EYL #183 Master Merch, Marketing, & E-Commerce with Support Black Colleges

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I always drop a new product at full price so you have your sales stuff. Obviously, every Black Friday, drop a new product at full price because people are still going to buy because they feel like they're getting a deal on everything else. So one said of sending their money somewhere else, just spend the full price with you. That's a Haden and then for us too, I think one thing that really did us well was disguising that Bogo.

My graduates from my school being forced back drop.

B drop my dropdrop drop. All right, guys, welcome back Eile South.

Yeah to the new dudgeon.

Shout out to like where are we gonna sit?

Spend so much time? I had only made sense?

So all right, this is something that you know a lot of people have been looking forward to for a long time. So Corey and Justin from Support Black Colleges met these guys a while ago, and Corey was actually pretty vocal on Instagram to try to get this interview done.

The funniest message I feel like he would write to Justin like damn, Justin, it wasn't our turning yet I'm like.

Okay, that's no Like I let his side on that nothing.

But I'll say this, the last time we saw each other, I said just we're getting it done.

We're gonna get it. But yeah, I always read the comments. It was a little you know, it's a little slick comment like oh yeah, they're.

Talking about merch.

Best messals in Atlanta, bro and we made a bag of investments though I was it shout out to investment everyone, fact every but that was one of the beautiful things. It was like all the merchants said the same thing, like yo, it was such a outpouring of support, like everybody sold out at so that's not everybody.

But you know, it's so funny because I always tell justin I feeling like we get slept on so much, like our list of accomplishments is so long. And then they'd be like, oh, they're just a clothing brand, just the clothing brand, and just be like yo, y'all people don't understand.

So I'm always vocal justin.

It's like cool for me, Like I mean, like, man, I won't be because if you don't say nothing, then people may not know.

That's like speaking.

So what I am getting better at knowing how to say things. That's that's really it's not about saying something about how you say it.

Really, that's the thing that like, whenever Cory's saying something, I just be like, we just need to work harder, Like you know.

That's what your point in the comment. Wow, that's crazy serious.

I'm like, but I understand because Corey, like you know, we did this and that we under twenties and in twenties or whatever, and like I feel like, you know, like people don't respect us or whatever.

I'm just like, oh, let's just keep working.

And what I appreciate most of that, y'all always showed up. Even though if we didn't do an episode, if we had an event, y'all was there. There was something that y'all could be a part of the support. Y'all was there, of course. So we were just always in the same rooms. It was just a matter of time. So I'm happy that I appreciate you. It was always love Corey.

I always show up. I love going to black people stuff who are doing great things.

Y'all packed up. I forgot who we was on Edgewood. Y'all packed that place out.

Oh yeah, that was the networking event.

I was flush, yeah, flush.

So I was like, always showed us love man, like a real second one. I love it out here. So much black excellence out here. Everybody's just vibing together. So but I'm glad we got a chance to get this done. So for people that are not familiar, Support Black College is a multi million dollar brand that's tearing up the space for the last five years or so, right.

Probably took it seriously three years.

Three years.

So yeah, you've probably seen their hoodies on, like Chris Paul. Actually Bobby Wagner had the hoodie on when we did the interview with him.

Oh I did see that. He's for a long time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's it's interesting because it's like one of these things, like our thing is asces of a liabilities, you see it. It's directly so it's like you don't have to guess support Black colleges. It's not too much more to really think what's the hidden meaning behind it. But so it just goes to show you that sometimes keeping it simple can go a lot further than trying to be like really complex and abstract.

So this is gonna be a dop conversation.

We're going to talk about how they was able to build such an impressive empire in a short period of time, and yeah, we're gonna give all the game on the merch side, marketing, influence and marketing all that kind of stuff.

So before we start, man, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

Thank you all for having this is great.

This place is fire. Everybody can see what this looks like.

Black Excellence, Like, what up?

All right, So let's let's get the backstory Support Black Colleges. How did this company come about?

Yeah, so I was at Howard University.

I was a sophomore and literally started with me and my cousin and we just made a shirt that said support Black Collegists. It's like a T shirt T shirt, and I think I was trying to find the outfit for like homecoming. I wanted something fire that nobody else had. So I all started with this one shirt support Black Collegists. And we had a little things on the side here and there, like we used to make these USB bracist remember the braik.

We made these little USB bracelets. It was like a plastic.

Bracelet, but you connected it and it turned to a bracelet and it was a Howard University one. And so I found a way to get into the bookstore and we were selling them, and I'm like, yo.

People like HBCU stuff.

I realized that people liked it, so we made a shirt this logo right here support by Colleges and we had a different iteration of it as well, and then I wore it and people were just like, yo, need that, need that. So my business mind, I'm like, we got to make some moreties. And at the time, you know, I didn't know that about a clothing line scale and nothing.

Because the start the story starts with y'all.

Y'all started in the partying world, right, like y'all a mooring parties and you said we but like just you didn't come on right away, like if I'm correct, it was like your thing was like, let me just add value to what he's doing, which is something that people kind of overlook like just adding value.

So like, how did that relationship develop?

Yeah, so back home, I'm from Houston, So back home, my mom she would she would do like her nine to five and then she would do real estate and then at night she would do bottle service. So like she was like heavily, you know, just hustling. And she would always let me come to the parties and stuff, like she was in the twenty woman up clubs and I was like.

You know, sixteen, like you know whatever.

And then she'd be like, you know, come out for your birthday, like you know whatever. So then I'll go and I'm like, man, that what's up? So then I was like I need to start throwing parties too. So before I even made it to Howard, I was throwing like teen parties and stuff. So I did that, and I was like, man, if I go to Howard, I'm making bread because I was making a couple thousand dollars a party young and I was like, well, I know college is going to be a central market that we

And then he just came out.

I was like, Yo, you're good, bro, Like you're drunk, and I'm like nah, I'm like nah, I'm just trying to see like who's working the door, who's throwing the parties, like where people go into the houses and like.

Stuff like that.

And then we kind of just became friends and he invited me to the party to come in, and then after that we started to like really do the parties together.

That's crazy because when we say college is a business decision, we're usually thinking like the financial due They're looking at it from a totally different sective. There's an audience there I need to capitalize at that.

God's I used to go to school in Baltimore or I didn't go to HBCU.

I was at U NBC.

But you know Baltimore, it's a lot of black colleges like Morgan specifically Morgan and Booie, but also damn, what's the one on copp and State Copy so I had a lot of guys from New York that was went to school in Morgan and a few of them they used to do party promot. They used to throw parties and they used to make a lot of money.

Like they was holy for college.

For college kid, that's like a woman business because you know, especially like I said, like the Black college was like you know you're going to party a lot, not just home, Like every week there's a party.

Like everywhere every week is three or four parties.

And the thing is like it's arguable that the party wasn't more popular than the basketball team than Greeks because we literally providing the fund that all of them come to. So when it's like a probated like AQ though it's a probate party, like can you do these these things? But one thing Justine said that was really important. He provided by you since day one. And he's always been different, like imagine going outside of party sy and to kill the big afro.

