Episode 30 - GenZ Series: Nick Wucher - Co-Founder of YIFNO Artwork

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GenX Adulting Podcast

Episode 30 - GenZ Series: Nick Wucher - Co-Founder of YIFNO

April 22, 2025 • Season 1 • Episode 30

In this episode we welcome Nick Wucher, the Co-Founder and Creative Director of the clothing brand YIFNO, which stands for “Yo, It’s F*cking Nice Out.” Nick is a GenZ/Zillennial who has spent a good part of his 20s solidifying himself as a high-level entrepreneur. We are offered a look into Nick’s childhood, where his parents seemingly excelled in providing a stable and supportive co-parenting example after they divorced when Nick was 5 years old. Nick shares how his mother’s determination to start her own business combined with his father’s success in the corporate world gave him the perfect foundation to stand on when it came time to chase his own dream. We are regaled with stories about his extended family in Peru as well as his paternal grandfather’s fascinating life in Miami, the Navy and Cuba. Nick shares about his antics in middle school, which included Friday fights and his first “business”, as well as his love for football, which he played from an early age through high school. He reflects about his college years in Tallahassee and the love he has for his Florida State University community of fellow Noles, as they were the first to support his brand, YIFNO. We learn of the birth and growth of YIFNO in Tallahassee and how Nick continued its growth when he returned to South Florida after graduating FSU. After accepting a corporate job, Nick successfully balanced his 9-5 all while continuing to build and grow YIFNO through pop-ups in various locations, including a successful stint in New York City. Nick shares the many ways he has worked to market YIFNO, including incorporating YIFNO into comedy shows and selling his line internationally. We learn about his past and present business partners, which include his younger brother, and his cherished team, who it’s obvious he holds in the highest esteem. Together they are world building, creating and maintaining a community of authenticity, quality and loyalty. Nick shares insight on the balance of not caring what others think while still caring deeply about your work, as well as the importance of not being ashamed of prioritizing your finances through a 9-5 while you work on your “5-9”. We were thrilled to have Nick in the studio to share not only his story but the story of YIFNO as well. Brian and I both believe in this brand, as it comes from a creative place of good and real, which is exemplified in many ways, one being the charitable causes YIFNO supports both domestically and internationally. We look forward to having Nick back in the studio in the future and are excited to participate in the YIFNO community!

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(upbeat music)Welcome to Gen X Adulting.And today we have Nick with us.Thank you for joining us in the studio today.Thank you for having me.So the first question we always askis what year were you born?1997.Okay, so you're a Gen Z Zillennial.Do you know what a Zillennial is?I didn't know what a Zillennial was.And then I heard thatepisode you guys had with Ben.And I do know what a Zillennial is.So you know that, and for any listenerswho haven't listened yet to the other episodesabout Zillennials, but to sum it up,Zillennials kind of gotthe best of both worlds.You got most of your childhood old schoolbefore technology entered the picture.You were the generation of flip phones,Snapchat, Instagram, all that kind ofentered your world high school.It started off in middle school.Middle school, okay.Towards the end of middle school.Okay, and then youactually did use Facebook, right?That was one of yoursocials that you guys would use?Oh yeah, so it wasMyspace in elementary school,but you weren't reallyallowed to have a Myspace.Okay, so you guysactually had exposure to Myspace?I can't say you guys.I had a cousin that would make me a Myspaceand I would go over to my grandparents' houseand that's where I would operate the Myspace.Okay, okay, all right.My parents' house, obviouslynot allowed to have a Myspace.I didn't have a cellphone in elementary school.Okay, yeah, so that makes sense.So if you could figure out a way,like if you had a connection of an oldercousin-sibling friend, youcould kind of do the Myspace thing.But for when you settled into social media,that was more like Facebook, I would assume.Facebook. And Instagram.Now, do you personally still use,like what platforms would you sayfor your personal life you still use?I use Instagram the most.Okay.TikTok, I try to get into,but I use it mostly for the brand.I'm looking to get back on Twitter X,however you wanna call it,just because of howentertaining it is, honestly.Yeah, yeah, yeah.I think you can see some funny shit on there.And Facebook is pretty outdated, to be honest.I think it's more Gen Xers,Boomers that are on there,maybe older millennials,but I don't think the Gen Zs are on there.I think the same people that are using Facebookas their main source of social mediaare the same people thatutilize LinkedIn a lot.Oh, that's interesting.Yeah. Yeah.Yeah, probably.Yeah, and that's probably really true.So do you know anyone your agethat still uses Snapchat regularly?Honestly, yeah.Most of my friends do.I don't use Snapchat as much as I used to,because it used to be huge.But now, I just, I triedto stay off social mediabecause of the amount of doom scrollingand stuff that I used to do.Like I don't have any notifications onfor any social media platforms.But I need to be on Instagram oftenand TikTok often for the business.But you try to unplug when you can.And one of the ways is to not let notificationscome through.Exactly.Do you find, do you still watch TV?Are you streaming services or has social,I guess you're not on socialmedia as much you're saying.Like for some people, they're on TikTokmore than they are watching Netflixor watching streaming services.It's become their form of entertainment.Would you say that's the case with you?I wouldn't say so.I would say I'm on Instagram a good amount.I'd be lying to say if I didn't.I have a two hour timer on my phoneor it'll let me know like,hey, you've reached twohours on Instagram, get off.And I'll just ignore it.But it's, I do take mytime to watch certain TV showsbecause I mean, you need toturn off your brain sometimes.It's true.So I'll like, that'll be mydessert basically at night.I'll throw in like an episode of a showor documentary or something that isn't relatedto what I'm doing at the moment.It's interesting to think about thatbecause it used to be, atleast when we were growing up,you watch too much TV, it pushes your brain.Like our parents would belike, don't watch so much TV.And now I feel like with social media,your brain is so engaged when you're scrollingthat watching TV has become the relaxing thing.And that just shows-Actually, it's an interesting concept.Yeah, I think it shows how-I do that.Yeah.If I wanted to now, now I almost throw on TV.Right.Which is crazy.But for at least Gen Xers,and I don't know about you growing up,but we were like, ourparents literally would say,it's gonna ruin your brain,you're watching too much TV, all of that.But I think with social-I think that's true.There's a lot of fucked up stuff on TV, but-Yeah, but I mean, it was more likejust constantly watching TV.That's what they meant.Used to tell us too,if you're sitting too close to the TV,you're gonna get, you know, whatever that was.You'd get blind.You'd go blind, yeah, yeah.My parents wouldn't let me sit close to the TV.Yeah.Okay, so you heard that too, to some degree.And then you think about with social media,there's so much stimulation going on,and your brain is always going,and it's so quick, quick, quick,that when you wannachill, you put on television.Yeah.I'm curious, on the Instagram,if you're on, say for a while,is it personal and pleasure?Are you doing research while you're on,or kind of both, I guess?So, yes, for the most part, it is research,but again, the algorithm,you're getting hit with everythingthat your brain wants to see.It's based on your preferences.So, I'll go to look on someone's page,or another brand's page,or something to educate me for the business,and then if I swipe up,then it's stuff about the Miami Dolphins.Now I'm watchingfootball videos for 30 minutes,and then it'll go to food videos,and then it'll go to just whatever.Yeah, so yeah.It has a mind of its own,but it also is your preferencesand what you enjoy to watch.That's what it's built for.Yeah, absolutely.So, I think it's coolfor you guys as millennialsthat you did get most of your childhoodbefore all that wasentrapped, entrapped your brains,because for the younger kid, like our youngest,they don't know a world without it.They're the social media generation,the younger Gen Zs.You guys are the oldest, they're the youngest,and just that span,how your childhoods can be so different.World change pretty damn quick actually.Very quickly.So, I think you guys are,you really did get,I always say that, the best of both worlds.So, where were you born?I was born in Boca Hospital actually.Oh, okay.But I grew up in Davy, Weston.Well, technically Sunrise,but there's a road, Weston Road,and it separates, it's so weird.It separates Weston andBonaventure are on this side.And then on this side, youhave a pocket of Sunrise,which really isn't Sunrise, and Davy.So then I grew up,technically I grew up in Weston.Okay.Sunrise, but Weston, I grew up in Weston.Okay.And did you grow up with both your parents?I did, but they divorced when I was five.And do you know how they met?Yeah, so my dad wasactually supposed to go on a datewith my aunt.Oh, no way.And she got back with my uncle,because they're still married to this day.Okay.And my aunt goes to my mom, like,really cute guy, he's cool, whatever,you should go out with him.And then--No way.And then he showed up, she's like,"Hey, I'm getting back with my boyfriend."Would you want to take my sister out?"And he's like, "Sure."No way.That's hilarious.So he arrived, thinking hewas gonna take out your aunt.And she was in betweenmaking this date with him,she had gotten back together with your uncle.And then said, "Take out my sister."And he was like, "Allright, he just went with it?"That's awesome.Are they twins?No, so she is a year or two older than my mom.Okay. Okay.And then do you have siblings?I do, I have a little brother.Okay.So, and what's the space there?He is 24, three years older than him.Okay, and are you guys still close?Oh yeah, he's a partner in Yif and O.Oh, nice. Cool.That's wonderful.So they divorced when you were five?Yeah.Do you have any memories of them,of living with them together?Oh yeah, we used to havea house in Coconut Creek.I remember, I mean, I was until I was five,so it was like,I remember having a StarWars birthday party there.I remember, I thought the house was haunted.Why?You know, when you're a kidand you're going down like the stairsand you go down like, youbump your butt down the stairs?I just, maybe my little kid brain,but something picked meup from one of the stairsand brought me to the bottom stairs.That has stuck with me since.What in the world? Howold do you think you were?I had to have been four.So you know what they say about children?That they see spirits in100% until they hit that age.It's true.Until they hit their consciousness shifts,that they see spirits and,like there's been children talking to spiritsand they're two, three, four years old.So I believe you.I believe you 100%.I'm still sticking by my story.Yeah, I mean, it was real,for you to still feel that way,I 100% think that that happened.Yeah, I mean, you seem pretty convinced.So it's pretty wild, that's cool.So, but it sounds like itwasn't a negative haunting.It was more, they were helping you out.Yeah.So do you have, so when they got divorced,did you, one of the parents had primary custodyor was it split?It was split custody.So how did they split it?Did you do like three days,three days, three days, three days?So it'd be like three days.So it'd be three days andtwo days during the weekdaysand they would alternate per weekand then they would alternate weekends.And for both you guys,both you and your brother?Yeah.How was that, doing that?So we're super blessed thatour parents weren't the typeto always be arguing witheach other or bring us into it.They always made sure that wedidn't feel the effect of it.So it was more of like, ohcool, we have two houses now.And we got to see, you know,both of the single parent experiences.So my mother started her owncompany from like the ground up,like didn't have much money.We always, we didn't want for anything,but we weren't as rich aslike the kids that were in Westinbecause there's a lot of money in that area.Yeah.Yeah, so we were like middle-classand I watched her grow her business from zeroto being one of the bestinterior designers in South Florida.Wow.That's cool.Yeah, so then I got tosee the entrepreneur side.Like she wouldn't go tobed till 2 a.m., 3 a.m.,wake up 6 a.m., back to it.Yeah.So I remember waking up whenI was like eight years old,nine years old, can't,don't know the exact age.I remember walking in to heroffice at four in the morning.I was like, why are you awake?Yeah.And she goes, "Plata no doerme,"which is money doesn't sleep in Spanish,most from Peru.Okay.And I was like, cool, thatstuck with me for a long time.And then I had the otherside of it, which was my father,and he would go to work early, leave work late,didn't miss a footballgame, didn't miss a practice,like always there for us,whatever we needed, we had it.But he went, it was more the corporate route.So it was cool seeing both sidesand them figuring it out themselvesand maneuvering through that.And I didn't realize it at the time,but as I got older, I got to like,put it in perspective.So it was cool to see both sides.So you got to learn from both of them.Yeah.And you were absorbing iteven if you didn't realize itat the time.It's interesting when youget older and you can look backand you see everything so clearly.And even absorbing it in your subconscious,it's almost like it wakes uponce you hit a certain age.And you're like, oh, okay, I get that now.That's really cool.I love what her saying is money doesn't sleep.Yeah. Is how she's, or money never sleeps.Money doesn't sleep.Money doesn't sleep.So she's from Peru?Yeah, she's from Miraflores, so Lima.When did she come here?She came here when she was16 or 17 to go to college.So she went to Nova Southeastern.Cool.Did she come just her?She came with my aunt.Okay.My aunt didn't go to school.She went to culinary school.So she left her family.Her mom left her family except for her aunt.Yeah, because Peru waspretty dangerous back then.So for example, my mom told me stories.Her and my uncle worked at this hoteland they both took off that day.And the day that they took off,terrorists went in andblew up the entire building.Seriously?Yeah.So what year with that?She was born in 71, so.The 80s.I didn't realize that about Peru, did you?Not specifically, but I know South Americawas very dangerous back then for sure.So was it her and her sister, her and her aunt?No, my mom and her sister.So the day that they left?Oh no, the two that camehere, my mom and my aunt,but my uncle and my mom worked there.And then my uncle went andhelped with what happened.Right, right.Trying to find people and whatnot.Did they have family herethat they came to live withor did they just went toAmerica and made it happen?Yeah.And so, but they had, just tomake sure I'm understanding,your mom had left andthat happened after she leftor she was there when that happened?Oh, she was there.She just had the day off.They took the day off.Oh, they took the day off.Oh my goodness.It's very fortuitous, right?And that's a sign I would assume.Wow.She works there every dayand the day that they took off,it gets a terrorist attack.That's crazy.So how much longer afterthat happened did she come here?The next day.Yeah, I mean that I'm not sure of.I just know that she came here like 16, 17,started college as theyfinished school earlier.And do you know, were yourgrandparents both still alivewhen she came over here?Oh yeah.Did she still see them a decent amount?Not as much, but theywere always writing lettersback and forth andgetting on a call when they canbecause it was different.They didn't really havecell