as an apparel brand, and we're well aware. We're also
well aware that we're infringing. We didn't have a sand
lolough we we were. We knew that there was a
gray area, and we didn't call it the sand Lot,
and we didn't call it the you know ham We
I think we were trying to be pretty sly about
(24:50):
calling it something that would really infringe on on the
actual movie. And at the time, again we were wrong.
I mean, we we looked into this stuff and you know,
with artistic license, yeah, you know, I think we we
knew that, you know, there was a chance that we
could get a season desist. But from you know, our
standpoint at that time being people that didn't go to
college for this stuff, really trying to figure it out
(25:11):
on our own. You know, we really didn't know too
much about it, so we thought we were okay in
terms of the artistic license. And I remember, like Aaron
Judge wore one of your shirts on TV in an
interview that was that was a moment. We we had
some celebrities and some mostly some mostly athletes where um
where our gear and kind of post about it, and
I was like, oh my god, that's awesome. But it
just so happened Aaron Judge hit a five hundred foot
(25:35):
bomb and after the game he wore the Great Hambino
shirt and it almost like trumped, like in the in
the postgame interview he was wearing it. They're almost like
Trump his home run. Because it was the longest one
run of the decade. It was like bomb but viral,
and I was like, I know those guys. It was
the coolest my phone. My phone was buzzing for like
(25:56):
two days straight, literally NonStop, like seven non stop of
people making purchases and then also seeing it on ESPN
Daily News. I mean, the media coverage from that alone
for our brand was massive because it just opened up
the Roosevelts to so many people, and people were buying
that shirt, but because they bought the shirt and loved it.
You know, every time we wear one of our shirts
and you wear around, it's a conversation starter. You will
(26:18):
literally stop you on the street and go, oh, six shirt,
where'd you get it? So I think that exposed us
to a whole new audience. So that was really opened
the door. That was our pivotal like game changes, right.
So that was like a really great high. Absolutely that high.
That was high. And then a month later, month later,
maybe like six weeks after, you know, we're in Atlanta.
(26:38):
It was Anthony's birthday. You were actually supposed to fly there. Yeah,
so I was in Seattle. I was driving to the
mall in Atlanta because we were going to go to
like a Braves game, so I wanted braves out. We
were we were in Atlanta for another shirt that we had.
It was Super. Yeah, we we have we had a
super shirt, and it just so happened we found the
inventor of the super so um Lon E. Johnson. He's
(27:00):
also a NASA engineer. He's an aerospace engineer that just
so happened to make the super Sooker back in the nineties.
So yeah, he's somehow it's his publicist got ahold of
the shared gave it to him. He loved he throws hilarious.
And then he kind of found out what we did
on more of like the logistics and marketing side, and
was like, why don't we have a meeting? So we
were in Atlanta. We went to his amazing facility where
(27:23):
he he does like all his legitimate like crazy as
science experiments guys, and he was like, well, I want
to do this thing and it's like the anniversary of
the Supersocer, and I was wondering if you guys can
help us out and we're like, uh yeah, like whatever
you need, like where at your disposal? And he's like, oh, well,
you know, I still own the patent for the design
of the super socer right, And I was like we
were just like okay, he goes and you are infringing
(27:45):
on the design and we were like, uh, He's like
but it's cool. He's like, so we're you know, it
was another it was like another moment like this guy
could crush us right now. I think we knew that
because of the designs that we have, we were always
kind of skirting around you know, copyright and trademark stuff,
and you know that all came crashing down that on
(28:07):
that trip, I almost drove off the road, actually died
because I was in a red light check my phone,
and then the red light turned green and I saw
an email come through that I could not not check.
It was Cease and Desist twenty one century Fox, and
I swear to God, I like my heart fell to
my feet. Funds over Like we always knew this moment
could could like come, and it was kind of inevitable
(28:30):
that it would eventually come the more sudlet stuff we
were producing. So it was just like that feeling that
it was like when you guys told me we were crushing. Yeah,
we were. I mean we were. We were on the wave.
We were selling that we ever had. You know, more
and more people were asking about the brand and getting
familiar with the brand, so we had a lot more
(28:51):
customers coming back. And then all of a sudden, we
were just like we We called our lawyer up and
he's like, you guys, it's like I've been telling you this.
It's like you idiots, you knew this is gonna happen.
We were like, yeah, but I mean it was good
while it was awesome, so you pulled it all. Fox
was cool actually, so I think they appreciated the design
(29:13):
flare that we had, and they liked the shirts. I mean,
it wasn't a matter of us selling the shirts. It
was a matter of us not having a license for it.
