Episode 56 – Dre Hayes

Entrepreneurship means freedom to me. Mm-hmm. But with that freedom, there’s a lot that comes with it, right? It’s much easier to just go get a nice, stable job. But, you know, we’re not all wired that way. Some people are generals, some p- people are lieutenants, some people are soldiers. Yeah. I’ve always worked. I mean, I was a paper boy when I was 13 years old. My mom always tells a story about me selling my toys to other kids in the neighborhood when I was younger just to make, you know, make money or run a business, you know? Mm-hmm. So, like, the mentality has always been in me. It’s what you do- Mm-hmm. when, when things do get tough that really- Mm-hmm. shapes who you are. Because- Mm-hmm. you know, no matter how talented you are, no matter how hard you work, it’s a lot easier when you’re running from the front than when you’re-running from behind. When you’re running from behind- Yeah. you got to roll up your sleeves, you got to figure it out. And that- Mm-hmm. really, you know, shows who you are, right, as a person. Yep. Sold my house, I moved to New York, and I said, “I’m gonna start an agency. “And I said, “The next time a brand comes along that I think I should be the one selling it, I’m gonna make it so they have to hireI’m in the business of fashion. I work with creatives. I’m- Hm. not even that creative. I have ideas, but I’m a businessman. I’m the business guy. Your business is with you 24/7. They’re like, “What do you mean? “I say, “Well, when you go to bed at night and lay on your pillow, your business is laying right there next to you. “Yeah. If you got a wife or a girlfriend, it’s in the bed. It could either be in between y’all or it’s on the side, but it- Mm-hmm. never leaves you. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to The Blueprint. Today, I’ve got my buddy from Gumball 3000, Dre Hayes in the house. He is aHe’s the co-founder of, uh, the Foundation and entrepreneur. He’s got so many things up his sleeve he’s gonna tell us about, so stay tuned. He’s gonna, he’s gonna rock it for us today, so. But also, do me a favor. If you guys could hit that, uh, like button on the bottom, that’s gonna help us be able to produce a lot more of these, uh, keep the little guy going, so appreciate you. Dre, thanks for coming on, man. I really appreciate you jumping on with us. Man, thanks for having me. Uh- Yeah. you know it’s always good to catch up with, with my buddies. You know, what’s so funny, like, uh, I’ve got a, a group of buddies, or we got a group of buddies, that we’ve kind of gone through a, a common thing together. We did the Gumball thing together for, uh, uh, several years in a row. And, uh, we justwe made a bond. And it, and it’s really cool how no matter where we’re at or what, we always stick together. You, you find that to be kind of the same thing? I do. Uh, y- you’re right. It’s like, uh, the bond is i- is almost like a fraternity, a brotherhood- Mm-hmm. right? Mm-hmm. And people with a shared experience, and, uh, you know, the contact is so intimate with everybody when you’re there, ’cause you basically sYou know how it is. You spend a week together. Yeah. All day, all night. I mean- All-it’s like you really get to know people. Yeah. And you’re there for s- you know, 7 to 10 days, and so you see these people once a year every year, andOr, or even outside of the rally too. Like, we, we stay on these chats together, whatever, and anytime someone goes to an event, we pop up and say, “Who’s here? “And we all meet up- F-again, so. Oh yeah. Yeah, we had some- Yeah. good times. Miami, we was out there for Buns’ birthday. I mean, that’s been soYeah, it’s been cool. Been a good deal. Well, anyways, I appreciate you jumping on, man, ’cause I, I think you got a really cool story. And, and the whole, the whole thing about The Blueprint is, like, there’s people out there that arethat are going through this thing, and they don’t understand the entrepreneurial side of stuff, and think that these guys are, or, or we’re all just, you know, special people because we are, we’re starting our own thing. But this is about inspiration, telling people about, you know, the wins and losses that you had along the way that, you know, other people are also having, and maybe they can kind of connect and, and, and inspire them to jump out there and do some things for themselves. Uh, no doubt, man. Look, uh, you know, I always say entrepreneurship means freedom to me. Mm-hmm. But with that freedom, there’s a lot that comes with it, right? It’s- Mm-hmm. you know? People have always thought of it as it’s much easier to just go get a nice, stable job. But, you know, we’re not all wired that way, you know? Some of usYou know, some people are generals, some p- people are lieutenants, some people are soldiers. Mm-hmm. You know? And, uh, you know, entrepreneurs definitely have a general mentality. Yeah, I agree with that. Or, or some kind of special forces where they’re just able to go off the grid, you know? Well, that’s cool. Well, Dre, like, I, I