phones and whatnot.Did you know them growing up?Your grandparents?My grandparents?Oh yeah, but so on my mom's side,I'm the oldest of all the cousins.So I had the most time to spend with my grandpaand my grandma.So my Nona is still alive.She lives in Peru right now still.And she comes back and forth and she'll visitand stay with us for long periods of timewith my mom or my aunt.And then my grandpa passed away when I was,so my papa passed awaywhen I was in second grade.But yeah, I got the most quality time with him.Like I remember watching him,letting me watch "The Matrix" with him.Oh that's cool.When I was in secondgrade and my mom was livid.Yeah.She was pissed.That's actually though amovie that you have to think.As you're watching it, you have to use,I feel like that movie uses your brainmore than being an action bloody movie.I feel like you have to really pay attention.So out of all the movies,that one isn't the worst.There are a lot worse movies.We would like act out the fighting scenes.Well, there you go.And then I would like seethese sports illustrated bikini.You could have seen the thing and be like,yeah, look at that.There you go, there you go, there you go.And what about yourgrandparents on your dad's side?Grandparents on my dad's side?I'm super blessed to bewith them for a long time.So my pop-up passed awaywhen I was a sophomore,I think in college.And then my Nana passedaway my fifth year in college,I think, yeah, my fifth year.But amazing people, like the stories that I,the stories from both sides of my grandparentswhen I was in Saint, like my mom's side,of my grandpa and my mom's sidecomes from like a little village in Peru,like made his way up to being a doctorand opening a practice.Wow. Yeah.And he owned horses and whatnot.So we would like go tothe horse races out there.So I have pictures of all of uslike in the winter circle or whatever.And then my grandpa on my dad's side,he like, I swear you couldwrite a movie on this guy's life.So he was Al Capone'spaper boy when he was a kid.Wait, where was he from?Chicago. Chicago?No, it was when Al Capone moved to Miami.So he's from, they're from North Miami.So your dad's side is from Miami, North Miami.Yeah, North Miami Beach.He was his paper boy, so what did that entail?So like a little kid on abicycle, like growing papers.And he would come up andgive Al Capone his paper.Al Capone used to eatsandwiches with my great grandpaat his grocery store almost every daywhen he lived here.No way. So yeah.Are there pictures?I have to ask.I'm not that we need to see them.I'm just curious, you should ask them.This is before he got killed.Yeah, yeah, you should ask for sure.That's amazing.Yeah, and then after that, so he went in,so he played like five sports and he got offersfrom UM Holy Cross whenHoly Cross was good at sports,a couple of different schools.And then instead of taking any of those offers,he decided to go into the Navyand he was in the Vietnam Warand he used to defuse bombs.Oh wow. Wow.We would ask him like, when we were kids,have you ever killed anyone?And he would just like not say anything.Would he talk about the experience at allor was he pretty mom about it?Oh no, he would tell usabout the Navy and whatnot.Like just funny stories,because I mean, he was on aship for most of the time.And then he came backand to tie in back into the mob situation.So he would go and start fishingand he would like fish at this one areaand this guy wasn'tcatching any fish and he saw it.He goes, "Hey, like I know a spot, come with meand like you'll actually catch some fish."And whatever, they startfishing together every other day,whatnot.He goes up to my grandpa one day and he goes,I want you to marry my daughter.Like, and he's like, Ican't, I actually have a wife.Yeah.So then fast forward,my grandpa is managing a boxer in Cuba.So this is when Cuba was like Las Vegas.Yeah, yeah. Before Castro.Yeah. So they have their boxerand Cuba, sorry.And someone comes up to him like,you need to grab your other managerand you need to grab the fighterand you guys need to get out of here.And it was the guy that he was fishing withand the guy who he taught orshowed him the fishing spotwas actually one of thehit men for like, Kamav.Oh wow. Yes.So was he the guy who told them to leave?The guy that the hit men hit me?Yeah, yeah.So he hadn't seen the hit men in years.But then he saw him and the time he saw him,he said, you guys need to leave.Hit men recognized him,went up to him and said, hey.Now was there a hit on them?Good to see you, but hit the road.No, they tipped him offbecause Castro was comingand the revolution started in Cuba.Wow.Yeah. Wow.So they left in time.That just shows you.Always do good things, do good deeds.You never know when it'sgonna come back around.Yeah, it just had so manygood stories about my grandpa.I mean, like, and then also, like, you know howthere was a lot of likeracism back then and whatnot,but he had someone that worked for himand he would take him to temple with him.Like they were boys, just, yeah.My grandpa would take me to Hebrew school.And they were the ones that like,they're the glue to the family, basically.Okay, okay. Yeah, cool, cool.So are you half Peruvian?I'm half Peruvian, I'm half American Jewish.Okay, so were you raised with, as Jewish,or were you raised Catholic?I assume they're Catholic.So I had a bar mitzvah, but I was raised both.So I celebrated bothholidays, like when my mom would goto church, I'd go to church with her,and my dad would go totemple or take us to temple.I'd go to temple with him.So you had a Christmas treeand you celebrated Hanukkah.Christmas is the best holiday.It's kind of the best of both worlds, right?It's the best. Rules.Yeah, they've got it all.100%.I have a couple of friendslike that who, she's Jewish,and he's, I don't think,I don't know what he is,but I'm not Jewish, and theycelebrate Christmas and Hanukkahand the kids love it.Like this is the best.It's like a month longcelebration of everything.Sounds like Chanukah.Yeah, our daughter's birthdaythat goes on for eight days.That's really cool.I was still following that your grandpa gave upall these college offers.What a patriot.Was it to go fight for his country?Yeah, so I guess that, I mean--That's amazing.It was super patriotic back then.Especially back then, thoseare some great opportunities.And then somehow he was managing a boxer.I mean, you're right, you couldn't do a movieabout this guy.And an even crazier one isthat, so my great grandpa,I said he would eat lunch with Gal Capone,it's like corned beef sandwich, whatever.Specifics, no matter, but they lived next doorto the grand wizard of the KKK.Oh my God.South Florida and they're Jewish.And the grand wizard liked my grandpa so much,he was like, "Hey, you're a good Jew.We'd like to have you."No way.And my grandpa was like,"Get out of here."In the KKK.He's like, "I'm good."Oh my God.Thank you, but no.Wow, that is too much.Okay, so you're a South Florida boy,your roots are pretty much here.Like your family, everybody.I have a question though.You mentioned Christmas is a great holiday.Was it special when you were a kid?Like, did your parents go overboard at all?Because we kind of always have.Our kids love Christmas,I'm curious if that was your--Yeah, Christmas.I wouldn't say they wentoverboard with presents.We would never get a crazy amount of presents,but it was just the fact that it was Christmas.I was obsessed with Santa Claus.I made my mom, even when people told methat Santa Claus wasn't real,like I guess it's kind of embarrassing,but middle school, Iwould literally tell my mom,I'd go, "Safe from SantaClaus if you guys give us gifts."I want to feel the Christmas spirit.You were holding on to the magic.I think all three of ourkids were the last one.They held on to it untilthere was no denying it.Santa is real.It's maybe not the guy in the race too,but the magic of Santa is 100%.And you keep it going.Yeah.So I had this realization this past week,because it's Passover and also Easter,obviously, this Sunday,but every holiday is so much betterwhen there's kids involved in it.So now that my cousinsare having kids and whatnot,it's so much more fun because, for example,in Passover, there's Elijah.So Elijah is the spirit that comes inand the kids get scarred from itbecause they'll see a cup of wine.You leave a cup of wine forElijah and then he drinks it,but it just disappears.So the kids look at it andthey think ghosts or something.Yeah, yeah, yeah.So it's almost scarring to them.Yeah, yeah, yeah.But it's so hilarious.They bring all the magic back.100%.It's funny because whenDylan was born, Nathan was 13.So right as Nathan hadbeen out of Santa for a whileand then Kaya was almostout of it, Dylan was born.So I think Nathan was 25.Now, it was the first time in his lifehe didn't have to believe inSanta anymore for his siblingsbecause we started it allover again when Dylan was born.I remember him thinking,"This is awesome.This is the first time I don't have to pretendthat somebody's coming into our house."It was 25 years of that,but it's fun when they're young.It's amazing because when you're a kid,there's the Santa tracker online.Yeah. Yeah, yeah.So where he's going and whatnot.Oh, I still pull it off.No Rad. Yeah.Yeah, we come back, wedo masks and we do dinnerand then I pull up No Rad and we all look.You know, and we talk, we playUno and we watch Where's Santa?It's just for fun.Yeah, no.With the gift giving part,it's so funny some of the giftsthat I look back on with my mom.So my dad was more like the gift card guy.Like, yeah, like heartfelt no, all that.And then my mom would give me,I remember I reallywanted a pair of Air Jordans.Like obviously like every kid.And then my mom got me a pair of Shacksthinking they were Air Jordans.Oh no.Those are like Kmart shoes.Right, right, right.And I was still stoked about it.Oh yeah.Because I was like,"That'snew pair of shoes, whatever."And then I remember getting like $100and I go, I could buy,I fully was convinced I could buy a car.With $100.I was like, "That's hilarious."I was like, "I can get a car now, right?"And then in middle school, I got in trouble.I got like suspended from school or something.And I remember my mom told all my family,"Don't get him any gifts."The only thing I got that Christmaswas a Books A Million gift card.Oh my gosh.Wait, what's Books A Million?Like the bookstores,like a bookstore gift card.A bookstore gift card?Yeah.And you didn't even go into any bookstoreand buy books with it?Or was that a brand?That was a brand.Never even heard of that, have you?Me neither, no.No?So I just had to read books.Those books.I had to buy books from my--Man, she's good.That is good.I don't know if I could have held to that.Did you ever get kicked out of school again?Or did you ever get kicked out of schoolor suspended it again?After that, no.Okay.So it worked.I did get in trouble outside of school.(laughing)So it worked.Okay, so when they got divorcedyou guys are splitting time. I assume they bothwere in the same schooldistricts. So it didn't matter whose houseyou're at. For middle school weused or for elementary school middle school weused my mom's address. Okay. Andthen for high school we used my dad's addressso we could go to Cypress. Okay soit was a little bit longer drive for one ofthem then I assume. Yeah but it'sWeston so it's like the longest drive you'regonna make is 15 minutes. Okay soit didn't matter. And then you and your brotherwhat a couple grades separated?Three years apart so he was a freshman when Iwas a senior. Were you always inthe same school together then? Yeah. At somepoint? Well yeah except middle school.Okay you never crossed. Yeah. Okay did you playany sports? Yeah football my wholelife. I was playing football I started when Iwas seven years old and then tillI was 18 and my senior year high school. Wasthere travel? Oh yeah. Did youtravel football? Yeah I mean for likeliterally football so we played a YFL so that'smostly all teams in BrowardCounty. Okay. But then we would play atournament in Panama City. Okay. And thenfor high school obviously we traveled to youknow Miami, Boca, like everywhere. Justwhoever was in our district or our class. Yeah.And did you play any other sportsor was it just all football? I played a littlebasketball and like soccer when Iwas younger but for most part it was justfootball, football, football,offseason, trained for football. Like that wasmy life. And was it just anatural love of the game or what did it getpassed down to you from your dad oryour grandfather? Definitely got passed downbut I loved the game immediately.Like I that's all I could think about andthat's how I kind of got into youknow starting to dress nice and stuff becauseit originally started withdressing good for football. I remember my firstand second year I was wearing thewackest cleats you could get like the mostgeneric cleats and after that Istarted like looking at what NFL players werewearing and whatnot like gettingthe visors and everything. So look good, playgood, feel good, all that and then ittransitioned to all right now like I want topick what I want to wear and whatnotoutside of football. Okay. So what age wouldyou say that started? Thatawareness of clothing and how you wanted torepresent yourself throughclothing? I would say when I was 10 so startingin like fifth grade yeah like Iwould I would wear like I would start gettingnice cleats I would start gettinglike nice gloves like towel on the sidewhatever and then that's I always have apair of white air forces like me and my friendSantio Campo who's been my friendsince I was five like first friend inkindergarten. That's awesome. He wouldget the all-black air forces and I would getthe all-white ones and we would callourselves like cookies and cream. I love it.Was there a specific player you wereemulating like Dion Sanders kind of madefashion fashionable in football wasthere anyone like that that stands out? I wasobsessed with Lydani and Tomlinsonokay like that was my guy that was yeah that'sthe second LT. Yeah yeah yeah Iactually was the first LT I'm a big LawrenceTaylor fan growing up as a inNew York but is that the first LT yeah I'm aGiants fan. It's okay I'm aDolphins fan we get a lot of false hope. Yeahpretty much. So then didit evolve from what you'rewearing playing football you said it evolvedinto what you would wear toschool? Yeah so then after fifth grade is whenmiddle school starts and likemiddle school is when your hormones are runningeverywhere like it sucks yeahyou start getting into girls yeah and likewhatnot so during that period oftime there was a lot of like rap culture waslike insane like I was obsessed withit mm-hmm and I would find brands like pinkdolphin just very small brands thatwere up and coming that these rappers werewearing I was like I want to wearthat mm-hmm and then it was okay let me get apair of Nike dunks and then let meget a pair of like bands so it started justprogressing from that um and thenyeah high school same thing likebrands like StuC started for meStuC had been around forever they're likethey're OGs of streetwear I rememberthat I totally forgotten about StuC and they'relike yeah skate and surf cultureyeah yeah I completely because you're talkingthis would be what like the2011 20 2010 2011 2012 2013 years this is likeyeah it had to have been like2009 okay 20 because I got into high school2012 okay I want to say so yeahit had to have been like 2009 to 2011 so middleschool isn't known as being theeasiest time for kids and it certainly isn'tknown for being the mostaccepting time for kids who don't want toconform or want to be leaders or wantto kind of create their own path and so whenyou did that did you when you weredoing that with fashion how was that receivedor I guess did anyone tease youfor giving a shit about what you were wearingno not really because like me andmy group of friends that I mostly hung out withwe didn't have like our parentsdidn't have a lot of money or whatever but wewould always figure out how toput together that an outfit like I would onlygo to Marshall's my own onlytake me to Marshall's but we would figure outlike okay Marshall's haspolo so we can find like hidden gems put themtogether and still dress good andthen I was getting hand-me-downs for my cousinwhich like my cousins like myolder brother so I looked up to him so anythinghe's wearing I think is freshand he was always getting the best clothingfrom his parents yeah butmiddle school in general was just so chaoticespecially