So they didn't want to completely screw so they gave
us seven days to sell as many shirts as we
could and then we had to take them off the
So we we pushed a lot of shirts, and I
think at that moment we thought that the good times
were over, but it just so happened that, Um, you know,
(29:36):
I think that was our moment where we decided to
really grind and try to figure this out. We didn't
want to just give up because we knew we had
an awesome shirt, great potential with other products that we
could you know, build off that sandlotline. So we started
making phone calls. We we called this guy who ended
up saving our ass because he kind of told us
the ins and outs of licensing and said, you know,
(29:57):
Fox might actually want a license this from you. You know,
you've sold a lot of these things and they might
see it as a great opportunity to make extra revenue
off a movie that's been you know, on the shelf
for twenty years, twenty five years. But you know, he
was very deeply involved in the licensing industry and had
you know, a huge career. I mean, he's like the
godfather of licensing. And he gave us a lot of
really good advice and said, don't give up on this.
(30:18):
This is an amazing product. Your sales figures are there,
you have very streamlined um logistics, You're you're a legit
company selling a legit product. It's time to start treating
it as such. So he gave us some advice on
how to maybe handle the Cease and Desists, and he
connected us with a licensing agent and really kind of
held our hand through this whole process because John and
I really had no experience with this and we were
(30:40):
a little bit out of our league. So it turns out,
you know that that shirt from Cease and Desists bugging out,
Fox actually loved the design. We pitched them on getting
an official license, and they loved it and gave us
a license to actually start selling the product. Legitimately, the
design was there and the design was really cool, but
um to pitch to pitch this like this all over print,
(31:02):
which wasn't I mean, they were right right now, the
Hawaiian shirts cool, right, Like everybody's got these all over
print shirts. But back then it was they were just
starting to trend. So to pitch this crazy but all
over button down shirt to a company like Fox was
kind of a shot in the dark. But I think
what helped us was the sales figures. So we went
in there with all these sales figures and said, listen,
(31:23):
like this isn't just a mock up. People are buying
these shirts, like the proof is in the pudding, Like
it these shirts sell. It would be a shame if
they just disappeared. We have the audience we've taught, We've
we've already built out these amazing audience pools and demographics
and you know we hear are like more concepts that
we have for the future. You just please let us
start selling these shirts again, like you know where we
(31:45):
have the s c O if he searched Sandlan shirt,
Like we own that ship on Google. So like logistically
everything was in place. We just like people were like,
where the funk are these kind of cersonale? Where where
are these shirts? Like we know you guys sell these
where they go, you know, so we'd have to send
some emails back and just say, oh, you know, we're
we're sold out, We're we're in the process of making
this legit and you know, just just hold off. Well,
(32:10):
so they yeah, a lot of back and forth. I mean,
we had to make pitch decks, We had to go
into meetings with them, showed them our sales figures. But
we had a proof of concept. We made forty two
pitch decks, revisions forty two. It was it was like
it was like this summer and summers our bread and butter.
We we honestly couldn't sell shirts in the summer. But
at that point the ball was kind of rolling and
we were making decent money selling our other shirts, you know,
(32:34):
like shirts that would last us till till the fall.
And thankfully, by then we came to an agreement with
Fox and you know, their their head of licensing is
an amazing guy, and he was all about it, like
he he helped us. He honestly helped us out along
along the way. I think, I think something that we
do really well and something Fox appreciated was our And
(32:55):
this is a testament to John and the creative people
that we work with, and I think also a testing
into our marketing. But they really appreciated the design elements
that we had in our shirts. They're so used to
getting these really bland ideas from I'm not gonna throw
them under the bus, but I guess I kind of
am you know, like Target. Target will take a screen
grab from a movie, put you know, a line of
text under a shirt and that's it, and that's the level. Yeah.
(33:20):
So that's the level of creativity that a studio like
Fox has got over the last twenty years. You know,
basically slim to none. There there really was no creativity.
So I do think when Fox saw the shirt, they
were first. I mean they even said it. They were
a little shocked that they saw this popping up on
their social fee and they're like, well, we don't know
about this. So that's where the season deciss came from.
(33:40):
But I think the partnership and relationship that we had
with Fox came about because it was an original idea.
They really liked our design elements, They liked the way
we were marketing these shirts and you know, partnering with
influencers and getting into the hands of all the right people.
They just thought it was really cool and they thought
it was something that they would wear and it really
represented the Samlot brand end well. And I think that's
(34:01):
how that relationship came about, and from that, you know
where our business has now evolved. We saw a formula.