know a lot about you from your brands and things like that, which we’re gonna get into here in a little bit anyways. But, you know, I don’t know a lot about, like, the early beginnings of Dre, you know? Where, where were you born? What was family like for you as, as a kid? Ah, man. I was born in the panhandle of Florida, so Crestview, Florida, about 50 miles from Pensacola. Um, I lived there till I was about 5 years old, and then, uh, relocated to Northern California, uh, Air Force Base. My stepfather was in the Air Force, um, so near Sacramento. And was only there for about 2 years, and then moved to Tampa for a little bit, and then- Mm-hmm. finally made it to Virginia. So I made it- Mm-hmm. to Virginia probably around the time when I was 8 years old. And, uh, Virginia was home, you know? first Chesapeake, um, but then, like, a year and a half later, ended up in Virginia Beach. So I was, I was in Virginia Beach pretty much probably from the time I was about 9 years old until, until I moved to New York, uh- Mm-hmm. at the end of ’05. Mm-hmm. So, you know, I grew up in Virginia, even though I was born in Florida. You know, they always say it’s where you did your dirt. I grew up- Right. in Virginia. I claim Virginia. Anybody that knows me, I’m 757, VA for life. And, uh, you know, it was a great place to grow up, uh, during the time, uh, that I was growing up. You know, you’re talking about the ’80s and ’90s and early 2000s, just, you know, that saying that there’s something in the water in Virginia Beach. You know, even Pharrell named his music festival after that. There truly was something going on there, because, you know, you had all these athletes coming out of there, whether, whether it be Allen Iverson, Joe Smith, Alonzo Mourning, and, uh-JRE, we, we had 3 number one draft picks in like 6 years, and Zho was a number 2 Wow. in that small area. And then, you know, musically, you have what was going on, you know, obviously the Neptunes came out of there, Missy and Timbaland. But then there were other producers, Bank Dog, Lex Luger, so there was a lot going on musically. And uh, you know, and it was interesting because, you know, you had inner city Norfolk, and you had suburban Virginia Beach, so there was this massive culture mash. And like, even being like, a Black kid from the suburbs, we grew up listening to hair metal and hip hop. Skateboarding, freestyling, surfing, body boarding- Yeah. you know, you, you had Mount Trashmore. So then when you start to really look, like when you listen to like, Pharrell and N. E. R. D. and the sound that they have? Mm-hmm. That’s where we’re from. Pharrell’s a little older than me. Yeah. Probably about 3 years I think? 2 or 3 years? Mm-hmm. But you know, we’re all from the same area. That’s the environment we grew up in, and it was just crazy because at that time, it, it became like, the microcosm of what the world would end up being, where everything is a culture mash now. Yeah, 100%. And I’m the same way, like I mean with this accent that I got, it sounds like I’ve raised cattle my whole life but-um, at the end of the day it was like, we did, we, we skated, we did country stuff, we did, you know, hip hop music. I mean it was all like this mishmash of stuff, and, and I really uh, appreciate you saying that. Uh, are you, are you really close with all those guys that have come out of that area? Have you met these guys and like, what’s that like? Yeah. I, so one of my brands that I do is Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream, and- Mm-hmm. Pharrell owns the brand. Mm-hmm. So we’re the uh, agency of record and we’re partners in the US company, so with some degree I’m partners in a business with Pharrell. Mm-hmm. Uh, we’ll see him. It’s like, you know, I don’t know him but so well, even though we do business together. But when I see him- Yeah. you know, he recognize me, we, we chat it up. You know, I see him from time to time. Mm-hmm. Um, you know the rapper Pusha T? Uh, I grew up with him. We went to elementary, we’re from the same neighborhood, we went to elementary school together- Okay. we went to junior high together, then we separated for uh, did different high schools. Uh, actually you know they just dropped that amazing album, they’re on tour, I actually talk to him quite often, or at least often enough. Um, we did his brand Play Cloths, um, so it was cool. And then you know Missy I’ve met, uh, I don’t know Missy like that. Timbaland I’ve met. I don’t really know him like that, but Timbaland’s actually from the same neighborhoods that me and uh, and, and Terrance, Pusha T are from. Mm-hmm. Pharrell is from another neighborhood, um, and Missy is from Portsmouth. So uh, you know, it’s small. You know, do know the people, um, some of them will recognize me when they see me, but uh you know, that’s the area growing up. Yeah. kinda, kinda hard to miss, man. You’ve got a, you got this gigantic beard and a silhouette and you’re like 900 feet tall, so you know. Crazy thing is though, I’ve had so many