the experience that Iwent through so like every Friday there wouldso this is pre-technology or likejust getting into technology I had a flip phoneyeah and people were gettingpeople who had blackberries and razors werelike oh like yeah they got it yeahso but every Friday there was afight in middle school we would go toDequesta Trace Park watch a fight and then wewould walk to McDonald's andjust all hang out at McDonald's every Friday sowhen you say a fight otherstudents yeah I mean I got into it okay yeah Igot into a fight my first week inmiddle school because I thought that's what youhad to do yeah so let me askyou this when that happens because I know downhere in Meissner they havethese things called fight nights sometimes likeon Fridays yeah yeah learnthat well the difference too though they havefights in the film and it goes up on socialmedia but when that's happening is it personalis it did something happen that week to be likewe're fighting on Friday oris it just is it more likesquaring up for the sport of it I mean itdefinitely isn't the sport of it okay Iknow how mine happened was it was like thefirst week middle school seventhgrader made your mom joke or something okay andI I mean he was like okay let'sfight because I thought so that's what you hadto do and he goes it wassomething straight out of a movie right he goesokay Friday after school andwe were the first fight of the school year noway so there was this patch ofgrass on the side of the bleachers in DequestaTrace Park so there were somany students I kid you not there were probablyover 150 kids like surroundingus and there's kids in the bleat like side ofthe bleacher so they don't see ohmy god and then we get into the fight theybreak it up cops come obviously weall like scatter run and we find another partto go fight in scatter again andthen walk to McDonald's like nothing happenedand they're you guys friendsgo to McDonald's together after with that guyoh no oh no so it's like it'slike it's not like something yeah okay okay ifyou lose you're probably notwalking to McDonald's okay okaylike calling it a day but you went toMcDonald's I went to actually and then yourfriends are all like yo good goodshit okay and then you're good so every Fridaysome altercation happened wheresomeone said something or made it like it'salmost like you're hoping someonesays something so you can be like okay we'refighting yeah I mean it's justthat's how it was we were it was very we had wewere a hard time for our parentsfor sure like we would play pranks on on thestaff which was kind of messed upbut I remember one time we had um we so this iswhat the eighth graders playingthey're like everyone's gonna go in thecourtyard in the morning and do a circlelike it's a fight and then we're gonna bait thesecurity guards to come breakit up okay so it happens security comes in thecop comes in the vice principalcomes in get out of the way get out of the waymove move move and they pushthe way through and in the middle of the circleit's just an orange facing anapple oh my god they're like get to class likeI would know I would think sonot when they saw it their immediate reactionbut I feel like behind doorsyou have to laugh yes yes cuz it can be sostressful in school especiallymiddle school so to have something kind of thenyou can laugh about it so sureyeah so when you got suspended was that middleschool yeah what did you do doyou want to share it I got caught with weedokay okay so I got caught with weedand then yeah so that's why your mom was likebecause she was she because of itwas drugs she was probably like screw this noChristmas presents we'reteaching a lesson hard line yeah she drew ahard line on that one we were wewere selling a little bit of weed ah there yougo yeah in seventh grade ohmy god that's awesome seventh grade or eighthgrade yeah and then I remember Ihad to get put on like a probation programmm-hmm and we were washing Iwould have to meet with my probation officerand be like what are you doingyou're like yeah the smartest kid that's cometo this program yeah and then Iwas like I didn't want toshop at Marshalls anymoreI wanted to get some nice food I'm anentrepreneur that was your first business yeahdefinitely eye openingexperience though because we werewashing buses in Tamarack like as our part ofour probation program like ohhow to get like yeah a visit every week fromsomeone like it sucked and like itsucked for my parents yeah yeah yeah yeah butlesson learned I think it'sdone in my growth weed yeah you think so yeah Iwas this height middle school yeahbut that's you're not short I know I thought mydoctor told me I was me sixfour okay I was like I'm going straight to theNFL are your parents oh my dad'smy height and then my mom's like five seventhat's all for a woman hmmthat's funny six one I love the fact though yousaid you're in seventh gradeand you had a probation office that's amazingpretty epic that's hilariousyeah that's that's you definitely have I don'tknow if this is just a Gen X thingstreet cred for sure so um but you kept okay soactually how were you in schoolhow did you do academically I wasn't gifted mywhole life and then but to sayI was a straight a student would be a lie Iwould get like a's these like a Chere and there yeah but I just wasn't I wasn'treally into school that honest Iwas just like I'll just get the work done thatI needed to get done andsometimes I wouldn't if I had a late grade Iwould get a late grade yeah Iwasn't the pattern frustrating my parents likemy little brother's straighta student okay so he was more academic oh forsure like engineer from PennState all that okay okay so did you continuewith the fighting into highschool or was that just a middle school thingthat was just like the fights thatwe were getting in high school would just beduring football practice okay like wedidn't really need a fight but there was a lotof fights though for sure but it'sso interesting there's there's so much is thatnormal for you too our park righthere is the fight zone I guess it's right thereall the time yeah the hormonesare running everywhere like and we like had sowe had a bunch of kids I'll bebusting to like yeah I had friends that werenot from like great neighborhoodsand stuff so I mean they would get into fightsbut it was honestly mostly thesuburban kids that's interesting do you thinkthe culture still like that thereat the high school like um I honestly don'tknow yeah like I don't know if youguys have any rivalries like here between twohigh schools that are reallybad we do yeah like so we had Western was ourrival high school yeah for yeahso Cyprus and Western which is like a 15 minutedrive yeah yeah like I use mydad's address to go to Cyprus and then my mom'swas known for Western but Iremember every single football game like slamto the brim like it was like realrivalry real like yeah bad blood yeah and butwe would go to like parties withthem they would come to our parties or whatnotand there would always be afight somehow yeah and then forbasketball season is the craziestbecause you're literally confining in an arenaa small arena and every singleyear that we played or every game that weplayed every year I was there theyhad to call SWAT team no way it literallylooked like you know the scenehave you guys seen Avengers when they chargeeach other or any warm army'scharge each other after every basketball gameit looked like that oh my in aparking lot and it would just turn into like amelee like girls um or mainlyguys there was there was some girls involvedwas mostly guys what now isWestern seems fairly blue-collar to me comparedto maybe West done is that trueis there a financial divide there yeah I meanit depends what part like everypart has their nice areas yeah Weston entirelyis just a nice area yeah likethe people that it's like a planned communitythat's very well planned it'sbeautiful it's clean it's yeah it's nice it'snice area the person thearchitect for Disney is the person who madeokay so that's why everything lookssuper like neat yeah it's all what knows yeahand but then Davey the Davey likeWest Western area there's like trailer parksand stuff yeah a little bitdifferent a little bit more of a mixed crowdhmm yeah that's where I have apicture of Dylan probably four feet tallpracticing lacrosse with these six foottall guys and they're on this little patch ofgrass cuz kind of wasn't thenicest area yeah and this part over here isflooded because it had rainedremember that picture yeah that's from Westernyeah total blue-collar vibe yeahthey switched their whole program they'rekilling it right now yeah fromwhat I see on the football front so playingfootball in Broward County forpeople don't people that don't know this yeahit's the football Mecca of thecountry and so did you have that vibe when youwere playing like were you guyspretty good and oh so we were we're in 8a whichis like one of the hardestclasses because that's where it's the biggestschools but we played st. Thomasevery year Wow and they're always good st.Thomas like the year we played themI played against Nick Bosa Jordan Scarlett likelike I watched when AmericanHeritage played against us on ESPN I was afreshman so I was on JV but mybuddies played varsity and they had I thinkthey had 12 players go to the NFLwell stop that team alone which is insane yeahand st. Thomas's powerhouseyeah I miss the most historic high school inthe country for football yeahwe've actually gone down to games there it'sbeen a while but we'll go down ESPNwill come down there's teams coming in fromlike Nevada or California or workTexas the real deal it's legit what positiondid you play I played defensiveI was bigger back that's a goodposition yeah so you were going upagainst guys right I was yeah I was going upagainst like left tackles rightyeah yeah yeah 300 pound did you ever have yoursights on playing in collegeum I did so to go back to middle school I was areceiver for the whole time wasin middle school when I was this height and Ihad like American Heritage come upto me and say like hey you should come playwith us but I was like I'm gonna goto Cyprus and play with my friends becauseCyprus is good at the time likeyou want the states my freshman year yeah butum then when I realized I wasn'tgonna be growing anymore I was like all rightI'm just gonna stick the defenseyeah and I was okay I could go play for maybelike a d2 a d3 school and then Ireally thought about it my senior year I waslike I'm just gonna pass up mywhole college experience cuz like the realitysets in like I'm not going tothen right right right yeah so I was like allright you know what I'm gonna go tocollege and have a traditional collegeexperience so yeah I know you ended upgoing to Florida State did you always want togo there so I am the only personin my family to go to Florida State my dad'swhole side is all Gators no wayfrom my grandma to my cousins my grandpa wentto UM but everyone went toFlorida so what happened there with you so Ididn't get accepted at first to anyof them I thought I was gonna get some likelegacy acceptance at UF but I hadvisited Orlando and Gainesville before I neverto visit a Tawassee I knew I wasgonna do community college I just had thisfeeling I didn't I knew I didn'twant to go to Orlando didn't remind me ofcollege town like yeah yeah it's likeyour CF yeah it's cool yeah yeah my friend wentto Valencia um and then UFwas cool but the kids that were going weren'tlike they're my friends but theyweren't like my really close friends at thetime and then I remember calling mymy buddy Fino and my buddy G and Fino wasplaying JUCO in South Carolina buthe was he got injured or something and he wasdone and then my other buddy thatlived at Valencia or went to Valencia I go yeahI'm really thinking of you knowmoving to Tallahassee and going to TCC and thento FSU and they go if you dothat we'll both leave where we're at right nowand we'll go with you Wow coolso we did that those game over after that wewent straight to Tallahassee Iremember we got there like two weeks earlybefore FSU started yeah TCCstarts earlier yeah and I was like this is sicklike I can do whatever I wantyeah this is before any of the bars or anythingwere open so I was like alreadylike this yeah amazing it's a cool town yeahand then when it when schoolstarted and we were going out and stuff andthen going through like the rushprocess yeah fraternity and everything likeit's it's like the American dreamyeah yeah so did you do the pathways the TCCpathways to FSU where you go toTCC for like a year or something and then youtransfer in I did and then Idid horrible my first year so that's when Idecided I was like definitelydoing a fifth year okay okay 100% doing a fifthyear and then I took I honestlytook three years to get out two and a halfyears to get out of TCC you were ina frat yeah okay I was in Phi Sigma Kappa didyou hang out with Kappa Sigma?so how we started like how all the otherfraternities started like interminglingand stuff like I had friends that joined otherfraternities and whatnot but it'sreally in the nightlife scene in Tallahasseelike that's huge in theculture and I was broke my first year of schooland then like going into mysecond year and then I found out how muchbartenders make how much farmbacksmake and I go I need to figure out how to getthis job and my buddy TonyMorosso was bartender at Clyde's he was likethis is how you do it he said you'regonna get a promoter job first yeah and you'regonna just say the mostoutlandish shit on Facebook for your promos andyou're gonna get people outand that's what I did I ended up getting a jobat Coliseum at the time yeah wherethey closed it down and then I went to Baja'sand I after that Baja's I becamethe manager of Baja's and yeah I mean it was itwas sick we were making crazymoney every single weekend because of like howmuch kids go out in Tallahasseeyeah yeah yeah and I remember before that I waslike eating out of a peanutbutter jar and my friends would offer to spotme but I was so prideful I'd belike nah I'm good I'm gonna figure it out rightI stretched I remember onetime I stretched five dollars and I wouldn'task my parents for moneybecause I was prideful and I stretched fivedollars in a week I think I ate aMcChicken once a day oh my gosh yeah so I hadmoney to get like a four look atparties so um so did you put yourself throughschool no I was blessed that Igot um Florida prepaid okay okay my parentswith that that was the bestblessing I've ever gotten yeah to like not havestudent debt absolutely did youwere they willing to send you money or able tosend you money and you just didkind of individuated and say I got this type ofthing or oh for sure like thefirst year they would like they paid my rentyeah this but then they're likeneed to get a job right right because I workedI worked all throughout highschool and like yeah middle school right youknow what's funny is we we knowevery place we've been to every place yeah sureand I think I when she wasthere you were because Ali was working atBaja's when she was there so thatbrings me back to yeah talking about yeahthat's how I know the Kappa sigsokay as Ali started working with us and use abar back at first and then hebecame a bartender and then he would just starthanging out with us more andthen he would bring like Spencer like Natearound and like all the Kappasigs like yeah and then we just you just kindof like form a group when you're inthat scene with people from differentfraternities so we would have friendsthat were like and pike people that were inDell people that were by six by TawsKappa six it was just a mixed group of peoplewas really just everyone thatworked at nightlife yeah yeah that's awesomeyeah so so you're saying it tookyou when did you land at FSU officially wouldyou say like what year because youwere TCC working towards to get into FSU whendid you officially transfer in2019 so with that what were you like a junioryeah you're a junior I was ajunior but you were living the tally FSU lifesounds like from the start oh forsure there's kids that like didn't even go toschool and we're still living thatlife yeah in fraternities and still there'speople our age living the tallylife and they're kids not at school in frats100% oh I don't know about thefrats but no yeah for sure really really that'samazing that's a lie butyou don't find out till years later like whenwe graduated yeah yeah well I thinklike you're saying it's the American dream it'sa college town it's a partytown there is an academic side