We saw a formula for taking iconic moments from these amazing,
nostalgic movies and turning them into you know, designs and
putting them on apparel. So, you know, from that Fox
meeting and the license that we got with them, it
(34:22):
really opened up the door for us to pitch other
movies studios, from Paramount to MGM, NBC Universal and take
their Bob Yeah, Bob Ross, Bob Rosse. Second license we
ever got, and it was amazing. We were at it's crazy.
We were in a cafeteria in Las Vegas meeting with
Fox about the sand lot, and our licensing agent goes, oh,
(34:43):
there's my friend over there. She represents Mike Tyson and
Bob Rosster like Jackpot, so she flagged the person over Saturday,
we gave her an on the fly, like five minute
elevator pitch of Roosevelt's and we said, we've all we
we actually were talking about doing Bob raw stuff. And
it's like an angel felt from the sky into our
lap and she came down and yeah, we we gave
(35:03):
her this five minute pitch about Roosevelt, showed her some samples.
She's like, this is phenomenal, this would be amazing for
Bob Ross, and like basically on the spot, gave us
the go ahead to start doing Bob raw stuff. It was.
It was an amazing chain of events. It was just
like Bob Ross appeared and within five minutes we had
a contract written up and ready to go. And you know,
that was the second license we ever got, and the
(35:24):
formula of taking these these nostalgic things, making you know,
amazing designs for them, putting them on unique pieces of apparel,
and then marketing them with all the social tactics that
we have an influencer marketing. It really was a cool
formula that we had, and we pitched that to all
these movie studios and it really opened up the door
to you know, do further licenses with some really cool
(35:45):
uh yeah, some really cool brands that we're gonna be
announcing the summer. What. Yeah, I got a lot of
things in the work. Okay, So you guys went from
making up campaigns what eight years when was started, we
were traveling across the country going to baseball games, and
you became a men's lifestyle website that you we quit
our jobs, but your jobs started a men's lifestyle site.
(36:06):
So we were doing at that time, we were juggling, um, yeah,
we were juggling experiencial campaigns but also creating editorial. So
we're doing the same thing. But it was like we
were trying to make ourselves into a legit media company
that had an editorial arm. Then somewhere along the lines,
you got a sick off. Yeah, well, we were working
out of our apartment in Jersey City at Manila, and
(36:27):
then we went to a coworking space, which was awesome. Yeah,
but for us, you know, we were doing a lot
of video production, editorial. We had a writer at that time,
and we were spending so much money running out studios
to do video shoots, Like, could we find a place
that really has the space that we need that we
can kind of turn into our own. And we walked
in and we're sitting in here now, but and it
(36:47):
looks great. But when we first, dude, when we walked
into the office that we have now and you can
go online and see the pictures, it's really nice. But
at the time when we walked in, it was scary.
I mean, there's no other word for it. The carpet
was black, the windows were busted out. It was really
just not a great office. But as with a lot
of the stuff that we do, you know, it comes
back to even when we get samples of shirts, you know,
(37:08):
we might not like it at that time and it
might be a horrific either design or office space, but
we see the potential, you know, we saw the potential
for what this this office could be if we fixed
a bunch of the windows and ripped the carpet out
and did a paint job, and you know, from that moment,
we signed the lease on the spot, locked it in
and you know, I think we turn this office space
(37:28):
into something that is a good reflection of what our
what our business has become. And we'll post pictures. But
if you're listening, it's kind of like the New Girl
aloft if you're watching New Girl on Fox, that's what
it reminds me of the New Girl off Yeah, yeah,
we got views of the city. It's it's a good
spot to work out. I mean, it's enough space for
us to grow and it just keeps us excited to
come back to work. You know, we're not working out
(37:49):
of nothing. Again, there's nothing wrong with working out of
your living room. I actually sometimes I missed the days
of working out of the living room because there's like
a sense of energy and care free nature that comes
with at you know, those early days of grinding in
that entrepreneurship. But yeah, we have this pretty sick spot,
so that's kind of you also have employees. Now, yeah,
that's the craziest part. I don't even I don't even
(38:12):
think we're we think of them as employees just because
we we kind of treat them more as peers than
anyone else. And I think that's important, and I think
that's why a lot of people like working for us,
is you know, we all get our ship done, we
all have roles, and we don't micromanage. So if you don't,
you know, if you're not going to do your job like,
you can go get a job somewhere else. Like I'm
not going to tell you how to do your job
where like when to come in. Just get your stuff done.
(38:34):
Just just just get your ship done. And if you
have the same fire in your eyes that we had
when we started, you'll be with us forever. And I
think we've done a very good job of curating that
and and bringing on like minded people who either eventually
want to go out on their own and do something
and just kind of want to learn how to be
an entrepreneur, or just like what we're doing and want
(38:55):
to be a part of the team because we are
as far as far as I think, I mean, we're
still on the ground floor. I mean, we've we've been
doing this for a long time, but we've had to
pivot here and there, like a lot of entrepreneurs do.