He used to have this rat tail.

He had like a bunch of colorful wristband. Like he was very different, I should say that. But the first thing when he said about the money thing, I'm like, you're a freshman talking like that, Oh yeah, you different, like and instantly connected me to him, and I think that that relationship of respect, like from that point really got us here, honestly.

So y'all y'all met on campus. Yeah, but that's that's a good story for black colleges as well.

Like you met your.

Business partner on an HPCU s all right. But originally, so you started and you you're not an owner. Originally you're just helping out.

Yeah, Like he was like, Yo, Justin, I'm about to do a photo shoot from my brand.

You mind pulling up?

I was like, I bet, Like if you scroll all the way to the bottom of Sport by Colleges, I'm the first photo, like the first photo shot after a while too. Yeah, and then I had an interest in like Twitter and like growing like digital marketing and stuff. So I made them a Twitter you know, got it a couple hundred followers and just gave it to him, like just I wanted to help. And then that was really my I just wanted to be a good friend.

Like you created the social platforms for them, yeah, like of love.

Yeah, Like it was.

So at what point do you become business partners?

That was three years ago. Like, how did that happen?

Yeah, so I was in I was in Houston. So after graduating college, I got a job and then like six months eight months, and I was like this is impossible, Like it's no way. I'm just I'm a terrible employee. What you doing digital marketing for? Like a weight scale company? Like randomly?

So random?

So I'm doing that and then Corey is calling me like, yeah, I think I'm about to pick support by colleges back up because remember he's like, you know, on and off with it after school or whatever, like he was working his own job, et cetera. So I quit my job and then I started to get into like the whole other side, like just doing things I wasn't supposed to be doing. And then I'm just like so I'm making money though you know what I'm saying, like the wrong way.

And either like be dead, jail like whatever.

And I was like, all right, let me just go try like it's my boy, you know, it is what it is. So then I moved down to Atlanta. And then that's when we started taking it serious.

So you had just graduated college, Yeah, and you decided to leave d C. He chose Atlanta because I know you was going back with you between DC and New York.

Yeah.

I was thinking what I was gonna stay or not, but my roommates at the time was all leaving, so I'm like, am I just gonna stay in DC?

It's kind of expensive. And then I had an apartment in New.

York because I was working for a startup under Ron Parker, who created one of us created Facebook and Napster.

I might know him.

Yeah, I was working like directly under him doing marketing, social media marketing and college like college engagement essentially because they knew I was a promoter. So they was like, oh, you can get the colleges. And so I moved to Atlanta randomly. I've been one time before that. I just knew I wanted to come here. I'm a type of person I just go like, I don't think about it. I just make moves. And so went to Atlanta. I

Work with, because for us, it's never really about the money.

It was all about the relationships, the controlling the environment, like putting on these dope events. And so I knew that if he did the same thing he did with the parties was supported by college, I knew it could be unstoppable. And I finally got him out there.

So all right, So how does it all right?

So three years ago you moved to Atlanta, you guys decided to be business partners. So what's the next steps to actually get this off the ground and up and running.

Evolution.

Well, it's interesting because like when I moved down here, we didn't immediately become business partners because like, I don't know, it just didn't feel right to me. It's like just come down and be like, oh, what's up, Like I'm trying to go fifty fifty?

Like what we doing?

Like, so I just kind of moved down and then, like, bro, Corey will tell you. So in college, like I was like drinking every weekend, like partying hard, like all of this stuff. But when I moved down, I knew I had to make a change, and that's when I really started like reading and meditating and stuff like that.

So the first like thirty ninety days.

I literally was in my room and didn't really didn't talk much to Corey at all. But I was just trying to like make some money on my own. So I built up an income of like managing people's social media to like five thousand a month or something like

Yeah, so he had the twenty thousand in inventory, So what's the offer to him now, Like, I want you to be my partner fifty fifty.

I'm like, look, I got twenty thousand inventory, I have zero help. If you give me ten thousand dollars, you can be fifty fifty on this. Well, we didn't know was going to be Bob with college. Is just you know, I didn't think it was fair to give him like a smaller percentagecause I knew I was gonna make him go to work. So I was like, fifty percent all in, let's do it. And you know, little did I know that his last ten thousand and they gave me was

And when Martin went to the sabbatical, definitely that gotcha.

So all right, so let's get into this.

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You support black colleges, right, So the first thing that comes to my mind is we talked about it off air.

But you have signature. That's the signature right now.

You have all this stuff for like individual colleges, right, right, So, but for individual college you need a trademark.

Right You gotta get licensing.

How did that work?

That process is trash, very bad.

There's only a few companies that pretty much own the licensing from.

Most schools, either like CLC or.

Lear Field or like one of the others. I don't remember their names. But essentially you have to apply what you can just do with like spending money. But different colleges have different rates. So howard is like four hundred dollars just to apply, and maybe like a cop it might be like one hundred dollars just to apply. After you apply, they either accept your decline. You you send in your designs, they either accept a decline.

Then they want to sample.

So then you got to get to sample from overseas, send it up, they decline and say, hey, this is wrong.

You get another sample, send.

It they approved, and then after they approve it, then you can start selling online. So that's the whole process.

And then you have a percentage.

Yeah, and so some schools are seven percent, some schools are five.

Two depends.

But even like for Howard, we try to do a shirt and they're like, oh, it's too much red, more blue, you need more gray.

Like it's very specific and very difficult.

Yeah, because every school has their own licensing department, so it's not like you working on one person for everything.

It's like all schools have one specific person.

So this person might not care and this person might actually care. So you can get away with certain things with others, and then with other ones they like, nah, you can't do that.

So that's something I obviously have to learn because I mean, the story the first original shirt you had all schools on the back of your shirt. Yeah, so was how with the first school you worked with and how many did you take on after that? It was like, let's let's solidify Howard. And there was one after the other, which just knock them all down.

Yeah, I mean, so It's so funny because when all the schools on the back of your shirt, you actually don't need licensing because it's not an individual. It's no colors, it's just words. So if I say Howard, it could be the white Howard, it could be Howard Stern, it could be anybody. So you say Howard University. Yeah, we say Howard University. The mecca is is trademark real HG like stuff like that. It's very like and it is the real at you by the way. I But so

So then we started A and T.

I think we did a family and then we hit the AUC carklend Morehouse, but it all started with Howard and and T and I would probably say fam.

Yeah, And now I think we got like maybe like somewhere around twenty six twenty seven licenses and there's one hundred and seven HBCUs So it's just moving our way.

So is it the goal eventually to have all one hundred and seven Yeah, knock them over?

Definitely the goal, you know.

Part of it, And we try to explain this to our consumers, like part of it is like, all right, financially, it has to be smart. He makes something from Howard's gonna sell out, make some family's gonna sell out. But she might have a smaller school, like you know still in university that has eight hundred kids. It's harder for us to go through that process and then not make money.

So our journey with merch, we started out with print Fall and Familiar and the problem with that was they were taking too much.