for sure there'sa government side for sure it'sa party town yeah 100% and you're going everynight isn't there like a specialevent every night almost you could go to theylike crack down now like they'revery strict they literally cut down from Ithink 20 fraternities I think they onlyhave like seven right now Wow that's a changein the Greek well some shit wentdown I'm not getting into it right shit wentdown so they tightened down the hatchesyeah and like culture shifted and everythinglike yeah so what would yousay your overall experience at FSU was allpositive pretty much it was theone of the best experiences in my life justbecause of how tight-knit thatcommunity is I mean like I started if no therewith my boy okay so wait explainso when did that happen 2019he would go around on snapchatthere you go and he wouldyell yo it's fucking nice outeverywhere and then it started catching fireand I was like we should put thaton a shirt but the phrase is too long so we'llmake it an acronym so he wouldjust film himself on snapchat walking aroundoutside and be like yo it'sfucking nice out yeah he would literally justlike trolling basically but likeyeah like yelling it yelling it was that justto get views just having a goodtime yeah okay it's fine just yelling it andjust doing that daily yeah exactlyso then we did that that started FSU obviouslyum and then Covid hits weforget we forgot about it this is like 2019 sowe're like alright we did wesold 25 t-shirts so you put the I'm sorry tointerrupt but the acronym youput it on a shirt yeah on the ugliest shirtyou'll ever see and that's yif noright yo it's fucking fucking nice I want tomake it clear yo it's fuckingnice out that's yif now you put it on a shirtand you sold them to your friendsyeah we sold like 25 of them to our friends andthen we forget about itCovid hits we're sitting at home doing nothingand then we're like hey let'slet's try it out again like let's drop themonline so we created a website didtwo drops sold out on it that's cool yeah wewent and blew all the moneybecause we're like we're at home we havenothing to do yeah like we could get ahotel room just drink on the beach and we'relike screw it we'll do that forlike a week and then I ended up getting atattoo on my leg with with my boyyif no that's awesome our old logo we just puta sticker on her thigh reallyjust do this that's amazingmy mom was not happy about thatespecially being a Spanish mother she hatesthat I have any tattoos yeah yeahbut and also Jewish too right aren't youthey're not big on tattoos yeahthat's not as big anymore okay you can get it aminute it used to be where youcouldn't you weren't allowed to be in a Jewishcemetery right no well I know nowthat because of Holocaust right yeah so but nowI know that some cemeteries areallowing yeah I've gotten tattooed because yougot to get with after adeath at the time yeah yeah but yeah then wedid we did the drops whateverand then we go back to school I go back for myfifth year okay and this is whatI'm saying like how like FSU like we ride foreach other anyone that's analumni there 100% like you can meet in anyindustry and like if you say for yourmap if you're you have the FSU connectionyou're good yeah so we come Icome back because my my boys had alreadygraduated and I'm gonna throw apop-up my friend had a vintage store that hewas opening so I tell everyonelike the date then I'm throwing it and twoweeks or a week before he goes heylike I'm not gonna open the store in time fuckalready told everyone this soI go screw it like I'll throw it on my balconyso I threw it on my balcony incollege town well like the no quarter so rightbehind Sun stop in college townthey tore down the building but people werecoming in and out of our apartmentlike we were dealing and then we would we woulddo it on Sundays because therewas a pool party across the street at recess soI would just alright we'reopening shop you can go here at your balconystill on Sunday my balcony I havelike a video of me like writing down who boughtwhat if they cash app me likejust running it like that just shirts at thetime yeah I was just t-shirts andthen like some girl tops but some women's topsbut yeah that's cool thoughhow did you get brand awareness to get the drugdealer line in the buildingum just word of mouth I guess yeah word ofmouth we promoted it and like wewere so we were in the bar scene so we wereable to I was able to so I workedat Baja's I was able to ask them to do let'ssay behind the DJ booth they havethat giant LED screen yeah it's like throw mylogo up there for a little bityeah just cuz like yeah they love me so they'relike yeah let's do it and then Iwould go in and I would have friends that wouldall DJ so I was like yothrowing a random tag like it's saying if no orwhatever and like turn rightbefore the beat drops and that's that'sbrilliant and they would do that yeah sothen we were just building it like that that'scool she had a lot of support ohyeah like I'm super blessed that's why I sayFSU such a strong community and itis really like I mean you guys know whathappened yesterday yeah yeah like myheart prayers obviously go out to everyone yeahyeah like I know that FSUso like tighten it yeah that whatever anyoneneeds like they'll be there and Imade my best friends at FSU you guys are tightI've noticed that with Nathanespecially he yeah you guys are all tight youknow like we've I feel likewe've known all email for I don't know how longno eight we know Ben back eightyears you know all these people and they're alltight yeah no every I meanare you still tight with a lot of your fratbrothers oh yeah like yeah I have agroup chat that's going there yeah I heard Bensay yeah yeah we have a groupchat that's been going on since I was a softbend yeah yeah yeah yeah like it'sit's an amazing community in any industry andyou're gonna meet someonethat went to FSU and like all right cool likeyou know someone that knows someoneand everyone's usually willing to help out yeahso you have you basicallystarted your if no business in Tallahassee atFlorida State and from thesupport of that community yeah yeah so then yougraduate and where did you gowhat happened next so after I graduate I comedown to well I moved back home toWeston for like four months I start mycorporate job okay and then from thebeginning of my corporate job I said I wasgoing to I would be out here by thetime I turned 28 so five years I gave myselffive years and then I was likeI'm really gonna focus on my corporate job andstill do you know but I'mgonna set myself up financially first cuz Idon't want to be like having nomoney yeah yeah so and especially if I need tofund the brand yeah just takingmy money yeah yeah so I really locked in onwork and I mean I had a greatexperience but like the corporate I didn't wantto be in corporate rightwhat were you doing and I was in logistics soit's a freight broker so Iwas in sales for for logistics company okay andlike I loved everyone I workedwith they're all cool people great company Irecently quit so at the endof January but after college I was alright howdo I bring it down to SouthFlorida with like the same amount of hype whynot and I get connected withthis guy and he puts me in contact with the guythat owns a bar and he said andthey're asking me what do you think aboutthrowing alumni watch parties Iwas like down to do it but I'm down I'll onlydo it if you let me throw a pop upduring the summer before football season for myclothing brand okay so I did thatwith a buddy uh his name's Austin Haiduk he hada brand called Black Palms so wedid a collaboration and we had the whole bar wepicked the DJs and we sold ourclothes in there and then earlier that year Iremember I went to so two thingsthat happened that it kind of inspired me Iwent to Coachella so you did I wentto Coachella I got my boy gave me free ticketwhatever he went out there I waslike screw it I'll go and then I was like youknow what I'm I'm reinspiredart like creatively whatever I'm gonna go backand really like put my foot onthe gas went there and then we all went to theBelmont Stakes in New York whichis the horse race yeah yeah part of the TripleCrown yeah yeah I rememberlooking at my buddies and I was like I'm gonnathrow a pop up out here are younuts like what do you what do you define apop-up s for listeners what isa pop-up so a pop-up is a pop-up shop so youtake over space let's say I caneither rent a rent a space like a storefrontturn it into our own and itcould last usually lasts only a day for uspersonally but some brands will do itfor like a week or like it'll take over spacefor a month you could do a pop-upliterally anywhere as long as you just like Ieven a tent in the parking lotyeah that's a pop-up yeah like you know um whenwe're at lacrosse tournaments andwe buy goat stuff and I know you know and Iexplained for listeners but Ithink that what you just described is somethingthat a lot of people canenvision yes you know but the taking over thestorefront I think that's that'scool yeah that's the next level so that's whatI did instead before youtake over a bar which is what we didn't FortLauderdale and then what a lot ofpeople don't know is that you can make a dealwith the bar and you can makemoney with the bar so you can make money on topof the clothing and the bar salesWow that's you get a piece of the tab becauseyou're bringing your bringingpeople you're bringing yeah how do you displayyour stuff in a bar you just getcreative bringing clothing racks like randomplaces but in New York I said thatsaid to my friends like you're crazy whateverand I was like this is gonna belike a real test if I can do it and I rememberI poured all my money into itI negotiated for the storefront in Tribeca andit was like a white boxstorefront empty and I maxed out all my cards Ifinanced a spirit flight Wow andthen when I got there I was like okay what I doI didn't even know they had aHome Depot in New York to be honest found outthey did got turf from Home Depotwent back to the pop-up or the space that werented out laid everything outand I was like I break even a success yeah andthen we I profited off of itWow how much merchandise did you bring Ibrought I think oh 88 pieces of clothingor 88 to 102 pieces of clothing in that rangeand then yeah we like profited offof it when and like but that again that justgoes back to the FSU community toobecause a lot of my friends flew up for itthat's cool which was like all rightthis is like and after that I was like I coulddo this yeah and then how did youadvertise for that so I the person I rentedfrom was the man this guy namedAfrim he had like a publicist and she put outsomething for it and then Iwould just we were already advertising onsocial media so we like hammeredsocial media with it different ways likedifferent videos and whatnot but yeahand then we threw we were throwing ones inMiami we've done Miami a few timesis that a brick-and-mortar building too or isthat more of like an outside tentpop-up or is that in a real in an actualbuilding in Miami oh we do pop-ups it'slike we'll take over the space oh so you'realways in yeah like building Ihaven't done a market or anything okay okay soyou're you're setting up like anactual retail store environment yeah like we'lldo like house music eventswe've done comedy shows because I got I wasgetting tired of only doing housemusic events and I saw thiscompany called Kid Super which is like itcreep the owner Kid Super is the man calmDelane he's a huge inspiration butwhat they did was in Paris Fashion Week theyhad all the comedians wearingtheir clothing head to toe but that was therunway they were doing sets likethey were do their comedy set oh on the on theactual runway in their clothinginstead of a runway show itwas just a comedy show okay coolwell they were wearing a very creative amazingI was like I could do that on a local levelyeah I just figured out how to crack into thathave you uh have you ever doneanything during Art Basil during Art Basil weyeah so we're planning on doingsomething this year we don't have anything setin stone though but to geta space during Art Basil is you gotta have somepoint yeah so and probably someconnections I would assume for sure yeah yougot to do like like if we didit we would collaborate with other brands yeahbut then also yes we justdid a pop-up method we did a pop-up in Londonin October you were in London yeahthat one happened I all these like kind ofhappen on just did it is it does itjust tumbleweed or snowball where it just leadsto the next one tumbleweedyou dated yourself I know it's a snowball wherethe next one leads to the next onelike stepping stones almost I don't even knowif it's stepping stones maybewithout even realizing it but I remember a lotin the beginning last year Ireached out to a friend that's from London orlives in London I was like heylike I want to tap into the community becausefirst of all fashions reallyblowing up out there specifically like formalstreetwear music is blowing upout here they're coming into the States I waslike do you know any up-and-comingartists DJs rappers that I should keep an eyeon or I could send like clothingto mm-hmm and so she sent me a few pages or ofpeople I looked through like someposts and I liked a post from this artistcalled Jack Marlow and it was ona flat 22 which is a little record label and Iliked it then I get a DM fromflat 22 and they go how do you know who we arelike whatever I recognize if noI was like oh shit I was like let's get on acall I get on a call and personwho answered the phone goes yo what's up broand I was like fully thought he'sgonna have an English accent yeah he's like notironically his name's Nick tooand he goes I went to FSU too well I'm just acouple years younger than you butI remember seeing if no like my roommate had aflag in our apartment wow oh mygoes back to us and I was like awesome and likewe had a great conversation Iwas actually just talking to him earlier he'sin Brazil but I was like okay I'llhelp you I'll throw an event with you in Miamibecause I have the connections inMiami we're doing a five-yearanniversary party like you can curatethe lineup everything it'll be a collab eventbut you got to help me throw anevent London and he was like down so he's anAmerican in London he's fromSarasota okay oh my god and he went so hisstory is he went to London to studyabroad and he loved the music scene so much outthere that he just like startedhis record label quick sidetrack on that didyou used to go to nectar showsthe see I was I wasn't a basshead you weren'tokay I tried and I couldn't getinto it I was more into house music okay thereason I'm asking is I think it wasthe one in Atlanta there were some DJs from theUK they were awesome and that'swhere I first learned about that UK kind ofunderground you went I did I used togo with oh yeah I've been there like four orfive we went we actually wenttogether a couple months ago yeah in Miamiyou're lying you went to Bay Centerthree times Nathan and I our first one wasBirmingham him Ben and I yeah thenwe went to I think Atlanta and then Greensvilleno Louisville Louisville wewent to Louisville Greensboro Greensboro yeahso they used to go I love nectaryeah we got into his weird shit yeah the mutemusically yeah yeah I like itthat's like their king yeah yeah so he startedoff just going with Nathan andthe boys and then the last couple times I wouldgo to and Dylan Dylan was littleand while they were at Bay Center it was NewYear's Eve we Dylan and I wouldhave a fancy dinner in the town we were in sowe would have our fancy dinnerwhile they're all at base cuz then Kaya startedgoing his yeah our daughter yeahand so it was like a tradition our New Year'sEve what are you doing whereversector is the whole family's going oh yeah andyou have to edit out lastsame but um you'll have to remind me after thisI'm not gonna tell the storyyeah I've got a funny one about Nathan and Benup in Birmingham oh my but then afew months ago never told me this yeah and afew months ago he was in Miami andso we went with no yeah no what we yeah we wentnot to I mean that yeah we werethere for New Year's and we were with all theboys like Ben and Nathan and abunch of Colin and a bunch of kids right cuz umwhen I would go I'm the only Iwas the only dad but to your point all thosekids their kids to me right hereyou guys are all kids to me they're you knowthey would give Nathan that youshare you know you're dead they're like no he'scool he's cool so I fit right inwell we were therean undercoveryeah