But that's kind of part of the process. And I
think it's a hard process and and it's something that
we weren't always happy doing, but it's I wouldn't even
(39:16):
I I describe it as more of like a learning experience, right,
Like you learn one thing from doing this, Like, all right, editorial,
we're not we still do editorial, but we're not focused
on it. But what we learned from editorial was advertising,
right for arbitrage and content or you know, like those
display ads that you see. Figuring out how to advertise
content was really really hard, but we got really really
(39:37):
good at it. So now do using that same strategy
that we that we used on content for a product
that we're making decent margins on is now like not
that it's easy, but it's worth it. Whereas you know,
for three years grinding and really figuring out how to
hit content and um, you know, just different articles, we
were making sense on the dollar, and now we're making
(39:58):
dollars on the dollars, So you look at it that way,
it was kind of a probably the most pivotal learning
experience that we've ever had. I would say, where do
you guys see Roosevelt's going, Is it always going to
be a parable Like what's next? Maybe is that old company?
Can Kitchen really want to make a kitchen appliances stainless? Yeah,
Rose Gold, I don't know. I think I think of
(40:21):
Roosevelt's as as a brand, and that's kind of it.
So you know, we're right now are making apparel. But
logistically we can make anything anything we want. You can
do that campaign our audiences there. I think we want
to build a rock solid brand that is a household
name at the end of the day. And I think
more so than anything, we want an audience that believes
(40:41):
in what we do and truly wants to follow our
our story and you know, the just follow along the
history of Roosevelt's and see where we go from here.
And as long as we can keep the audience engage
and enjoying all the products that we're putting out and
the content that we do and all the new projects
that we work on, as long as they're there, will
really be able to do anything that we want. I mean,
you can do that original idea of what Roosevelt was.
(41:03):
People so weird like the world is. And this is
so cliche to say, but like the world is so
small today, you can really you can. You can figure
it out, Like you can figure out as long as
you have this like weird foundation in place where you
have somewhat of an organic audience, you can do whatever
the funk you want, Like you can you can build
this army that we'll say, oh well, I mean they're
(41:24):
making apparel now, but like why can't they make surfboards
next year, or skateboards or you know something else, Like
why not? As long as the product and the quality
of the product is there, people will believe in you,
and people will align with your brand. But yeah, I
mean it's all about I mean, it's all about the ride.
I mean, you know, like being an entrepreneurs. Like it's
like four fox in one yes, And a buddy of mine,
J Schroeder, told me that once and it's it's so true,
(41:47):
Like you just say fuck fuck fuck fuck yes, fun
fun fun funck yes, But that yes is so worth it.
So when when that when that yes clicks, it's worth it.
But I mean that's part of the ride. It's crazy
here your story because I've never i guess I've never
heard the full story, and it makes me like even
more excited about, you know, loving your brand and as
(42:08):
like a friend, of course I'm going to love it.
But what you guys have created, it's cool for me.
When I see people wearing your shirts at Safego at
a Mariners game, I freak out and I go up
to them like I know them, and they must think
I'm crazy. But you see, I've witnessed you, Steve witnessed
people wearing your shirts and you're like, oh my god.
All the time. We were in Austin last year and uh,
(42:29):
some kid came up to us. He's like, oh man,
I own that shirt. I was just like, well, that's crazy,
and uh yeah. We well we started talking and it
was just a really cool, cool experience just see somebody
in the wild. And you know, it happens more and
more often now, but that was kind of the first
moment where I was like, oh my god, this is real.
People are actually buying the stuff that we don't know
um and they're wearing it and having the same experience
(42:50):
that we do. You know, if you wear one of
our shirts to let's say a music festival, you're most
likely going to get stopped every hour by somebody just saying, hey,
I really like that design. Is that anyone met their girlfriend,
because yeah, actually they have some guy. Some guy actually
on that same Austin trip, we met him at a
bar and he said, yeah, I'm dating a girl now
because of that hurt. She stopped and said, I like
(43:11):
the shirt, and he realistically is now dating and may
one day I have kids because of And I'm sure
there are a million stories like that. We have enough
enough shirts in the market that I think that happens
probably quite a bit, I think now, just because it
was such like a mind blowing experience, like have someone
come up to you. I think it was from that
Austin trip. Actually, we produce these little golden tickets there.