guests on here and I, I’m, I’m not a s- a, a small guy, but at the end of the day like, I keep bringing on these like 6’6″, 6’5” guys all the time when I look like a, you know, 4 foot 3 every time. So luckily this is, this is, you know, uh, you know, over video today, so. Yeah. Reminds me, it reminds me of that time, remember we was in Miami and uh, a woman walked up and wanted my autograph, thought I was Ken. And Ken was standing next to me. That, man, that was one of the funniest things ever. That’s so good. Yeah, and that one guy kept coming back asking for a, you know, autograph after autograph after autograph, and he was like, “Come on man, I already gave you like one, get out of here. “But uh, yeah that is, that is hilarious. Um, all right, so, so you’re from this neighborhood. You know, what was your, you know, what was your dad like? I mean being in the military was he, uh, was he pretty hard nosed or was he lax with you? Like what was y’all’s relationship? Uh, with my stepfather, uh, I mean it was cool. Um, my mom was with him probably until my junior year of high school. Uh, you know, so really he, he traveled a lot, so you know, there was points in times where he was stationed in different areas. I mean he wasn’t in the Air Force for that long, um, so really it was me, my brother and my mom a lot of the time. So you know, it’s always been about Mom. Mom is- Yeah. has always been there. Uh, pretty much took care of everything. Mm-hmm. She run a tight ship? Oh, man. Whew. Yeah, Mom, Mom was no joke. She’s still no joke. As a matter of fact, my mom actually works for my company now. Uh- That’s cool. and my brother, my brother is a partner. He’s the COO, and, uh, you know, I’m one of the co-founders, and I act as CEO and president, and my mother is our ECOM customer service manager. So it’s, uh, it’s interesting, you know? So you get to work with family. No, that’s a good thing, man. So a lot of people say stay away from family in business, and you’re, “No, I’m out on that. “Like, you wannaYou support your people. Absolutely. And, you know, and it’s, and man, look. WeMy mom worked so hard. She had like aShe just got this unbelievable work ethic, and it’s instilled in me. It’s instilled in my brother. And that was the one thing about us. You know, we grind, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, and it’s just great to, to be able toLike, my mom was retired. You know, she travels around the world dancing. She does, like, Argentine tango and line dancing, like Chicago stepping. And, uh, you know, she was enjoying herself, and I needed some temporary help during the holidays on ECOM- Mm-hmm. and she did it, and she enjoyed it. So then she ended up moving to California. My mom lives half a block from me, and, uh, I was able to, you know, employ her, and, you know, and, and, you know, for her life. She has a pension ’cause she worked for the government, and, and, you know, she’s employed, so she really gets to enjoy life. It’s provided some flexibility, and, you know, I- I’m glad, uh, that myself and my brother were able to do that for my mom, you know, at this point in her life. She’s still a young woman. She’s not even 70 yet, but- Mm-hmm. uh, but it’s nice, right? And it’s, it’s nice thatAnd, you know, you come to work, you see family, you know? Yeah. I see my brother every day. Me and my brother are 14 months apart. So we literally grew up together, you know? When you’re that close- Mm-hmm. um, and, you know, and he had a different path in the business, but his path came back. You know, it started with me and him, and then he went on a different path. He was always on the op side, and then, you know, went on to r- run a couple of companies, pretty successful in his own right. And then we ended up reconnecting- Mm-hmm. in, in, in my business, and it, and it was good. And now- Mm-hmm. you know, to be able to even make him a full partner in the business, you know- Yeah. which is something as joyful as, as my brother, right? Mm-hmm. You know, it’s like my brother is my business partner. That’s a beautiful thing. Truly. I mean, everyone says like, their partner’s like their brother, but you, you’ve really brought it home and made it real. Um, so, so going back to, to home life, in middle school, high school, I’m guessing you were in sports. I mean, you’re like-y- 7 feet tall. I played sports. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and, uh, you know, in junior high, uh, I playedDuring my junior high years, I played basketball. I never played- Yeah. on the school team, but I, I played. My brother did. Yeah. Um, you know, we were quite active. Yep. We played very competitive ball, ’cause in, in the area that we’re from, you know, that area, that’s where, you know, Allen Iverson was coming out of there. EverybodyYeah. Mm-hmm. Chase Nicole Burress, who played football for the Giants, is from Virginia Beach. Yep. We used to play basketball. I used to play basketball with him. Yeah. And, uh, you know, and you also had the naval base. So you, you know, at NOB, they were running basketball games 24 hours a day because you had guys coming off of shift, and there would be good runs there. So we’d go sneak on the naval base and play ball- Mm-hmm. and we would run all over the place and, and play basketball. Mm-hmm. And, uh, you know, that was really my sport. Um, I never played football. I mean, on the street I played, but basketball was the thing that played. Played in a few rec leagues, some Pro-Am leagues. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, really enjoyed that, and, uh- Mm-hmm. yeah. That, that, that’s the extent of my sport. I slunk in baseball. Played a little bit when I was younger, you know? Yeah. So it was all about basketball for me. Well, that’s cool. That’s cool. And so as you’re going up through that, you’re thinking like, “I’m gonna play a sport when I get older? “You’re thinking like, “I’m gonna”You know, “What am I gonna do? “Did you have any dreams, aspirations as a kid of what you were gonna do? You know, it’s interesting, right? So, you know, obviously younger, you know, you’re like, “Oh, you’ll play ball. “But then, you know, uh, the realization that I wasn’t good enough- That’s a good one. I kind of realized that early, right? Yeah. So it’s like, “Yeah, I”You know, “I’m good, and I can play-” Mm-hmm. ” but this isn’t gonna be my life. “Right? I’ve always worked. I mean, I was a paper boy when I was 13 years old. You know, shout out to the paper boys. That job don’t even exist anymore. And, uh, you know, my mom always tells a story about me selling my toys to other kids in the neighborhood when I was younger just to make, you know, make money or run a business, you know. Mm-hmm. So, like, the mentality, that’s always been in it- Yeah. uh, has always been in me. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, and I started working. I worked at a restaurant when I was like 15, had a worker’s permit. So I’ve always liked to work. Mm-hmm. I wanted to have- Mm-hmm. my own money. Um, and, you know, somewhere along the way, I ended up, uh, getting a job. My first job in fashion, I went to work for this store in the mall called Legends. Well, actually, before I got that job, I got another job at like a neighborhood sporting goods store that was by the house, that I could walk to work. And this was- Mm-hmm. towards the end of my junior year, going into my senior year. My mother had just got separated from my stepfather, so we had moved to the edge of the school district. Uh, you know, she had, she had her car. I didn’t have a car yet. I wa- I wasA driver’s license, you get it when you’re 16 there. Mm-hmm. And basically, once I turned, uh, once I turned 16, I had got this job. But the day I went to orientation and, like, 3 days before I was supposed to start, the mall called me. And you know, as a kid- Mm-hmm. you wanna work in a mall. And this was, like, Military Circle Mall. This is the cool mall, right? Yeah. So I go in, I interview for the job. One of my business partners in the foundation, his name is Antoine, was an assistant manager, and he actually made the decision to hire me. And we’re- Okay. partners. So I have 2 business partners, my brother, Vance, and Antoine. And me and Antoine had been doing this together since we were teenagers. Wow. And, uh, it was interesting, you know, so I got this job in the mall, so I went back, I t- I told my mom, and I think about what I did to my family for me to have this job in the mall, because we only had one car. Um- Mm-hmm. And i- it was my senior year, I was getting out early. I used to get up in the morning, I would drive my mom to work in Norfolk, then I would drive to school, I would get out early, she would come and pick her car up from, from my work in Norfolk. It wasn’t that far from where she worked. And I did this until, uh, I got my own car. But it was just like I look back, you know, the sacrifices a family makes, right? And- Yeah. all of this just so I could work in the mall, but, but that was a turning point for me, because getting that job in the mall got me into the fashion industry. And by the time I had finished my, um, senior year of high school, I was buying for 26 retail stores. So- Wow. even going into college, that’s what I did, and that, you know, I wanted to go to school to be a lawyer. I was studying- Mm-hmm. pre-law, got a, a, b- a BS in political science, you know, that was gonna be my thing. I wanted to be a corporate attorney. Mm-hmm. somewhere along the way, I was like, “You know what? I like fashion. I wanna stay in this. “Mm-hmm. So I pivoted it, and I stayed in the business, but it’s just funny how life works, you know? That was like one of those- Mm-hmm. moments in life if I would have took the job at, at ANN, the local neighborhood store, then my whole- Mm-hmm. life would be dramatically different, right? Yeah. And it’s, it’s crazy how- Mm-hmm. you go look at life, it’s like these forks in the road. You go left, you go right, you know? Mm-hmm. And there’s been points and times throughout my life, and