well that's the funny thing if every timeI went there's about five guys there my age andthe kids thought we werenarcs and the cops all thought we were drugdealers so it's like you're walkingaround you know yeah it's funny cuz in the NewYear's one we actually had a twokids come come up to us a guy and a girl andthey were like interviewing uslike in a way like so why are you here and didyou just come here on your ownlike like we were lost no we enjoyed like isthis your first time right no soyeah but so that was that was our exposure andyou know Nathan DJing yeahfor God so you know he exposed us to the DJworld but he wasn't really into housemusic at least then so we didn't get a lot ofexposure to that although we didgo to EDC and Universal or not UniversalOrlando and there was there was a decentamount of house music at EDC oh yeah for sureit's like half and half I mean Itried getting into that bass scene a little bitbut I just wasn't for me yeahI like house music it's sick it's sick thoughdon't get me wrong like I like Icould take some of it but some of it's way tooheavy yeah yeah no it for surelike one of my buddies uh the one I started ifno with Tony we went to hisbachelor party in North Carolina and Nate andall them told him that this oneDJ ruined everyone's time like everyone likegot freaked out by this one DJ andwe're sitting there and we're having a nicedinner where like Bruce Chris orwhatever yeah like it's a bachelor party sowhatever yeah he was like I want to goto this I was like why he just told you that ithis set ruined everyone's timehe's like yeah I want to freak out there likeit's actually party go wewent and it was insanely like bad oh no Ithought it like for me personally andwe were like and him him and our other boythey're like we're gonna stay andand we're like you you're sure you guys gonnastay you yeah do you want us tostay he's like nah nah you guys can go like ohmy gosh oh my gosh that's dedicationI have a question just to go back to your UKexperience what was thelogistics there how do you get your productthere how do you deal with thefinancial transaction part of it in convertingmoney back or is it all cashhow do you do that mostly the product side howdo you get it there and dealwith it so I just had my manufacturer send itstraight over to London towhere my buddy was staying or live because thenit would just be like awhole thing to do it from America to here yeahI got samples before thatwe're on point so I was able to promote theproduct a little bit like tease ityeah and then in terms of likecollecting money and whatnot there'sZelle cash app anything that but we also havecard readers so they could justhave to pay right there okay so it's very it'sa very seamless process yeahbut even though sometimes the when you want thetap to pay to work it stopsworking it happened to us it's the worst ofBilly strings yeah we weretrying to buy something from someone and itstopped working for him and he waslike we're so I had other credit cards yeahBilly strings is like it sold outimmediately I remember I was buying tickets formy cousin oh yeah we loveyou know we were in August in for three days mybuddies up in North Carolinaright now yeah so jealous yeah so when you seeyou started you know did youwith your brother or with because I know he's apart of it who did Carl oh sowe'll edit that out yeah it was your friend atFSU you said right the two ofyou or just yeah it was you first and then andwhat's his name Tony MarasaTony okay and then then did you acquire morepartners in this business no likewe had to got an offer from people like tryingto invest like I was able toback it myself yeah and like it's I think itgets messy when it's too manyhands no reason to yeah exactly especially atthat at the stage that wewere at so it was just us two and then he kindof didn't really want to do itanymore so I was like I'm gonna keep runningwith it yeah and then my brotherhad his own brand in Penn State and then he waslike oh like I want to get moreinvolved with if no like kids like it out likehere yeah and when you'regraduated our first graduation gift I gave him5% equity Wow like congratulationslike gradually whatever nice and then he goesokay but I want to be a part of itlike I want to like help you out but I go yeahlet's do it so he takes care oflike the graphic design I sit there we'll goover and we'll design everythingtogether but he knows like the technical partof it like how to run Photoshop andAdobe Illustrator which I refuse to show myselfso it's the two of you two of usright now so it's a family business yeah but wehave a team now okay so and then hetakes care of like the accounting andeverything Wow cuz great cuz I hate thatpart um but we have Mika who does creative andstyling and she does allour women's lines because we like we released abikini line last year and herand this other girl Lily but it's mostly Mikaright now and then we have myfriend Fino the kid that I told you went fromJUCO moved in with me at FSD he'sbeen my friend since I was 11 yeah and he isthe vibe engineer and he handlesthe logistics of our events okay and also Ithrow him in the videos he'sactually a good actor and then we have ourvideographer Gonzo we work with acouple different videographers but he's like mymain guy and then my buddyJustice has done work for us in the past andhe's like going to be one of thebest directors ever he's nasty he does musicvideos and short films okay andthen we are launching a like radio station butit's a playlist on AppleMusic and Spotify and I have my friend Vincewho's a DJ named Triz and he'll becurating the playlist so we have that too sowe're doing different aspectsfirst building so you've you've created aculture you're creating a culture yeahwe're world building so like yeah that's I'dlike to think that yes I'mbuilding a brand and I'm buildinga business but for the most parteverything's been built on community like it isa fully a community of peoplelike we have all DJs and creatives we reuselike not reuse not a good word forit but we work alongside with right wecollaborate with companies like it'sjust about you know growing the community nowlike it's expanded fromjust being my group of friends buying theshirts right to people that don'teven know who I am that are buying the shirtslike I've had I hear it noI don't know you heard that right the staticyeah okay sorry you're sayinglike I've had oh so um so it's gotten to thepoint where people that don't evenknow who I am are buying the clothing like Iremember I was at a festival atthree points three years ago in Miami and I waswalking with a couple of mybuddies and some kids stopped me and he goeswhere'd you get that I was likewhat do you mean I was pretty drunk at thispoint yeah and I go what do youmean he's he goes I know I've never seen thatthat design before no way and I waskind of like confused by the whole situationbecause and he goes yeah likesome kid at FSU started it and like startedlike talking like telling me mystory wow was he accurate he was yeah he's veryaccurate and I was like oh Iwas like you know so how do you how'd you getthat I was like I made it thisis my it's my brand yeah my buddy's brand andhe goes can we take a pictureand I was like yeah and it was such a surrealmoment it was very inspiringthat had to have been so surreal I was shockedI'm sure to have someone tellyou about you yeah and that they're they you'veinspired them to the pointwhere they are sharing about you and ithappened to be to you that's that'samazing and it's not like we're a huge brand soit was like I was like yo thisis yeah that was cool my my buddy that was likedude I'm I'm kind of pissedthat happened because your head is gonna getbigger than it already is no but youknow I think when there's a brand that'sauthentic and does good thingspeople they they people aren't stupid and theysee stuff for what it isespecially Gen Z and younger Millennials youguys you don't put up with shit andso if you see something that's fake I think youcan figure that out prettyfast and so it makes sense that you've acquiredsuch a strong following becauseyou're coming from a place that's real you knowand I think that people feelthat and see it you know whether it's to theclothing through the designs orthrough what you and your team represent so I'mnot surprised because usually withthat people you have a loyal followingobviously yeah if he approached you likethat so cool I mean it's just you can tell whensomeone's not genuinely doingsomething yeah and you can tell when thesecompanies are trying to do cashgrabs and whatnot which a lot of companies dolike there's brands thatthere's a hundreds of brands that came out ofFSU they're there today gonetomorrow yeah dealer brands that you see onInstagram and if you're not pouringthe money back into the brand or into thecommunity it's not like I'm here togive some here to create something yeah thenI'm able to like pass down to mykids I have a question on that so just yourorganizational structure I knowyour brother has a inequity stake but is thatare you the rest of it are you theowner with him yeah all right so what's cool Imean you you spoke about yourteam and you get it already you're a young guybut you get it already thevalue of your team and being inclusive aboutthem and recognize theirimportance pretty cool that you've got thatalready not totally sure where I wasgoing but it feels like theentrepreneurial side of you you've gotthis worked out where you've recognized youryour one piece your role you'vebuilt some other roles around you how'd youkind of figure that out how did youhow did you say stumble into that or how didthat evolve and how long did it takeyou to get from A to B like to really get tothis point would you say wellhonestly I'm still figuring out so it took ittook a long time for me wellnot a long time we've been around for fiveyears like four years really takingit serious but it took a long time for me tolike trust people with the brandbecause at the end of the day it's my baby butI'm a firm believer that likepeople really want to help you ask someone forhelp they're gonna help youand like people were just openly wanting tohelp like for example like I'm atMika and she's dating my cousin but before shewas dating my cousin she iscousins with one of my friends from FSU sowe're there at a Super Bowl party andthen I just see like oh she does she's reallygood with clothing she's goodwith styling I was like oh like would you beopen to like being part of theteam and then Fino is my best friend so I'mobviously like yo I want you I wantyou to figure out a role for you figure out arole for him my brother's mybrother obviously Gonzo I met two years ago ona video because his businesspartner couldn't do it I've noticed businesspartner since high school MattLiebman and he did a shoe with me and weclicked like that so we were like alrightcool yeah you're on the team yeah who's doingthe if no FM I've known Vince sinceI was I want to say a freshman in high schoolmaybe maybe we crossed paths inmiddle school but I've always wanted to do workwith him like I only work withgood people like I refuse to like I've turneddown collaborations I've turneddown opportunities where I could have made agood amount of money just becauseI didn't like like the vibe of what was goingon and it didn't feel authentic Ithink that's a I think there's a balance offinding out yes you should takethese opportunities but there is a lot ofopportunities that you shouldn't takebecause in the long run it's gonna hurt youyeah yes you can make the moneyright now or you can let it marinate let itgrow and like keep to your authenticvision it's a it's an interesting thing becausewe've had some opportunities andwe're in that well we started this like a yearago like we were talking rightand and and it just happens and then you starthere and now you're here and andit's it's gone pretty well I think you knowbetter than if we ever anticipatedor imagined and there's thoseopportunities and to your point we'relike okay it's got to fit and it's got to feelright and feel good or else itit's just not gonna happen so it sounds likeyou're applying that same logic youknow it's almost a gut in a sense yeah hundredpercent and this is your guys'sbaby like yeah in a sense I mean other than ourthree babies yes exactly likethis is like your guys this is your thing we'rewe've created yes yeah so andyou want it to go in the direction you wantedto go to yeah so I mean we'vedone like for if no it's been a lot ofdevelopment so I can I have the firstshirt we ever made to shirts that we haven'treleased yet and it's night andday yeah yeah so and the brand it used to bemore like I mean Friday if youwant to say a lack of a better word but aswe're getting older like those don'talign those values don't align with what I wantso I can't be fake and promotesomething like I remember I remember when wefirst moved down here fromcollege I was getting offers from people tothrow events for spring break I saidno every single time because I didn't want tobe a college brand I want toyeah like I wanted to be a household name Idon't necessarily want it to belike I don't want it to be the biggest brand inthe world if it happens ithappens but I want it to stay authentic to whoI am and who the team is and whoour community is how with thatapproach how are you scaling it likeoperationally and say marketing wise what'syour strategy there to scale forso we don't take any money out of it like theonly time we'll take money outof is to pay the people that are actuallyworking on projects that weneed to pay but we'll just continue to snowballit and roll it into the nextcollection so let's say one collection sells Xamount we'll put it into thenext collection and that collection is gonnasell more than the last onebecause there's more money into it so that'show we've been scaling I meandown the line at some point I mean unless I hitthe lotto or something umwe're gonna have to get an investor yeah yeahbut I've always been weary of itthe only way I would take an investor I thinkis if it was a strategic investorlike it needs to be someone that can teach mesomething about growing thebusiness yeah hundred percent because right nowI'm still figuring out theoperation still figuring it out likefine-tuning certain things yeah likegetting everything down pack and that's why atlike last year's when we reallystarted like building a team up because at theend of the day yes I can figureout how to do everything but for me to doeverything it's not gonna be allgreat but I can get great people and put themin the position to do those jobsyeah you can't scale it if you're doingeverything yeah I don't have the bandwidthspread your soul yeah well in your team you'vebeen able to vet all of them someof them you've known since you were 11 sothat's a nice way to but it soundslike the people you've surrounded yourself withare you you can't a hundredpercent trust and you can go you can go back towhere you've met them and it wasin a real and authentic way and therelationship is real and authentic andbeing able to trust people around you in thissituation is priceless I wouldassume you know because people get screwed overall the time in businesshundred percent I mean my people know that ouron my team once we get to thatlevel everybody's gonna yeah a hundred percentand we've been blessed withopportunity like I like we are meas a person and we as a brand areextremely resourceful because of like people weknow that that goes back topeople are willing to help yeah like one of myfriends we did a photo shoot or avideo shoot on an airboat in the Everlades mybuddy that's my buddy Mattis older brother owned the airboat and he letus use it for the shoot that'scool so like people think we have these crazybudgets for shoots but it's likewe're getting blessed yeah like really likepeople are just letting us usetheir space letting letting us use like propsand whatnot and like when youcould have a hundred thousand dollar budget andnot know what to do with ityeah you're out of low all the money or youcould have a smaller budget likelet's say like a two thousand dollar budget andthat forces you to think onyour feet and it unlocks that creativity withthe side of you to figure it out soas far as creativity because you there's got tobe a feeling of pressureright to come up with the next thing the nextthing or even the next video whatare we gonna do the next line do you everencounter blocks creative blockswith that for sure like that