(43:33):
They look like business cards, but they have a promo
code on them and they're they're actually gold and they
just say like Roosevelts in the wild, like thanks for
being a rough rider, Roosevelt Ambassador or something, and we
give them out to all our friends and they just
have to carry one or two on them and if
they see anyone wearing our stuff anymore, you, um, all
you have to do is give, you know, give that
person the ticket that says it's ten or off or something.
(43:53):
It's just like we'd appreciate you. You're the reason why
we do what we do. At this point, can we
make this podcast us a golden ticket and give out
my promo code? Absolutely? What do you want the promo
code to bate? Can I do Carla Marie? So I
can be Anthony's promo codes? Okay, use Carla Marie. So
get that done by the time I post this, and
he sucks? Try both to either Carla Marie or Anthony sucks.
(44:14):
Promo codes here Carla Marie twany and Anthony sucks twenty
and let's see over the course of a month. Will
promote it and see which one comes out on top.
We'll share the results on R S v LTS Instagram. Okay,
we'll do that. And one thing I always ask everyone
favorite app that you guys use for your company that's
not Instagram? You can have a different one for our company,
(44:36):
company or social or just know, any app to use
or it doesn't have Actually, it could be anything that
helps you. So if it's a meditation app that you
use the end of day, anything that helps you be
better at your job, and that's not Instagram. Okay, my,
can I give a couple Okay, can I give you
like what we've been using that I think have been
really helpful, Like team Team drop boxes are amazing because
(45:00):
it's like a collaborative file drop for for everything that
you can share across multiple companies because we have, you know,
a couple of different companies that we're working with. I'm
loving wee chat and Skype to talk to suppliers. You know,
Slack is a good team working app. Which one Slack, Yeah,
but I think my number one and I guess this
is very e commerce heavy, but it really is Shopify's
(45:21):
e commerce app, you know. To be able to dive
into that and just see it's amazing. Like I just
I almost look up every single transaction that comes through,
just to look at the person and see, you know,
where they're from and what they bought, and how many
orders they've purchased from us, and you know how many
times they've actually visited the site where they came from.
It's just really cool because we don't have a retail store,
(45:42):
you know, we don't have you know, a brick and
mortar in Hoboken, So in theory, it's like it kind
of gets lost sometimes that we actually do have. In theory,
we do have a store. It's it's the Roosevelt Store.
It just happens to be online. But to go on
shopify and see, wow, right now, there are forty two
people on our sto or if you really take that mentality, yeah,
(46:03):
that's the thing. It's like, if we had a brick
and mortar store, there would be forty two people in
here shopping, and what are they doing in our store?
You know what, why are they walking out of the
store without purchasing anything? You know, why are they buying
this item and not this item? So, you know, the
Shopify app allows us to kind of dig into the
analytics and and put ourselves in the mentality of that
one customer and see, you know, okay, yeah they visited
(46:25):
a couple of times, they came in from Instagram. You know,
they bought this item. Maybe we can, you know, in
the future, send them an email and give them a
promo code to buy more stuff. So I really, I guess,
long and short, I love the Shopify app because it
gives you real time analytics, deeper analytics into customers, you
know where they're from, and all this kind of cool
data done. Favorite app um shop death Shopify is definitely
(46:45):
number one as far as running the business goes, as
far as creative stuff goes. If you're on your phone,
um an app called dark Room for photo editing if
you if you're not in front of a computer, is
probably the best photo editing app I've used. If you
make memes, not Instagram, but for Instagram, Tank Sinatra's app
Momus m o m us is very cool and really
(47:08):
well put together just for producing social content. And then
I guess kind of an ancillary app that's not really
associated with running the business, but just so you don't
go fucking crazy, is uh. I use Headspace every every
single day. I think you need to get on. I
think it's just well, I mean, when it's good, it's good.
But when it's you know, it's a it's a meditation app.
(47:29):
So could you see me meditating? Now? Who I am? Like?
I could ever meditate everywhere, laughing, going crazy, dude, it's
ten minutes and listening. It is when because when it's
nice and when it's nice and sunny out like today,
it's like you don't need it. But when it's the
dead of winter and ship is hitting the fan and
(47:50):
you're like like staring at the ceiling for six hours
out of the night like this. This app if you
are you know, if you feel like you're burning out
and you have like that entrepreneurial burnout. Headspace is where
it's out when I'm staring at the ceiling and like,
let's do I just go on vacation. Okay, this is
(48:10):
who we're gonna end this podcast. This was by far
my absolute favorite podcast. I love these guys. I hope
you love them as much as I do. Help them out.
Check out roosevelts dot com. That is rs B l
t s dot com. Follow them on everything at Roosevelt
and remember promo codes. Carla Marie twenty and Anthony sucks. Thanks.
(48:31):
Hanging out another episode of Side Hustlers
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