Of the cut.

Yeah, it was crazy.

It was easy because we didn't have to actually buy the merch so if anybody who's not familiar, like you know, if somebody puts an order in, then they actually make it for you and then they ship it. So one of the problems was that they were taking too much. And then when Corona hit, everything got back ordered and it was like five months.

People have been playing about that.

So we stopped and then we started actually using the manufacturer overseas and now that's what we use now and then they send it in bulk and then whatever we have we sell when it's sold out, it's sold out to get a new patch of order.

So what was your process, similar.

O Man, Every single way you could do it, bro every single way. We didn't we use print, full print, on demand services, print of five, et cetera. We did did ourselves like buying a warehouse and hiring seamstresses and heat pressing and sewing it down ourselves. We've gotten stuff from overseas that came straight in. We use fulfillment centers like literally everything you could think of, and then went.

From top to bottom.

But it started off with just like if y'all have screenprinting and stuff like every Yeah.

At first screenprinting is doing that basic stuff and then cut and sell anything overseas. But to me personally, and I mean Justin could say this too, it is depends on what kind of person you are, Like, do you want to be in the warehouse managing people? Do you want to be like me and Justin heat pressed and literally like was wait thirty seconds? Lift it up net And that's what we were doing as CEOs. Also shipping also customer service, So it depends on what kind of

Yeah, I know, Mike, he's listening to this like he was pressing in his living.

He was doing it. I forgot that far.

But that's another thing that we do to actually from print fold actually pressing it.

Yeah.

And then so it talk about a fulfillment center for people that might not know what that.

Yeah, it's like you said, that's what you're using that right, Yeah, what's what's the fulfillment center?

So fulfillment center is essentially a place that has warehousing and like it's also know as like third party logistics like three pls.

So you send all of your stuff to a warehouse.

The warehouse integrates with your store, Shopify, whatever you're using, and then they ship all of the stuff that you sent to them as your orders come in. So that's fulfillment center in general.

So why do you guys do that as opposed to just having someplace where you're you actually just ship it out yourself.

Yeah, that's go ahead.

I think for me, like it was one we did that. We've been there, done that.

We had three different warehouses, and for me personally, I'm not good at managing people, and even though we had a warehouse manager, it was just something that you still just weigh on us. And then once we start to scale, like you know, it's a process. You got to heat press that takes a certain amount of time, and you have to sell sermunt time. Then you have to package and bag it, then you have to put it on

Well, the fulfillment center actually makes the clothes too.

Well hours.

Yeah, so we worked with a few, but we we I was telling Cards like, I just want to be vertically integrated. So it's like all we have to do is the marketing, which is like what we're really good at. So our current company, we send them designs, they make it from scratch, they bag, fold, store, and then they ship it as well, so it's all in one place. So that way we don't have like a bottleneck on scale because usually what will happen if you just do

So it's like essentially kind of like print fal kind.

Of yeah, yeah, kind of.

Yeah, it's like our own printfal. Yeah, we control the number.

In the margin, that's what.

Yeah, so you the original issue was the margins and you started controlling that. But even the fulfillment center was of course that right comes with that, So like how did you base it? Was it just like square footage or like that's what we're going to grow, So we need twenty thousand feet square feet or we're gonna start off small and then we'll grow and get new ones as week.

Yeah, so we partnered with the fulfillment center that was like strategically positioned.

To where they could grow.

So they had like five ten thousand square feet, but they were a part of a building that had one hundred thousand square feet, so it was more so like and it's difficult too because we're like super nimble and like a young company, So when you're partnering with like big big fulfillment centers. They it has to be the right way, everything right on time, et cetera. So it was like, we need to part with someone that could

How did you find the fulfilment center?

That's a good question. A guy named David.

He's one of like so me personally, like when I don't know stuff, I just like hire consultants to like teach me as we go. So I've been paying maybe like two three consultants for about a year now, and there was a connection for one of the consultants I paid.

Okay, so like a mentor exactly that definitely mentor them.

Actually, yeah, you said that, you said that when you paid you were against that at first, right, but you said that he taught you a lot of different things that you was doing wrong.

Definitely, Like I just when for the where we were financially at that time, and then also like what we needed. I didn't feel like that was the person. It wasn't necessarily about him. I just didn't think we need that role in general. And then Justin was like, well, let's just try it for a few months and then when

And that's what happens in entrepreneurship. A lot of times.

There's things that we never think about, and so we're losing out on those things because we just don't know. Like the most expensive thing is what you do not know what some of.

The things that he that he taught you all that you was doing.

Bro, it's so much.

It's like I mean even in the clothing space, like you don't know what like UPC codes are being EDI compliant or what is that like? So UPC codes like you have to assign because it's kind of like a skew, but you have to assign UPC codes to your every SKU so that when you're dealing with multiple places, like you're selling on Amazon and then you got your fulfillment center and then you got orders from big box companies, you need to just give them a number so they

That that was. So that's like there's every the thing is with retailers. Everyone is different.

So like when you deal with Urban outfitters, you deal with Jimmy Jazz, you deal with et cetera. They all have different ways of receiving goods and getting their pos and et cetera. So you have to like be compliant with each type of person. So that's kind of like that.

Okay, yeah, so it has to be like all right, so this could be one box and it can only be three small, four mediums, two excels. Needs to be packed from small to like this. This box needs to be four by seven like this.

Literally, and that's like going into retail stores.

Yeah, and if you don't send it the way they want, they'll send it.

Back and charge you for it and charge you.

Yeah, so all that stuff you didn't know, all there's a part that you didn't know, and that's marketing, right, So how did we get this.

Thing to become a global sensation? Right.

Obviously the party promotion helped out a little a lot. So what was that that first step that was like, all right, we got to get this person, or we got to move it this way, or what were we doing?

Yeah, I think it's a combination of two things. So one is influencing marketing. I think that's been our that's been our just ride the glorious influencers. And the first influence we ever got was Tiana Taylor. Like she she she holds it down for us. Anything she needs for me, she got it for sure. And I waited outside of the club. Well, I went into the club Howard Theater and Howard University right across from Howard University, and I went to the club.

I had a book bag full of merchandise. And this is early on.

I didn't have no systems in place, really like I didn't know what was gonna happen. I just wanted to get her some merch because I understood who she was and her value. And so I literally stood outside of the VIP section for about four or five hours in the club.

They turn it up.

I'm chilling, just looking like a weirdo, and it's crazy.

The Howard Theater.

Okay, earners, what's going on.

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There, and it's crazy because we had thrown party at the Howard Theater. That's how I was able to get in on a book bag. That party promotion and really helped me. Right, someone got packed this stuff out every night, like let me get in with this book, Bad Day Search and everything. And so I was standing outside of VIP and this lady was like, oh, are you good, Like what's up with you? Like you know you've been

She like, let's take a picture. We took a picture.