was one of thebiggest obstacles I had to learn toovercome but to overcome the creative block youneed consistency so you needto keep doing it but I also do think you needto take a step back sometimesand like give yourself a little bit of a breakbecause right like like yeahhustle cultures is a real thing and I think yesyou should be working on it asmuch as possible and put your full effort butif you're just burnt outyou're gonna give people half-assed productyeah because you're not therefully so sometimes you need to take a break notlook at anything that goesback to like doom scrolling like if I'm doomscrolling I'm looking at a bunch ofother things and I get influenced by it so I'llput my phone away not look at itand just write down start writing down ideasthat are more original so thenwe'll use that and that's usually when I do mybest work do you do you ever get abreak are you ever able tounplug from what you're doingfootball season yeah okay so like college orpro or both I love both I meanyou know how hard it was with FSU this yearthough yeah yeah but afootball like I the firstfootball Sunday every year falls on my birthdayweek so that is literally my Iwork crazy in the offseason so that I can enjoySaturday and Sunday footballyeah because there's nothing better than wakingup knowing you don't haveshit to do yeah and then you go to Publix youget all your junk food you cantalk to Nate you see me a crazy amount of foodI've eaten probably 5,000 caloriesin front of it and then sit there for sevenhours of commercial free footballand then going into the night game yeah andthen that is my full palate cleanseI'm back on Monday I'm back and I'm ready toget out yeah so it's the off-seasonnow all right how much do you sleep and howmuch do you work what's your what'syour balance I probably work on you if noprobably on average 10 hours a day 12hours a day um then you have to factor inworking out eating I've been betterwith my sleep I used to only be able to sleeplike five hours a night yeah fouror five hours a night sometimes six but now mysleeps gotten better so I've beensleeping seven hours that's great six to sevenis and then if eight I'm on liketop tier love yeah like it's unreal it's likeyou took a drug right I get eightI'm I'm dead I've overslept if I don't get if Iget less than this I gotta havesix that's it yeah if I get six to eight I'm onthe ball I wake up I canget out of bed and just immediately start likestart working yeah but if Iget like nine ten like you might stick a forkat me like I'm done for the totalyeah eight feels like like I can take on theworld honestly so as you werebuilding this brand how did you get over notcaring what others think like howdid you continue to believe in yourself andbelieve in this this dream and notget imposter syndrome or not be worried aboutyou know what others might say orthey might judge you I think it starts with notcomparing yourself to otherpeople especially when it comes to like thebrand for me it wasn't really mecomparing myself to other individuals like I'vealways had extreme confidencein myself but yeah there is moments where likeI had imposter syndrome likeoh we would do a big event or it would be asuccess but then it's like yeah butit didn't do this so was it started being likein my head a little bit likeyeah okay what's the next thing which is a goodthing and a bad thing it's ablessing and a curse it's like okay what's thenext thing how can we improvebut you need to really take a step back and bein the present moment which issomething I've learned over the past two likeyear or two of just like okay I'mhere yeah this is sick all my friends are hereI have so much support like I'mblessed to even be in the position that I amand it could always be worse thething that I think people lose sight of is likecaring is cool especially ifit's something that you love like a brand ifyou like tuning cars likeliterally any anything as long as you love ityeah you care about it it'scool there's a lot of people that will be tryto be like there's like thiswhole like nonchalant thing that's going onwhich is like alright like you're toocool for school like I get it but it's to acertain point like if you're not ifyou don't care about what you're doing then whoelse will type of deal rightlike people are gonna see right through thatyeah you're like just trying toonly some people can pull offthe mysterious like oh I can drop acollection or I can drop a song every fiveyears and it'll always be a hit andI'll have that like super yeah strong like fanbase community or whatnot butfor the majority of people that's not how it isright now right so are yousaying that there's kind of this mystery trendand brands happening where peopleare trying to act not try neck but are justacting like they really don't careand it's I think it's whatever I think peopleare like are like yeah I'm gonnabe kind of like low-key like on purpose thoughokay cuz there's people that arejust naturally like that I mean like in lifejust having kind of a vibe of justyeah whatever yeah it's like brands that'll doit sometimes like when brandswill say they don't want to post whatnot likeyes certain people havecertain aesthetics but it's a lot of I think alot of times excuse not to do itwell I think what you're describing isdifferent I almost feel like you'resaying there's some people that are just fullof shit in there I'm trying to below-key because it's my shtick and I'm full ofshit and then there's otherpeople who just are that way and it's genuineand it's authentic right in someways they may be the creative genius who canpull that off and it's real and theyand it's like wow that's really cool but thenthere's other people just full ofshit and they're trying to do it and it and youcan tell the difference yeahyeah like I can give an example of like arapper so there's rapper playboy Cardisuper your Nate definitely knows who playedwith yeah and so does our yeah andno it's it's not a them right it's it's himyeah I mean the name yeah ouryoungest 15 year old for sure yeah yeah so hejust released an album for thefirst time in five years but he is like off thegrid no one knows no one knewwhere he was at if you would pop up somewhereyou'd see a photo of it but itwas like very very rare and he has an extremelyloyal fan base and he barelyshows his face sometimes but he's able to dothat that's creative genius yeahright if you're able to do that that's yourthing that's amazing right butthere's a lot of people who will try to adoptthat and then they're just kind ofshooting themselves in the foot because that'snot who they really are right andthen I see it a lot with like it's I mean Iguess I guess I could kind ofcorrelate it to like you know when you havefriends and stuff that are startingcompanies or brands or anything and they seemlike they're gonna take it seriousbut then in reality they just pick it up andput it down after a few months orwhatever and they're not really taking itserious so when we were we werestarting out and even to this day people likeoh look let's collab on this orlet's do this and then it took time for me tobe like you're if you're not gonnatake this as serious I'm saying why would wework together like you're myfriends still I love you but I'm only gonna beworking with people that aretaking what they're doing seriously right justas much as I am right it's it'sit's almost getting past yourself and your egoand not caring what othersthink and caring about your work and investingin your work and not givinga shit about anything else yeah I mean that'sbecause at the end of the day likeyou're the person you're the most you're yourbiggest critic at the end of the dayyeah you're they're gonna judge yourself themost yeah so it's kind of gettingover that hump and I mean I'm sure most peoplego through it I definitely wentthrough it I could go through it sometimesstill like I'll be looking at avideo that I post and I'll just sit there andin the clip might be a secondlong and it takes me 20 minutes to post it arepeople gonna look at this no one'slike no one's really yeah diving that deep intothat right it's so true and youcan paralyze yourself with that yeah so youhave to at some point be like thisis my creation or our creation and it almostdoesn't matter how it's how it'sreceived because we're proud of this work andit's coming from us and our jobis to put it out there and whoever it'ssupposed to resonate with it willresonate with and if it doesn't resonate withsome it wasn't meant for them sowe're trusting that it's going to end up in theright hands you know yeah youexplain that I just have a voice in my headthat goes stop being a bitch yeahlike honestly like I've had in my whole lifewhere it's like you're being a bitchright now just do it just do it just trust theuniverse it's going to end upwhere it's supposed to that inner voice is whatcomes through right and thenmaybe it's quick don't be a bitch you justsummed up in don't be a bitchwhat's that four or five words but she took 50words to say yes but it's thesame impact I think so you said you you soldout of did you sell out ofeverything in New York when you went up thereno but we profit it yeah have youhad a situation where you've sold out oh yeahwe've sold out on a collectionlike 24 hours before no way yeah it was thatwas but we've also had collectionsell out in 24 hours and we've had a collectionthat we dropped you sell threet-shirts right so it's like okay it's yeahthat's why if you're in it for thelong haul you're in it for the long haul likeit sucks when you put that muchwork in yeah and then it's like a couple ofyour friends bought it because theyare friends right I mean obviously appreciatethat more than anything butthen it's like all right how do we fine-tunethis and get it to where we'reselling out in 24 hours or selling out in aweek or selling out in two weeks oreven a month like yeah at the end of the daythis is the long game it's a marathonnot a spread can can you think of what youwould consider your biggest lessonso far that or what you've one lesson you'velearned so far even if one's toobig a couple I would say perfectionism is thekiller of progress yeah yeah soif you're sitting there and overthinking likewhat we just said basically yeahthat's gonna stop you from moving forwardthat's one thing like you'regetting in your own way yeah it's not gonna beperfect it's it's better if youput something out in the world rather than holdit back until you think it'sit's perfect because it's never gonna beperfect yeah and then that's a prettygood one yeah I think my buddy told me thisonce he said sometimes you got todig yourself a hole to see if you can get outof it hmm so I think yeah yougotta you gotta you have to keep messing up andyou got to be able to take lossesbecause without those you're not gonna win youneed to know you need no youneed to know what it feels to lose so you canknow what it feels like to winyeah you can't have one and without the otheryeah and you only experience thatif you are challenging yourself if you'reliving an authentic life if you'reparticipating in life and not being an NPChonestly because if you take thesafe way always you're never gonnareally know what that true joy andaccomplishment feels like if you're just kindof staying flat line and there'shuge risks there and there's downs get and canget dark but then like you saidyou know when it's light you know when you'reup and it's such a great feelingof accomplishment you can't describe it tosomeone right until you're there noit's euphoric yeah honestly yeah so when yousold out of collections was thatonline yeah so let's say well we'll always dropthe collection online andthen some if it's one of our major collectionslike your spring summer orfall winter we'll tie an event to it okay sowe'll always give people that goto the events first dibs on it and if we needto make more of it for the onlinewe'll make more of it for the online but if wedon't sell out on at the event thenwe'll push the stuff online as well but we alsodo collections that arestrictly online based okay and beside you yourpast t-shirts all right you havet-shirts I call them t-shirts or shirts whatelse what other apparel so we'vereleased jackets we've released work pants likeutility pants we've doneobviously hats hoodies sweaters sweatpantswomen's tops we've done women'slike like sport dresses kind of deal likeathleisure athleisure and then we'vealso now we're dipping into we for a newcollection we're gonna release like silkscarfs like silk bandanas we've done bikiniswe're gonna do swim shorts formen button downs we're gonna start doing aswell and then kind of like whatwhat about what you're wearing right now areyou going to be really this is justa blank okay we may or may not do this but wehave one right now in the worksthat we're releasing short sleeve and and longsleeve and then yeah I meanjust keep we're amazing to new to up thequality on every where uh it's amazinghonestly important question here where can ourlisteners buy your product wherecan they find it I'm gonna put it on the makesure to blast it out there butwhere you know calm if no don't know why I amso you know it's fucking nice yeahso you said you quit your job in January thatis so you you are ahead of yourgoal right because you said before you turned28 you wanted to do that andyou're 20 am I right there 27 you're 27 so youyou're ahead of the goal whichis congratulations on that but was that alittle terrifying to make thatdecision or did you jump in with both feet noproblem for sure like it's lesssecurity yeah so it's like I like I had my jobbut I mean I was ready when Iwhen I went in like it was a littlenerve-wracking but I went in there Ilooked at my manager and managers good one ofmy boys good people he's likedamn I thought I had you for like one more yeartime brother and then I justleft and I want to see was like a weight off myshoulder because then you cancompletely devote all your time now to you ifno right oh yeah I mean I wasalready basically doing it when when I had myjob like I would do everything Ineeded task wise at work and then I would justlike right start doing mything like how is that though now having allhaving all the time to devote to youif no oh it's amazing like I wake up every daylike I wake up I wake up everyday regardless happy that I woke up yeah butthat the fact that I can go and havethe freedom to do what I do now it's insanelike I'm moving to New York onMay 5th that's exciting what why did you makethat decision I've lived in Floridamy whole life I'm young and then also to growthe brand that's the next step andI'm always gonna have to be back and forthbetween New York and Miamiexcuse me New York and Miami because we can'tjust neglect our community downhere so we're still gonna throw events herewe're still gonna have acollections based in here but then also we needto grow the seeds that are outin New York that we've already planted from thefirst time we did a pop-up outthere and then also the fashion capital of theworld yeah like if you make itthere you're good that's what the song saysit's true though have you doneanything since that first pop-up up there haveyou done anything else upthere I haven't but I have a lot of friendsthat do events down there likewe're gonna do a pop-up at um I don't know if Ishould like really yeah youguys inside yeah well we're gonna do a pop-upat my friends restaurant at somepoint like oh yeah we're gonna do some coolthings out there for sure now isyour whole team going up with you no okay sothey're staying down herethey're saying yeah we don't we don't have thefunds to do that okay so whenyou need so you got obviously the world is noweasy to work wherever you are youguys will be able to still doeverything you do together and you saidyou'll still be down here as well going backand forth yeah and right awayplaying right away so that's and you have acommunity up there friends alreadyyeah I have a good amount of people up thereand anyways my brother lives inBoston so you operate okay through like GoogleMeet okay okay comes to visityeah so that's exciting this is a huge momentfor you very excited you quityour job you're fully in with if no no and aremoving to New York that'samazing thank you it's pivotal and you're atthe beginning of another phaseof this business it's exciting think about ityou were saying what you youyou've had to stretch five bucks or somethinglike that and if it's you nowyou're you've got this brand it's on its wayand you're heading to