That picture ended up going on social and it started going crazy. Two weeks later, he posted on our page. It was a full fit, like a full sweatsuit. She had on some some yellow Jordan's It was like twenty six and some random Jordan's she had a full fit on she posted on her page and we made like twenty thousand dollars when she posted it.

Did she posts like the link? Like like did she tagged you?

She neant posted link? She tagged us more.

It's really crazy because after that a bunch of blogs picked it up, and that's like, we're really getting contraction because she was so known for fashion, everybody trying to buy what she had on. And at that point I understood the value of influencers and what they could do for your brand if you have the right person that aligns with you.

That's where it started powerful.

Somebody told a similar type of story.

Do you ever heard of.

My god y Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, l doing yeah.

When we interviewed him, he was talking the same thing where it's like the best way to get to a celebrity sometimes is through another person, like drivers, security, stuff like that with people like you don't necessarily think these people that surround them all the time, so you might even give the security merg for themselves, right, let them rock and let them feel good about it. And then it's like, all right, yo, how you feel about giving this to Meek Millers?

Like what I'm saying.

Then they just do it on their own without you even but now it's more of a relationship because they.

Could actually like, Yo, these dudes are really doing their thing. I need to rock with them, like I saying. And that's the people out they're with all the time.

Security drivers, chefs, work at trainers, stuff like that, stylists.

That's barbers, Me and Justin So we coined a term.

It's called indirect influencer marketing indirect and it's like you're not directly talking to that person, you're talking to the person one offer them. So how we got Chris Paul, how we were able to get like Donovan Mitchell all these people was all not their people, but literally the person who is their stylist or who works for them. And anytime I'm going to pull up on somebody, because I call it the pull up method where I'll pull up on you, I have this whole way I do things.

Talk about the pull up, talk about the pull up method, and give one example that actually you So I'll give.

So I put up on a little baby and Gunner God both of them, and Thug in the same night, Little Baby, Gunner and Thug. At the it was clark Atlanta homecoming, clarkland of Homecoming. So we had built a relationship with CLARKLANDA the year before. We basically overserved them. We gave their whole royal court hoodies and we just took care of.

Them the year before.

No, like we didn't know what was going to happen from it. We just was building relationship because we say we support black colleges, so how will we not support people who come to us who need the help. So we literally were just walking to our truth from what we stand for. And then the next year he's like, hey, yo, were about to have this concert. I think it's gonna be pretty decent. So I'm like, who you got? And so at first they had only but Gunner. They didn't

Yeah, I was doing and he was like, nah, ain't gone, that's like.

And I'm like, man, I really ain't want to go by myself, like, and so I tried to get Everybody kept saying no, but I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go by myself. I don't want to miss this opportunity. So I went and I'm out there staying. It's outside on the football field. So down on the field is like the VIPs and it's a lot of people are still a few hundred and then the whole stadium is field with kids and the college students. So I got down there and I'm waiting. I'm like outside the VIP.

And he was like, yeah, bring it over here.

So after he said that I gave it to the baby, I'm like, yo, I have this brand. Start getting steel.

He stopped me.

I was like, I don't seen this everywhere he said that. I'm like really like, yeah, bro, I've seen this everywhere. Like, bro, I need one of these. I'm like, broh my got you what color and what size? I gave him a few hoodies and I gave his manage went to appreciate you, bro, take the hoodie too. And so that's kind of how I operate. When I did a pull up, I kind of I kind of like focus on entry points, exit points. Who's running the show. That's really important, who's running the show.

To I want to, I want to.

I want to just dive into that because it's extremely insightful a few different standpoints.

I feel like it's almost like a military type of.

Oh yeah, strategic training behind it, Like when you were standing outside with Tianna Taylor, like you know what I'm saying for five hours, Like you gotta have discipline to do that first, you got to. But then also like how you said, like when you scope the scene, like that's like a security type of vibe. Like when you go somewhere you look at all the entry points and exit points, who's there and he's like you say, okay,

I've we've been on a few missions already, know, and there's one thing that And this is why I know, this is why Corey likes for me to come to because if you have two people, it's a lot easier because you need somebody that just do not care.

And that's me, so like does not care. So he'll be like, yo, like I'm trying to see with who in there. I'm like and I literally just walked straight in and then I just look around and I'll come back and be like, all right, this this is is not going on, and then he'll plot his play from there.

He'll up like, bro, let's get it. It'll be the same, like our dynamic. I'll be like, look, because I remember everybody's face. I'm like, yo, he's in this. He's in there day and the day and there He's like which one is which? But we've had We've had to do that. He's more like, listen, we're not gonna have another time. This is the time I had to learn that though, like we ran met Evie. I'm like in my head, I'm like, this is the time when we went to.

Saint John.

He had an album release party and I called him like, yo, want companies like I'm not gonna be able to make it. I gotta I gotta do something. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go by myself. This is like the first

Yeah, you gotta be tactical about it.

And the thing is this, it won't always work out. I think people got to understand that. Like I waited outside of made the Stallion's dressing room for five hours. I literally, I'm trying to tell you, just to tell you.

What's going on?

Ernest?

Look at twenty six I made one of the most important earners.

What's up.

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Decisions of my life, that's right. I didn't have family at the time, but I did have a life insurance policy. A wise man told me. Life assurance isn't about the people who die, It's about the people who live. It's one of the best ways to secure generational wealth for your family's future. And it makes perfect sense why people get life insurance, especially term coverage, which surprisingly is affordable. Why not pay a little bit each month to secure

I hit in the bathroom for twenty minutes waiting. I'm trying to tell you I'm on the toilet seat. I don't want to get kicked out because.

I'm already back here.

I ended up surviving a suite and then the person who was standing outside her dressing room was like she just kept looking at me, and I was like, you know, when is mad company kind of thing? Because she was dumb late to the show. It's like one am, and so I'm like, yo, I just had to merch for her, Like I really just want to put this merchant here. I don't even got to meet her. I just want

She got on.

Stage and left instantly. And I was like, it was a lot of immersing. It was at least like it was Hella stuff. It was hell of stuff because I got stuff for our whole team and everything. I wanted everybody to be able to get something. And Meg is our ideal influencer. She went to Texas Southern, graduated from HBCU. She's big, you know, she's really popular. So that ended up not working out. And I spend five hours in my life where I could have easily been doing something

Yeah, it's also going back to the person next to you.

It's the casino.

They'll watch that movie, Noah, never seen that. You've heard of it, though, Yeah, I've heard of casinos about. He's about like these mobsters that was running Las Vegas. So one of the main characters, his name is Sam Ross team played by Robert de Niro. So in the movie Casino, he was talking and he was saying that the most important people in Vegas. Who do you think he said was the most important people in Vegas?

I would say the people who make the machines.

Okay, I feel like, now it's gonna be the person next to you. Now get this.

You know he was saying most people in Vegas. It's not the high rollers, not the bosses, none of that. It was the valet parkers. Because he was like, the Vegas is real. Bit from valet everybody. He's like, the people that valet know everything and they know every body.

So he was like, the key to Vegas is the valet.

Parkers like you getting good with the valet and they moved it was a crime.

So they were talking about like drugs and all that.

He was like, valet people are really pond doing celebrities.

Everything, it all goes through the valet.

Sometimes you overlook the most important person because you're trying to get to who you think.

And that's what happened with us because when we were trying to get Chris Paul, Corey had went to a game and he was like literally at the tunnel trying to like pass him something, and then we came to five hours.

That was only two hours, Ballard.

So then he comes back to the crib and I'm just telling him, like, bro, it's got to be a better way. And then I was just like, all right, let's look at everyone that Chris Paul is following and then just go look through their social media profile and see who it is. So then we ended up finding his stylists and then that's when it clicked to us too. It's like, damn, Chris Paul is not dressing himself, you know,

We bought some stuff. Actually, were waiting on the package to come.

Out, so we put a bunch of stuff in that package, sent it off to him, and then relationship from getting quote unquote denied at the tunnel went to us finding the stylist, which went to Chris Paul wearing something, which went to him wearing it on the All State commercial, which then went to the NBA Players Association wanted to do a partnership, then led to the partnership with the NBA, and then led to us doing everything for the All Star Game.

So it all.

Started from just making that one connection with the indirect influence from marketing.

Yeah, I feel like it during the pandemic and obviously the civil unus in the country, like we started seeing the athletes do.

Are we talking about that time frame with everything?

Yeah, that's that's right.

When it started in two So the ability to pivot right, that's like extremely important. And a lot of people didn't pivot correctly for the pandemic, but a lot of people did pivot correctly, especially in retail, right, Yes, especially in retail, Like me and Justin had that conversation like are people going to buy clothes during the Like, you don't need clothes.

I know we're going to zero, bro.

He was worried that the business shut down.

And so we made a split decision to make this mock up of a shirt that says support Black Lives. And there was a brown and black shirt support Black Lives, and there was a Desmond Tutu quote on it talking about and injustice like some people going act to some people not essentially, And that shirt did one hundred thousand dollars in one day over a mock up we got on, got on computer Canva, marked something up real quick and just dropped it to the audience because the need was there.

I was like, this is important.

We have to understand when to drop, how to drop, and what are we supporting, what cause are we supporting, and how does this impact the lives of people who are going to purchase it. And from that point we understood that even during the pandemic, we can make money. And then the players hopped on, and then this hopped and then it just became a whole movie.

Ever, what you spoke about, shout out Chris, boy, he's your second group of people that we supported us going to show east Side Golf.

You ever heard of them?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they hard And I always say yeah, we had on the show and Chris Paul he supported them.

Kind of similar situation.

But what you spoke about, that's another marketing strategy. Brandon Medfort was the first person actually said it, but I was doing that before shout out to him. PTG you know what they the But he was thought and he was talking about how he got to meet Mill and he was he sold Meek Miller Lamborghini yours and so.

D m and meet Mill. He's not responding, he's Meek Mill.

So he says okay, and this is something that I was doing too, and you just said it's good.

So you go to somebody's list of who they're following.

Right, it's usually like at least one of two mutuals, right, everybody has a mutual. So he went to meet Mill's list to see who he was following. It turns out meet Mill was following a lot of exotic dances he had.

Sold cars to be they.

He's like, I know how he got to a few of them, long story short, like two of them hit him back, and then that same day he was in communication with Meek Milk and then he ended up selling the car to him like the next day. So that's a good way to go about it too. It's like who are they following? Right, because usually if somebody following somebody, they at least have some level of un And then if you know the person, now you can come in and say, hey, can you give me a referral to

I was gonna say the power of referral, right they were Meek puts out a tweet or an Instagram post like I'm looking for the Lambeo truck. If I just sold seven calls to all these ladies, like I know the guy I gotta give them, so like.

He was able to get that Lambea trucks.

It reminds me a lot of when we when we got the clothes into the NBA two K game, because.

Let's not just gloss over the shout out to y'all for that. That's a major it was. Bro.

It's funny because I always tell Corey that was the easiest thing we ever did. Top five easiest had to be then, not the top three, like probably it was up there. So it was interesting because we was looking at all these NBA players wearing HBCU stuff, even wearing our stuff, and then we were like, bro, we should get into the game, Like it.

Just makes sense.

So we go to Ronnie two k's Instagram and we see he got millions of followers, so it was like that ain't gonna work.

So then we go to his everyone that he's following and just look at.

Everyone who has NBA two K and they bio like they work there in some capacity.

There's only four hundred people that he follows.

Right, four hundred, So hit up all of those people maybe like ten fifteen, and then a few got back, but then one of them happened to go to an HBCU, so he was like, I don't know, I'm not the guy that does this, but I know the guy who does. Then he put us in an email thread and then the next day it was done and that was all we did.

Literally fire.

The guy was like, bro, I played at UMBs. He was like, Bro, I love y'all's brand. He said, all I want is a hoodie out of this. I said, Bro, we will send you as many hood as you We got that email talking about two days later. I was sending them designs and we had to figure out how to make it video game design. It's not just a regular P ANDNG, so we had to hire somebody to

Bro, you gotta be creative.

Another way that we that we've done before is like when Mark Cuban worked a few times for us, where like we put a post wrote a post about like Mark Cuban, and like tag him in the comments if you want, if you want to see him with the uy L that two ways how that could work because we did the same thing with Gary V and Gary V so many people tagged him in the comments that his actual like operations manage actually reached out to us.

So that might be top one of the top three easiest ones that we had.

Crazy. It ain't nobodyaire.

It was like, Yo, here's his email. I'm like like what. And that's what happened with the with the what if method, because.

What's thatth So what we do is like we'll come up with ideas of people that we want to do collabse with our partnerships with, and then we'll say what if or what would it look like if we partnered with X, Y, and Z. So we Urban Outfitters had actually did a partnership with this other brand and they made some HBCU stuff and it was like in Urban Outfitters, but on Twitter it was getting slandered crazy because like they didn't it didn't feel that it was it was

Saw what you guys were doing. We'd love to get you in the store, X, Y and Z.

And then that turned into I mean they bought hundreds and hundreds of thousand dollars worth of stuff from us.

Now, no, that's that's really that's really smart because you capitalize off of somebody else's mistake.

And it's like brands do.

That all the time, where they just make mistakes right, and it's like they might have just did the wrong collad they might have had the wrong commercial with then everybody's like trying to like trash them and all of that, but it's like a right instead of like just throwing them away?

What if I like that? If?

So that words So social and media obviously is key here, right. We did it with two K, we did it with Urban Outfit is but what if we're in Macy's because like, I'm not sure how intap they are with social media? So like, how did that even come about? Like who approached them?

Yeah?

So that was from like consultants.

So the good thing is like I like to I like to pay for people's.

Experience, you know what I'm saying.

So when I hire consultant like him, they already have access to all of these other places. So once we got into urban and kind of proved the concept, he was like, oh bet I'm taking it to Macy's, dt L R, Bloomingdale's, et cetera. And then that's really all it was. So it was essentially like, hey, make me a line sheet. You're an urban already, I'm gonna send it over to Macy's. And it was instant.