the fashioncapital of the world it's fucking awesome thankyou yeah you should be soproud of yourself honestlybecause this also required you to make somesmart and probably tough decisionsat times and you did that as well this doesn'tjust happen so the people thatyou surrounded yourself with and taking risksand having the courage at times tonot care what others think and just go for itso hopefully you can be presentin this moment and really see it for what it isbecause it's a big deal yeahfor sure I appreciate that first of all butyeah been soaking in it's uh as thedays get closer to it I'm very very excited andI mean again we're gonna beback and forth yeah maybe I'll be a snowbirdyeah just not an annoying one atCostco please no no I'm good yeah do you guysum do any are you involved withany charities the business or with youpersonally yeah so we host a charitybasketball tournament every year well we're twoyears and now we're gonnahost it our third one up in 2026 but um it'snamed after my friend that passedaway in 2020 his name is Gerard Reed so we callit the G classic nickname was Gso we it's called the Gerard Reed Foundationand we donate to the Boys andGirls Club of Broward County that's wonderfulyeah so is that something isthe foundation something you started orsomething his family started I startedit you did I started it with my friend you knowand my buddy Anthony Palermoand Santio Campo where where did you learn togive back like that becausethat's that's really mature I think seasonedthat not everybody does itthere's plenty of successfulentrepreneurs that never get the conceptof the community and give it back where did youget that so throughout my entirelife even since I was a little kid I was my momwas always involved withcharity mom mom and dad but specifically my momso when I was three four or fiveyears old she would take me to Peru and wouldgo to orphanages and I would go andlike give toys to kids and like play with thekids and stuff I was baby tooand then when she we moved over here she was apart of the rotary so she wouldthey would do a bunch of charity programs andwe would always be involvedwith that and then when I was in college shegot involved with an organizationcalled so ancada su nido senexio so AngelsUnited in Action where they wouldgive back to these really impoverishedcommunities in Peru like these littlevillages that didn't have clean water so wewould go out there well I wouldn't goout there like you need to get military accessto go out there because of howbad it is my mom went once and they give themall backpacks school suppliescomputer and like running water and irrigationsystems so there's a watertower in Peru that has like a giant if no noway yeah so we did that and weevery December will donate like a big portionof our profits to theirorganization for holidays like for Christmasyes you've noticed yeah so inaddition to the charity basketball you stillare supporting in Peru as wellyeah right now it's a little bitdifficult just because of like thepolitical climate out there but once it gets alittle bit more cleared uphopefully I can go out there when you can yeahI want to go out there for surehow uh how proud is is your mom of you and whatyou've accomplished I think mymom and dad are pretty proud of me yeah Ishould include your dad in it too Iwas just thinking of her as the entrepreneurbut I bet your parents aresuper proud and supportive I'm right Ohextremely like I have the most supportiveparents in the world like obviously they're alittle they don't they want meto live out what I want to do they don't reallythey're gonna be sad than going toNew York yes for sure yes like I can tell yeslet's say like go like you needto go do this yeah you need to go do this thengo do it and they've supportedme throughout my whole life like they're thepeople that built the confidence100% yeah and I love that you and your brotherare in it together and I'm Iknow they love that too oh yeah yeah yeahthat's cool so is there a conceptbehind besides yo it's fucking nice out but isthere another concept behind thebrand as far as I thought something with thesenses yes so yeah yeah yeah do youneed to pour more for yourself no I'm good okayum yeah so the plan is we justcame up with this plan this yearactually is we want to touch on we'reworld-building right okay so we're not we're abrand but a brand creates a goodbrand creates a world so the five cents eightfive senses hearing sight smelltouch and taste and taste so right now we'reworking with this this company orthis girl that makes candles so we made our ownscent no way so we're gonna startintroducing that in all of our pop-ups and thenat some point we'll release itto the public but we want to relate the smellwith the events like you won'tsmell that unless you're at the event brilliantand then we're looking topartner with a wine company to do white winebecause white wine is more of adaytime drink rather than red wine I like redwine don't get me wrong butthat's taste right there yeah and then thetouch is the touch of the clothinglike the fat studying over here the fabrics weuse is the touch the sight orseeing is the icons we use the graphics we useand then for hearing hearing yeahit's the curated playlist yeah so you have tolet them so that's the fivesenses right there and then we like to say thephrase go outside which isliteral and figurative because at the end ofthe day like yeah you need to getoutside you touch grass because there's a lotof people that lock themselvesin their houses and they're that's I think thatis a gateway to depressionyes for sure and then you need to go outsideand like meet people and whatnotand then the figurative sense you need to gooutside and get out of yourcomfort zone you need to go start that businessyou wanted to start go startdoing that hobby that you love or teachyourself like how to play the guitar soyeah challenge yourself yeah exactly so get outof your comfort zone grow it'sall about grow grow grow I love that and againI know you're saying you'reworld-building and but to me it's like you'recreating a culture it reallyfeels that way and I love that you areconnecting all the sense the senses backto your brain because it's also brilliantmarketing to business-wiseit's a brilliant it's abrilliant concept but it just it's allencompassing so that's great I love that it'sreally cool it fits yeah yeah itjust fits now I know when sometimes when ouryoungest they're into you'retalking about shoes in the beginning and hewent through this whole phase inmiddle school now those shoes though that theywere all went to where we'relike $600 yeah it's crazy yeah we would go onlike StockX yeah and all that andI would see resale resale resale have you everseen anything like that withyourself yeah so just recently I think it was amonth or two ago there's a sitecalled grilled and a couple of our failed yeahgrilled okay and a couple ofour shirts got put up on there it's like StockXit's like StockX grilled andanother one that they do all the resales inmm-hmm and like three of our shirtswere up there for 60 70 bucks and we sell themfor 45 how did you find outthey were up there my buddy sent it to me andthen he showed I have I posted ascreenshot of it on our Instagram he said it'ssold like it actually sold Iwas like that's that's awesome sick and thenanother buddy of mine was in AustinTexas and he was going through a thrift storeand someone had repurposed seelike originally if not sure like one of thefirst ones we did and like sewn liketwo different shirts on do it but like the mainone was different so it was yourshirt yeah and then they took two other shirtsand yeah it could have been ourshirt or could they could have just printed thelogo on it but it was hewas like that's nuts this is in Austin that wasa cool moment as well did he buyit yeah and yeah no no he didn't buy it no Ididn't want him to buy it I wantedjust to be there he's going to be out thereyeah and I mean we've sent likethis sounds a little weird but I got I was sohappy when I saw some I had tosend two cease and desist I was like this islike a good sign that something'sworking yeah yeah this I went to some golfbrand in 2021 2022 and I didn'trealize they were using our stuff or using giftno to like a year later sothey had sold stuff with it was still on ityeah they were selling like clubcovers and like and then another company wasselling hats and they literally didour description and then I reached out to themI was like yoke you know youstopped doing that yeah were they were theydomestic or foreign domestic ohshit and then the only the foreign one would isurban dictionary but they'relike I don't know where they're based out ofbut it was cool seeing our stuffon urban dictionary because it's hilarious likelike our generation growsup looking at yeah yeah cuz there's funny shiton it yeah and if no was onit no way but then you go to the merch sectionthey were selling like shirts andmugs and I sent them season assistletter yeah that's that is a hugecompliment though oh I was I was stoked yeahyeah is your team is there someoneon your team that's kind of always watching outfor that though just or isit you just happen to does someone happen tosee it and alert you no so when Iheard about SEO so search engine optimizationyeah what's that they'relike do you just Google your name so Googlegift no we own everything but thenwhen I saw an urban dictionary I saw it andthen I saw at the bottom of thesearch those two companies I looked at theirpages and I was like that'sinteresting I think technically speaking youcan set up alerts so if somethingpops up you'd probably be able to get in aproactive alert on it oh no way yeah Idid so we trademarked it in 2019 like Itrademarked it and like my cousin toldme I didn't have to and he's a lawyer and sohe's like you guys aren't likebig enough for it yeah I was like but at somepoint we will be yes and I'd ratherjust get it out the way now and thank God I didyeah because one have a cent wehave the legal trademark of everything yeah Iwould yeah trademarking that issmart yeah I have the paper frame that's coolso this is this has been for fiveyears in the making four years five years 2019so all those years 2019 20202021 22 23 24 is there a year that stands outthat was maybe the hardest orthe best um or both yeah I think last year Imean it gets better every yearit's just it gets tougher when it gets betterbecause there's more challengesand more things you overcome and then there'smore of a bigger standard youneed to go by because you've already elevatedthe brand to a certain pointso it's like all right how do we make it biggerthan before or whatnot andthen obviously things like happen in personallife like like my mom was goingthrough health issues last year so me and mylittle brother were literallymaking collections in a hospital so like butpeople didn't know that yeah so wewere like all right but it was the best year interms of the quality of clothingwe were making the videos we were making wewere making short films that like Ithe short films we were making in 2023 weregood but like the ones that weremaking the year after when we learn how to bebetter at it were put the otherones in the dust but like it was definitelylast year and I made so manymet so many people we did the pop-up in Londonwhich is insane like the factthat people even showed up to it and yeah justyeah it's it's it's uh that'sgood you had good problems yeah good problemother than your mom being in thehospital but good problems fromthe success it might have been morestressful or whatever but it's because of thesuccess of the company for sureyeah it's it's such a blessing yeah why don'tyou make the video that's on thehome page because that's pretty cool so we madethat video in in November okayso my buddy that I told you about that's adirector in LA right now I grew upwith him played football with him who's myneighbor same Justice Silvera and wedid a three-part series so it was called thepants series and our manufacturerdidn't get the pants to us in time for theshoot because it's a three-partseries the first shoot and we're trying to likeworkshop our way through likeokay we can't do this video now because hedoesn't have pants yeah so we'relike all right what if we do where he's runningthrough the streets with no pantslooking for his pants so he part one was uhthat's clever my friend yeah he wasrunning through Las Olas without any pantsthat's hilarious we were gettinglike live reactions of people the videos inslo-mo so you can see people likelooking that's not naked I should be anunderwear on right no yeah we werearrested we're in China we're not bail moneyright now so then we did thesecond part and John couldn't do it he couldn'tmake it to the shoe so I calledyou know and I was like you know like I needyou for the shoe and it's kind ofweird telling your friend because we don't Ididn't tell him till he gotthere I was like listen this is gonna soundsuper weird but we're gonna needyou to be in this video you're gonna have tohave your pants off yeah andthey're like like all right stop fucking withme bro like what do we yeah I'mlike no like for the video this is the plangive them the whole breakdown andthankfully they agree to do it and then thethird one which is on the site hefinds his pants the pants got the pants kidRamon did it and yeah we did againwe've been super resourceful with like what wehad the Mercedes that's in thatthe vintage Mercedes is a friend of mine NickNapoli thankful that he let usborrow it yeah sick car so it is it's a coolvideo I like it thank you now up inNew York you'll have a brand new landscape touse yeah for sure that'llbe really cool so excited oh my gosh it'slimitless up there the videos andthe creative part is honestly myfavorite part or one of my favoriteparts of the business of to do that to puttogether the video obviously theclothing in the collection being complete is initself is amazing yeah butbeing able to make the video especially withour with my friends yeah yeah it'sgo hilarious because it's just we don't takeourselves too serious like yeahwe'll do like the cool guy pose like showingoff the clothing whatever but atthe end of the day I don't want him I don'twant it's more if no isn't a brandwhere we just take ourselves too seriously likeyou need to have fun withit yeah like yeah cuz that'll come through 100%yeah so when you guys havepop-ups is it just you and your team workingthe pop-up or do you hiretemporary employees during that time it'susually me and my team but as timegoes on like we're probably gonna hire someonefor we're doing a pop-up April27th my buddy has a record label calledgroovers only and it's gonna be at Mr.Baguette so I'll probably hire someone for thatjust because while the pop-upsgoing on I'm gonna have to be directing a videoat the pop-up to bring to lifethis recap video I want yeah I'm gonna give toomuch away because I want it tobe a surprise for people but but yeah we're init and it's gotten to a pointwhere like I shouldn't be the one that's youknow taking like selling theproduct by hand right cuz it's I've done thatand I'm willing to do that obviouslystill if needed but that's part of scalingexactly yeah got a scale so thisthat's the next step right no that makes sensethat makes sense I had aquestion I forget so with all of this thatyou've been involved in andbasically building your business for the lastfive years and being Gen Zzillennial how do you find time to date are youare you on the dating apps nookay so you're going old school so I tried thedating apps I've never been onlike a hinge date or it's in their day anythinglike that I just I think it'sgood for certain people also I'm not just Xingit out but just that it wasn'tfor me yeah like I didn't really it didn't feelnatural that makes senseyeah but it does work for people and I think Imean that I'll probably end upon it for some time check it out maybe deleteit again like who knows thatseems to be the pattern whenever I talked to wesay kids but we know youguys are adults like kids in your age they'vedownloaded go on it delete itand it's a pattern because it's just you'rekind of hoping this time it'llbe different but it seems that everyone thatwe've talked to your age stillreally enjoys it things that happen organicallyold school they really don'tthe technology isn't working for them which isironic because you're involvedin such a technologically based world but whenit comes to dating you guysseem to still gravitate to I'd like