Like the proof of concept. Everything you're saying is it transcend.

It transcends so many different businesses and it's like one thing about businesses that whether it's merch, whether it's podcasting, whether it's whatever, it's a lot of similarities. And it's like even for us, like you know, we did activation in our basal and with ally United Masters, and that was something that was really unique because you know, financial literacy. Actively it worked out. Now we have a proof of concept. Now it's like, all right, what event do we want to do next?

Whatever you want exactly exactly.

Once you do one thing, now you have a proof of concept.

We have to do this again everywhere, and then this is what we do too, because every it's funny because you're right, because we're.

Going back and forth like how things work out.

And when you said that, I thought about how we get other influencers to wear our stuff. So once like Chris Paul wears something with d M k D and be like, yo KD Chris Paul wearing something, Devin Booker, Jannis Tompo, you know, all these people like what do you.

What you own?

Like on's at the time you're like, dude, support you, I don't get it, you know, we're just joking or whatever.

But then you know that proof of concept makes them like, oh damn. All the homies wearing it, like let me go ahead and support it.

We're throwing, we're throwing had them like yannas CP. It's like grease.

It gets you credibility too, Like one person, same thing with us, Like it's like all right, we can go to you know whoever and be like, yo, all right, Rick Ross is on the show.

T is on the show. It's on the show. Yeah, so don't try to act like YouTube.

Not not one person is be like I'm not coming on that show.

Not one person. It's no way.

It's definitely adds a lot of credibility for one person stands next to it.

It's like a lot of other people feel more comfortable.

When y'all y'all chose Chris Paul specifically. Obviously he was the president of the m v p A at the time, so I get it, like you didn't.

It's like we could have cited Lebron, but like this guy can get to the entire league. Were you making custom designs specifically for them to make it unique?

Like all right, well, I just don't want to have that one because I remember they had the jacket.

With the with the joints all the way down.

So that was the custom we did for all the NBA All Stars.

Actually we spent that that whole The way that came about was crazy because that wasn't supposed to. Yeah, So what I did was I looked at an old All Star jacket from years ago, one of my favorite ones. I forgot where they were, what city it was, but they basically had they had the black and white like they had the stars, the stars of how many they had, like trous. I was like, we should do that down the sleeves and then the All Star colors red and blue and then on the back put their number in

Scratch, but we did for him.

For Chris Paul, we sent our regular stuff obviously, we sent vintage T shirts that weren't even ours, just vintage HBCU that we thrifted, and we was like, he wears that kind of stuff, let's stowed in there. And we were just giving him any and everything HBCU so we could have enough to talk about. Right, So he's always talking about this, always on brand. Then when he puts our stuff on, then It's like, oh, it makes sense.

These shoes were inspired by Clark Atlanta.

And so we do stuff like that for Chris and the team because they really are about supporting HB. They really about that life, and so we just give them whatever they need because it's worth it for them and it's worthy for us.

It's the general idea of support black business and black pride was at an all time high. So a brand like support Black colleges, that's just like, you know what I mean, goales hand in hand with that social conscious awareness that's happening.

Bro.

It's interesting because like things like that you can't really time, you know, it's just like a certain element of luck. So I was just thinking about that the other day and I was like, damn, bro, like this, there's no way we could have planned that. So when all of those things happened, all we had to do was just pivot, and then everybody was I was thinking.

I was like, it's very possible that.

People are going to just buy white teas and like, you know, not spend no money.

And then everybody's.

Mindset shifted to oh, now we're only supporting black businesses and over supported and that's it. And then we were like, all right, bet so we need to pivot, drop more stuff and then spend more in advertising. And then that's when we spent the most in advertising we ever had, and those are some of our biggest months.

I'm just thinking from a standpoint where it's like the name is perfect, right, because if everybody's trying to support black, once you type it support black, right, you at the top of the search.

Definitely at the top of the stake, like you're at the top of the search.

So it was like the first thing that they That's what I was gonna say that A marketer is like, wait, support black.

As soon as I type did it's you? And I was like, this is the first place always support black colleges. Yeah, we definitely have to.

That's good. Our SEO was so good. I had a lady call me and said, my brand is called.

HBCU something something, and y'all's page always comes up, and like, how do I get this?

Stop?

And I'm just like, I have no idea even how that happened, I said, I guess people are just searching it. But the truth is, like we spend money on that. And one thing about that is like about just doing what you're supposed to be doing.

Y'all were already doing this.

So when you're doing what you're supposed to do and true to you really are, the people will find you. They found y'all just like they were supposed to. They found us, just like we weren't supposed to get all this money, and two years ago we wouldn't have been ready for it. We wouldn't have been prepared for what was coming. So everything comes at the right time, and we appreciate the time that it came. It was unfortunate how it had to come.

But we made it.

And you gotta be positioned. So that's another thing too. You have to be positioned. And like you said, you don't know when something's going to happen. Sometimes you're just fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time. But the thing with the right place at the right time that's misleading is that you could be at the right place at the right time. But the third part is being prepared so you could be at the right place, right time. If you're not prepared, it

That's like part of my thing is, like I always say, like being in the right place all the time, Like whether you've got to hide in the bathroom, whether you got to wait five hours, you're doing it and it didn't work, that's fine. I'm gonna put myself in position every time. I'm gonna put it that it's made positions I can be in. I'm in because it could work.

The game of numbers, it could eventually, it's gonna work, exactly, And I got to say yes eventually.

Even if you like, I'm just gonna say that because I feel bad for him for waiting. Take the pity. Yes in the stall, you know, And I think too, because we had we.

Talked about times that did work, but we should talk about time that didn't work. And that's when we made a million dollars on black Friday, and it actually backfired on us, like it wasn't what we thought making a million dollars to be like.

So talk about that?

How did so most people say, you made a million dollars on Black Friday, that's a you know, that's a successful day by any.

Measure, successful year life.

How is that?

How did that? How did that backfire?

So I thought of beginning the story out ad justin kind of finish it. But one thing about one thing about the way life happens is something bad always happens before something good happens.

So before we made.

That money, our warehouse had flooded. Actually two weeks before that. It was a big rainstorm. I think all of us were out of town. I was in North Carolina. I think you were in Houston because we had to send Blau to go check on the warehouse. So it rained in Atlanta randomly like oh d hard for like two days, and so we got a call from the from the warehouse like a lot of warehouse are flooding, Go check on your warehouse. Send somebody up there. Sure enough, and flooded.

Oh yeah, I mean you know, it was like a five day campaign. So between Black Friday and we start love Black Friday a little bit early too, because something I learned from my consultanc is most of the big box companies are starting them way earlier, and they're disguised. They're disguising it as friends and family sales. So but their their tactic is just steal all the money from everybody before small businesses can even get a chance to make money because they're starting on Black Friday. So we

I think we started on Tuesday and Wednesday year, but the big box was starting two months early.

Right right right you seeing those salesbaya.

So so we put that together. Then we kind of ideated like what we wanted to do. We ended up doing a buy one, get one hoodie. So it's like, I mean essentially fifty percent off or like whatever. Yeah, and it went crazy, bro, Like we sent out how many texts, probably like three to three texts a day, two emails a day, something along those lines.

And yeah, within that five day.

Period, we did a little over a million dollars, like like one point a little under one point one And it.

Was crazy and into a little hack for Black Friday, always drop a new product at full price so you have your sales stuff. Obviously every Black Friday, drop a new product at full price because people are still going to buy because they feel like they're getting a deal on everything else. So one said, that's sending their money somewhere else. Just spend the full price with you.

That's a haden.

And then for us too, I think one thing that really did us well was diskis in that Bogo I mean that fifty percent off as Bogo and then like, oh, free ship into if you if you spend this much, so it's like deal on top of deal on top of deal. That way you feel like there's no way I can't get this and make it happen. So that's how we were able to get the money, I mean the numbers. And after that, the part that was hard was fulfilling the stuff because we sold. We so we

He pressed it.

So that's when guess what, God, hey, listen, it's overtime.

This we so by the end of that season, we had what thirty staff people, They had thirty, but you're.

Hiring as like, yeah, so you didn't have the inventory in place.

We thought we had enough, you know, at first that sounds good.

We didn't have We didn't have nothing like the stuff we had on the shelves were going that day. And then what we realized was like, man, we wasn't really prepared for a million dollar day. And so I think we ended up getting those orders out. I mean they started, they finished in like March or April.

Happened us two years ago. We didn't do a million dollars merch, but we did a lot of merch. That was our first time actually using the guys overseas, and they promised to something that they really couldn't they always. It took us to springtime to actually can fill that orders, and a lot of people was unhappy.

There's a lot it was just a tough man.

It's tough. He has high anxiety to be imagine this time.

That's why we don't anything that we don't have.

It's like learn, let's learn going back to that's like a street every day.

I'm like, yo, bro side man, we're going to it's coming it's governing.

It's coming without any work that you don't have.

So, yeah, you hired thirty people.

Yeah, and do we keep these people or is it like seasonal seasonal someone that was planning to be seasonal.

But you know, we were living that life like, oh we got a warehouse, we got thirty employee.

We was talking on social media, got thirty employees.

It's lit, but not understanding that a lot of those people weren't actually doing anything. So we're paying people and it looks busy because you're taking a hoodie here, but the production seemed to even go lower than when we had eight people. We could actually have eyes on everybody. Yeah, so we didn't keep everybody for a long time. We actually started like got some people doing that time, and then we pivoted and brought us some other companies.

Oh yeah, because that's one of the things too, is like we made the decision to let everything continuously sell because I mean we saw.

Like the numbers we were doing.

I knew I knew that I had some connections somewhere to be able to get the like the stuff made. So we made some connections with these guys called takedown sportswear Down here, and they were they can do like a thousand hoodies a day for us heat pressed, so the whole thing. So we ended up just using the money that we made from Black Friday giving them a fat chunk of it, and then they just started hammering all the hoodies out and then we just as everything

So those are the employees. But I know you have ambassadors. Yeah, like there's over one hundred ambassadors. What's that process? Like, is this like when we see like the sack Boys or something like that, Like how does this work?

We're not that defined, but I'll say this. So we stopped it last year because of COVID, like a lot of people weren't on campus. But basically what we do is kind of the same like Inde Ray influenc of marketing. We find people that are like student council presidents or like the popular Greeks or the basketball team, whoever has the most followers, And all we do is go to if I search North Carolina, ant I'll look at their location and the first few posts are always people with the most followers.

So I'm clicking. I'm like, okay, what does he do? What does he do?

And we basically just get those all the cool kids, popular kids, and we utilize them. And then like TikTok is so popular now. So we got a guy from Howard Zeti. I mean he get two hundred thousand view He from New York. He get two hundred four hundred thusands every video. Yeah, he just be like dancing, talking New York slang. You know, people love New York culture, and so he just he's held a funny though. But he'd be on campus, like just doing all this dancing

Everything you've done your entire lives has just been for this moment at all.

And I like, my favorite part about the ambassadors is how we kind of like put them all in one place, so we'll use like a group me and just talk to them all. So we kind of use it as like our pulse on the market, so to be like, Yo, we're thinking about dropping this, what do you guys think? Because they're like our direct audience. So then they'll be like, nah, change this, that don't work, x, Y and z, and then we can like redefine our design process to make

I spill smart you pay them too, or just free merch.

Free merch.

We don't really think that we pay if they do like certain things, like if it's something like a one off or if you get a certain amount of points.

Yeah, I mean it makes sense.

I mean to utilize the kids in school because that's you know how, that's who's actually driving the whole post, of the whole situation.

Yeah, even thought it, like I was thinking about this because I think, like in business is really important to

But I got some idea. I told you on camp.

About that idea.

I want to ask for ads. You have mentioned ads a few times.

Can you talk about that, like your ad journey and learn from from running ads?

New social media ads?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, So we run Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube and a few others.

Were like starting to experiment with TikTok the experience.

I was already running as before, like for like drop shipping companies and stuff before I had moved down. But I was like, I didn't understand a few things. So there's a few things to understand here. One, if you get any of these four things wrong, it's.

Going to be a failure.

When you're talking about ads, you have to have the right copy what you're saying to the people, the right creative what you're showing them, the right targeting the people that you're putting it in front of. And then also your website has to be optimized because even if I do if I have all three things right, the right copy, the right creative, and the right targeting, but my website is inoperable.

I'm not going to make money.

So you have to strengthen all four of those things, and if you do any one of them wrong, it's not going to work out for you.

But my experience specifically.

Because I ran the ads for us for multiple months until we gave it off to a team, it was difficult to like identify how to learn and I was like really just spending a lot of time on YouTube and just learning from different people, and it came to me one day I was like, if I don't execute and like put this campaign out, I'm never going to do it.

So I was like, this is my game plan.

I'm going to find one person on YouTube who I think is good at what they do, who is vetted and verified and has done something that I want to do, and then I'm going to just watch their videos and literally do exactly what they say. And that I made the campaigns and then I was like, all right, bet, I'm gonna just press go on it. I pressed go on it, and then we were seeing like a four hundred percent return on everything that we spent within the

The ads structure everything for me as well.

And then after that I spent like a thousand dollars here, thousand dollars there on different courses and whatnot, and kind of just educated myself in that way. And that's just like I'm really intoads. So the biggest thing about it was just like getting over the analysis paralysis, you know what I'm saying, like, cause I always say this call is like perfection is just an excuse not to execute.

So I was like all right, And then that was kind of our experience.

It went from not knowing who to trust what to do, picking one person and saying okay, cool, investing in myself and learning even deeper knowledge, and then from there outsourcing it to a team. After I had a full understanding of what to.

Do earn is what's going on.