to justmeet someone naturally yeah it's sowhat I will say is social media is a goodplatform for that so like if youknow someone and you've met them before likeyou you've talked to them you thinkthey're cute or like you've had a good timewith them you could ask them on adate through the dating app dating app you canask swipe on the on their storyand be like hey do you want to grab drinks yeahbut at the same time it'sthere's nothing that beats like the actualhuman connection which is thereason we do like not to get autophic butthere's a reason we do in-personevents right like we I think people were socooped up during COVID andcouldn't go outside or couldn't like minglewith their friends or meetdifferent people that at the end of the daywere we're humans were what do youcall it social creatures yeah so yeah I thinkthe traditional way is still thebest way and craving that thatconnection but I think the newtraditional way is you meet someone and thenyou might swipe up on their storyI think you're right that's like a hybridapproach yeah I think it's a combo yeahso dating I mean I find that I find time fordating I'm very very selectiveespecially now on who I spend my time with yeahbecause obviously like familyfriends like it's it's hard to balance it butif it's the right person orsomeone I'm really interested in I will likeyeah like hey let's go grab drinkslike it's going to date that happens as you getolder too no matter what's goingon you value your time more and who you spendit with you know it's just becauseyou only have so much time in the day so ifyou're going it really has to matterwhen you're giving your time away whetheryou're running a business or notit just happens as you get older and you justdon't have much time I say it allthe time it just has to fit the music youlisten to has to fit the clothes inyour choices has to fit who you're dating hasto fit you spend time withhas to fit you don't have as much time toquote-unquote not waste but it's justyou fill up your life and so we only have sucha short amount of time here so it'slike all right if I'm gonna go all in it betterbe worth it absolutely and I andI just am so happy for you that you startedthis at such a young age yourthe time you have to build this and grow itcontinually there's so much of it foryou because you discovered this at such a youngage and that's really excitingbecause in 10 15 20 years you know it's likewhere will this be but you it'sthere for you to take advantage of you have thetime to take advantage of thatit's a blessing it is listening of youth 100%knock on wood so you heard theGreenfield episode right yeah the band one theband one yes sorry oh mad hetalked a little bit about the corporate stuffand how he was done with corporateand you know on the socials we had a lot ofreaction to that and in his favorof corporates messed up and I don't want to doit and what did what advice wouldyou have for say kids in a sense younger thanyou even other people for startingyour own business or getting into it and maybetoe in the line you'd had yourcorporate job while you were growing this youhave any advice to offer any ofour listeners because it's a it's a hot topicpeople don't want to do thecorporate thing they're looking for somethingelse I would say don't getsucked into the thought process that feelingbad for providing for yourselfso yes like corporate isn't for everyone but itis for a lot of people likepeople make careers out of it for a reason yeahbut if it's not for you butyour business isn't making any money you needto make money somehow so like youcan yes you can go full throttle and just heythis is it or or nothing or youcan still do that and have that safety blanketof a corporate job whether it bea corporate job whether it be working atMcDonald's it doesn't matter youshouldn't feel ashamed to provide for yourselfbecause if your money's notright then it's gonna transition to every orspillover transition to everysingle aspect of your life and that goes for ifyou're starting a clothing brandif you're doing music you're doing anythingcreative and you're feelinglike shit because you don't have aproduct yeah you can't provide foryourself that's gonna gonna do one of twothings it's either gonna bringsomething out of you that you didn't know youhad which is best case scenarioor it's gonna make everything in your lifeworse than it already is yeah so Ithink my biggest advice when it's like totingthat line of having your ownbusiness while working corporate is don't beashamed to provide for yourselfyeah doesn't matter what you see on socialmedia where it's like I quit mynine-to-five to do this but like okay you didthat cuz you had your businessset up and you were able to provide foryourself yeah or someone else wasproviding for you at the time like not everyonehas that yeah yeah I know Ididn't have that my parents my parents cut meoff like in college they're likeyeah you you're gonna figure it out right soit's again don't feel ashamed to beworking a job and then do your business and getyour business to where it needsto be where you can quit your job and just gofull throttle go balls to wallbecause you have the time they did it it's it'sthe classic it's great workyou're nine to five then you have your five tonine yeah so great adviceespecially for younger people like peoplegetting out of college in their20s with social media and the FOMO and also theillusion that people create youknow I quit my job and I'm in Italy on aTuesday and there's no one is sharingthe behind-the-scenes of are they being fundedby family or did do are they beingfunded by building up their business and nowthey can quit but you're notsharing that and it's it's this it's it's veryit can be very misguiding topeople yeah yeah it's all perception I meanthere's no shame in people thathave that right yeah yeah yeah that's amazinglike everyone has their ownsituation yeah that's not yoursituation that can be very misleadinglike you said yeah and it can be it can it goesback to what we were talkingabout earlier you start comparing yourself alot if you're on socialmedia like that and it's easy to compareyourself when you're seeing you're atyour corporate job you're making only like 40ka year and you're scraping byand then you're going online you're seeingthese people are on like yeahtraveling in San Tropez like yeah yeah yeah butat the end of the day you gotto play with you got to play with the cardsyou're dealt with yeah yeah andit's up to you to figure that out yeah 100% youknow what's interesting iswe've had guests from other generations in ourboomer Lou his his his answer waswork you gotta work if you want a house with anice backyard you gotta work hadanother person on who was living in New Yorkand it was really just you got ahustle and you know hustling and working you'resaying kind of same thingdifferent different flavor in a sense but andthat can be subjective for Imean you were you were building your dreamwhile holding down your financialsituation yeah that's work yeah like doublework triple work so but I lovewhat you said don't be ashamed to provide foryourself yeah that's greatadvice it's such great advice so anotherquestion yeah everything you'redoing directing videos right designing brandscollaborating and partneringgrowing this your communitytrusting folks what did you what's yourbackground education wise then in terms of goodwhen you went to FSU what what'syour degree in this international affairs Ijust wanted to get a degreethe reason I did like international affairsbecause I liked going intophilosophy classes yeah because I lovephilosophy I mean I'm pretty big I Ilove reading about stoicism like MarcusAurelius all that I got really into thatyeah but yeah I mean I I just needed to finishwhat I started especially for myparents but also for myself yeah cuz I mean Ichanged my major three timesI thought I wanted to be in finance becausethat's where the money's at andI had friends that were in finance and I waslike all right clearly not thatgreat with numbers um let me go to econ it'slike a more toned down version offinance quote-unquote and then that didn't workout so I was like you knowwhat I'll do international affairs yeah if Icould have done it differently interms of the only thing I would have donedifferent for school wise I wouldhave majored in entrepreneurship mm-hmm like amore of a business degree inthat sense but other than that I have noregrets in the round I took yeah as if Ididn't take that fifth year and I probablywouldn't be sitting here rightbecause that was when I started doing pop-upsyeah and I was like an in-personexperience yeah yeah do you speak Spanish I dothat's like my ace in thehole so did your mom only speak Spanish in thehouse um yeah growing up my dadwould speak English and then my mom would speakSpanish to us and then whenI went to college I lost a little bit atSpanish and now that I'm back I make heronly speak Spanish to me because really yeahcuz I was yeah it was showing thatmy Spanish was getting worse I was like I wantto take advantage for what withwhat I have now yeah one of the biggestblessings that gift yeah it's an absolutegift like I understand everything perfectlylike I've been in negotiationswith people where they start those sidebar yeahtalking Spanish it's onthen when they come back I'll start speakingSpanish to them I love thatlike that's hilarious oh I'd love to witnessthat I love to see that I looklike I sing country yeah yeah you saidsomething early on very Spanish fluidsit was money doesn't sleep yeah yeah yeah soand that'll help you near ithelp you everywhere yeah it'll help youeverywhere so that that is a gift yourbrother yeah my brother I definitely want tolearn a different language andit's good that they're all Latin derived soyeah we're able to pass by they sayonce you've learned one it's easier to learnthe rest oh yeah I worked at aretail store in Sawgrass and most of theclientele was Portuguese and Brazilianyeah so I would speak for they would speakPortuguese and we would negotiateand I could I started picking up on it prettyquickly yeah and then we went toItaly um I was able to like pick up on thewords pretty quick yeah that'sgreat yeah that's great last thing I have okayand it's really just so Idon't forget we can cut this out if we want butin New York if you go out theLincoln Tunnel and you're heading out to Jerseythe first exit you go down youcould down the hill take a right up to the topand it's a great spot foroverseeing the city skyline and shooting avideo oh we Hawken it's we Hawken it'sit's technically I think East New York is whatthey call it but it's in theJersey side it's an absolute perfect view ofdowntown Manhattan it's in welllike she's saying it's like we Hawken Seacockit's East New York all theselittle towns are rolled together you don't knowwhere the hell you're at tobe honest with you yeah but that's why I sayyou come out of the Lincoln Tunnelheading to Jersey take the first exit get tothe bottom of the hill take aright up to the top and it's we can like I'llkeep this in so you can getmore specific and email I'll get it to you weused to take Nathan and Kaya intothe city constantly when we lived there andthen when we would leave that was ourfirst stop and we would stop and stare at thecity and take pictures and juststare at the city but you're right yeah videosthere's another one too we'llgive you the fast track offline on how to getto the top of the Empire Statebuilding in 10 minutes instead of two hoursyeah so yeah one thing I will sayis I'm moving in New York not to have a goodtime or anything like that yeahwith it moving in New York to work yeah to blowthis up yeah yeah yeah you canincorporate the city into your work for surethis is the next level yeah likeeven even artistically and with all of it it'samazing okay so are you done Ithink I always make sure before I ask my lastquestion because sometimes he'slike I had more questions yeah I think I'm goodokay so my last question isalways where do you see yourself in five yearsin five years I see myself back inSouth Florida hmm I have my own home I meanideally I would like a familymm-hmm started a family just starting a familyum you know is a household namewithin the fashion industry within the industryitself whether it be musicfashion just in the creative field and I'msurrounded by the people that I'msurrounded by now I don't think there's coolerpeople than my friends at leastI've met like a good amount of people and everytime it's like yeah I couldgo chill with this person but it was likedecent size name but I have likeyou know all these auntie all these kids codalike people like that corn likeTony like the list goes on like yeah I don'twant to leave any names out andthen get yelled at but right but I see myselfin five years is just theposition I'm in now just taken to like tenfoldhundred fold yeah and then Iwant to be able to travel all over the worldwhenever I want when I wantwherever I want and yeah I mean it's just likeyou have the American dreamyeah really I think those are all wonderfulgoals and I can see them allhappening for you definitely and I think whatyou're doing with you know wellespecially the traveling you know will give youthat opportunity as well you'renot gonna be tied down to one place so yeah noI mean I am personally veryexcited to see where you go with this and againI think this you look back onthis time and you'll see this was probably thebeginning of this whateveris about to happen this was that moment rightbefore it did so I feel veryhonored that you're here sharing your storywith us your life story thus farand you took the time to share it with usbecause it gave us a window into theif-no world and now we get to go along for theride by yeah I'm on the sidelinesand cheering you on so no I appreciate you guyshaving me on and I mean if itdoesn't happen five years it could take tenyears yeah 20 years doesn't matterit's happening yeah I love it it's it'shappening it's gonna happen yeahyou're in it it's happening not about it'sabout when exactly and you knowJohn Lennon I'm sure you've heard this life iswhat happens to you when you'rebusy making other plans it's it's it'shappening you're in it right now so Ithink it's very exciting very exciting and I'mglad Nathan got a new hat becausethat one was so drop the name again I won'tfuck it up Y-I-F-N-O yo it's fuckingnice out if no calm we will puteverything in the description on thesocials but check out if no calm it's awesomeit's an awesome clothing brandand again you know though I hit the extra plugyou heard the conversationabout giving back to the community so I thinkthat's huge is when you buy andsupport a company yes it's the right thing todo is to support companies thatare that are here that are local and thatsupport local causes than globalcauses it's a good purchase well and I love thefive senses concept yeah totallyI think that it's just so unique and originaland so I'm excited to see aboutthe wine yeah yeah yeah I'll drink that butthat's that's really exciting butyes to your point this is a brand that's comingfrom an authentic place a goodplace these are good people and and I would bevery proud to support yourclothing friends so you know we wish you allthe you and your team all the luckand we hope to have you back on when you havesome time maybe in five threeyears five years whenever to kind of chroniclewhere you're at now you knowwhen you come back so we got a circle back andI want to give you guys yourflowers you guys are absolutely killing it ohlike you this is I mean this wassuch a great I wouldn't even call it aninterview it was a great conversationyou guys third goal yeah thank you guys made meso comfortable it's it'sridiculous at home right now oh that'swonderful no we we're just so honoredthat you shared your story so thank you fortaking the time for that and wecan't wait to have you back so to our listenersplease leave any comments orquestions and especially if you have anyquestions about you know leave those andwe'll make sure that Nick gets you answers orwe'll get answers from Nickand but keep your eyes open for if no calm gocheck it out and we will see youfor your local pop-up and yeah and for yourwebsite will tell people whenthey're when you're having pop-ups and stuffright yeah the best place to findeverything is Instagram and tick tock for us tofollow you on Instagram andtake time for sure okay yeah we'll put it allup but Instagram tick not ticktock go check out if no andwe'll see you next time bye