Look, head over to support Black Colleges dot org right now, use a promo code EYL and get fifteen percent off everything that's right everything. There's no time like right now to get some new drip. So head over there right now. Don't wait, don't hesitate, don't play yourself, reward yourself, get some new merch.

Y'all.

A whole lot of game here.

This is why he's here. I hang out with the celebrities.

He does the real work.

That's a good thing. It's perfect.

What's next? What's next for you guys? What's what's on the vision board?

Oh man?

I mean we always say this.

We always have two different answers because we think totally different. For me, I mean I would like to continue to scale. My One of my goals is to be in every Barnes and Nobles on every HBCU bookstore because we can get on campus. That's cool physically showing up, but Barnes and Nobles has most of the contracts for all HBCUs, so if we can get our stuff in the bookstore, we don't have to sell us hard to the schools because you can get.

It every time.

And then during homecoming instead of us set up a booth to sell, go to the bookstore and get everything, and we can just do a big activation, but we're just having fun and then you know merchants, Oh we got in the bookstore, go get that.

So that's one of my goals.

I think that we can scale really big and I don't know, I just my goal is more about impacting as many people as possible, So like I want to impact a million people on social Like I want to be able to continue to grow the love for HBCUs. I want to get that first really really big recruit to an HBCU. Like we're working on those kids, Like we're talking to the kids like.

Yeah, that was one of the probably my last question was like we're seeing a movement in sports, right.

We saw it would make a maga go.

To Howard five star recruit and that was seeing top five and top ten recruits going to Jackson State, and I'm wondering, like, how are y'all feeling like your influence were there?

Yeah, you can feel it.

We We're talking to Dion like, oh yeah, yeah, we talked.

We talked to Dan. He got merched he can.

My boys hit some of course, like and a lot of those guys. There was one guy who's at Alabama State. Their guy he hit us like before he went like what y'all think with school? Were like we would go here and literally.

Like I can't.

I don't want to say names in school, but there are schools that are coaches that are hitting us up. Like I heard something I say, I see y'all post someone so y'all know them.

It was like, yeah, we know what you need.

And I'm like, yo, go here over Duke, go here on the literally telling them because the coach hit me and I'm like, Yo, that's that's what it's all about.

They waiting on the Mikey call, like where you're going.

Mike's the helpy Like he came out of the warehouse well last year and his mom told us he was like Mikey tried to commit his freshman year to an HBC and she.

Was like, hold, he put Howard on his on this list.

Yeahs off of his shorter list.

I think Hampton, Tennessee State, and uh, I think Texas Southern on his list still. But I'm interested to see he's gonna I'm interested he he likes HBC, So I just say that I mom went to Hampton.

I I got this because I'm looking at the logo. Every time I see the logo, it makes me think of early nineties, I think.

Different world restaurants.

Yeah, is that what it influences drawn from?

And then the colors are just based off of primary colors MINS with like Africa, and you think, you know the greens and the yellows. And then it's like a shield for the symbol. So when you wear it, you like, I got the shield on my chest. That's why we call this the official airport hoodie. You walk in the airport, you don't see one of these. Every time I go to the airport, I see four or five of these, and people like, oh, yeah, I'm mine in the airport, Like that's my airport hoodie.

And it's just like a shield.

It's proud and it's so crazy because when my friends see it somewhere, they're coming like, hey, corny, I just like a hoodie and it it's like you so proud, and that's like not even your hoodie, like you saw somebody in it.

That's what it's really all about.

Yeah, I think that that's important too, because like I think about that, especially like when I'm building it, like the website and like different things like that, because what I see like people who are successful, especially on websites versus not, they do a good job of like explaining the features of a product, but they don't explain the benefits of it, and then they don't explain why someone

Then?

Also, that's the feature, but that's what most people stop after that.

What's the benefit of it?

Well, it's a sleek design that has a comfortable fit that I can dress up and down. That's a benefit. But then on top of that, well why should I even care? Well, you should care because you can be comfortable, be have sleek design, but also represent your school in a way that makes you feel proud when you go out and about.

And that's the description that we build out.

So I think that that's important too, when like people are like thinking about what they're doing or why they're doing and how they're communicating that to their people.

Yeah, I remember just growing up watching the COSI show. I know it's going to aige me a little bit bit. I remember him just wearing that temple and like almost wanting to go to temple because just and then when they went to him and it was like.

Like, oh wait, this is crazy, Like what is this?

I didn't know any of this, Like my parents aren't from America.

Right, even like Chris from Chris lat Yeah, and he had the brand with the black colleges back in the nineties. And you know what I'm saying, Like that actually helped enrollment because like Mark Snoop.

Do all them, Queen Latifa, Yeah, they had the folks folks at their peak. Definitely, they really paid it. Like we I don't think we could do what we do without them doing what they did. And I'm saying with you know, Damion Johnafubu, like I think that that they just made it possible to understand that you can have a black owned business talking about black folks and black people and be successful.

They shout out to all of them and they helped us.

That's what I think.

Like you know, my goal is is like I want to take the company to a billion and I think that one we're uniquely positioned because as interracial couples, you know more, by twenty thirty, twenty forty, most people are going to be people of color. And I'm seeing it already with like Fanatics and other brands. They're starting to

Business, you know, in that way.

So I think this year is going to be like about big partnerships for us, and then as well as like expanding the brand into other distribution channels and then also going into you know, just those crazy partnerships and nets.

We tapping into that.

And the cool thing about HBCUs is is always incoming students. It's always graduate students, and it's always alumni.

Yeah, you said the biggest collaboration, biggest partnership.

So support, easy, support, leisure.

I'm gonna give you one when you off, let's do it.

Let's do it.

I like that, And we don't have a do this, but the next episode I'll be wearing that.

I appreciate. That means a lot.

It is me.

That's a fact.

Merch swap, So how can people follow you online, social media, website all that.

Yeah, so support by colleges now, organ is our website, Support Black College nos is our instagram and then my personal instagram is Corey Arvinger and Justin p.

Yeah, we're trying to get Corey a ten day contract.

If you're watching it, I'm ready to play Lakers. Y'all need a guard. I ain't doing nothing.

Shout out to everybody on patreon dot com. And I'm gonna tell the names right now because they are Tier five members. That mean they're the highest tier they have access to e y L University. Shout out to Jaden, Shout out to Nikia, shout out to a shot Welcome to e y L University is over twelve thousand students and earners there, so welcome to the family. And shout to everybody that's supporting the merch. Obviously, you know this

And everything that we're putting now.

We got a lot of stuff coming far, earners, and uh yeah, keep supporting love love yeah.

For sure, and make sure you support black colleges enroll, give charity endowments and all that stuff. They need help, they need help. And white colleges get way more fund than in black college and so it's very important stuff. Even if you didn't go to a black college, you can still support up. You don't have to be alumni of Actually called our.

Support and I went.

You probably went to a party then, so.

Sure, exactly, all right, God, thank you for rock Coords. We'll see you next week.

Peace.

Please, my graduates from my school being forced back drop bag drop my drop back drop drop.

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