I think there’s points and times throughout everybody’s life, where you have to make those decisions, and those- Mm-hmm. kind of decisions shape the rest of your life, or at least for a period of time, until you gotta do another one of those decisions. Yeah. You know, that is really kind of crazy. Uh, you hear about people that go through these, uh, journeys, and, and they think they have things figured out the way they want to take it, and then some butterfly effect thing comes to them from one side, right? And, and they, they take a look at it, or they just take a step in that direction, and it takes them so far from the journey that they thought they were going to be on to begin with. But people always act like that’s an accident, you know, but really what the deal is, is like, if you have this entrepreneurial spirit, if you have this desire to find things, some, the things that you’re good at will find you, right? And, and you’ll find your passions. Like you stepping in, like, “I like fashion,” you know, and you jump into this, like, you didn’t know that that was going to be enough to do your career, but once you found out, like, there’s things in this that are sustainable, and I can make a living at this, and I enjoy this. This is not just me doing something I think is gonna make me some money. This is doing something that’s gonna make me happy and make me some money for the rest of my life. Yeah, definitely. Uh, uh, I’m def- passionate about fashion, and you know, and I’m one of those people- Mm-hmm. I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed, loved what I’ve done pretty much all my life. There’s a lot of people that go and they get employed or, you know, they w- they hate their job, or th- they don’t, or they hate what they’re doing, and, you know? And, and even when business had gotten tough, I didn’t hate what I was doing. I, it, it, you know, I still had the love for the business. I, the business- Mm-hmm. never soured. It’s never been soured for me, even- Yeah, yeah. when there’s difficulty, right? Because- Mm-hmm. everybody has a journey. And if you’re an entrepreneur, you experience difficulty. The reality of the situation was, I was blessed for so many years. I dealt with very little difficulty. And then in the last few years, now I got my butt kicked a little bit, you know? Mm-hmm. And somebody asked me one time, it was like, “Uh, uh, does it bother you? Upset? “I was like, “No. It’s my turn. “‘Cause any entrepreneur- Mm-hmm. you ever talk to, mentors are like, “I had it all, I lost it all. I had it all, I lost it all. “You know, they, they tell you all kinds of, like, crazy stories, and you know what? And for me, my journey, that hadn’t happened. And not to say that- Mm-hmm. I needed it to happen, but it is a part of the experience. And I tell you what- Mm-hmm. it’s what you do- Mm-hmm. when, when things do get tough that really shapes who you are. Mm-hmm. Because- Mm-hmm. you know, no matter how talented you are, no matter how hard you work, it’s a lot easier when you’re running from the front than when you’re running-from behind. When you’re running from behind- Yeah. you got to roll up your sleeves, you got to figure it out. Mm-hmm. And that really, you know, shows who you are, right? As a person. Yeah. Yeah, when you run from behind, the bear’s the closest to you. You know what I mean? So that’s, that’s , that’s when you really got to find out you gotta eat, you know, you gotta, you gotta catch up a little bit, because I need a little padding between me and the bear, for sure. Sogood. You know, it’s funny, like, I, I started my own marketing company, uh, you know, a couple years ago. And, um, you know, I’d been working for business for a long time and I’d never even thought of, like, the hardships of things that come with it. Like you said, things came easy to me. I went to work for a company and I worked my way up, and I’d go to this company and I’d work my way up, and I ran businesses for people for a long time. Doing it by yourself, I mean, that’s a, that’s something that y- it’s a stress that, you know, people are not really used to until they kind of live by that, you know? And, and th- ’cause you got people that are depending on you and your decisions and the things that you do every single day, you can’t be frivolous and you can’t sink the ship with your decisions. I mean, that’s a lot of weight, right? Nah, it is a lot of weight. And, you know, ’cause you’re responsible for the livelihood of others, right? Mm-hmm. And, and everybody’s not built for that, right? You know, that’s why even when I sit down and I talk to people and other people say, “Oh, are you discouraging me? “I was like, “No, I’m not. I just want you to understand what you’re getting into and what it’s like. “And, uh, because, you know, it may not be for everyone, right? Mm-hmm. I always tell people, “Your business is with you 24/7. “They’re like, “What do you mean? “I say, “Well, when you go to bed at night and lay on your pillow, your business is laying right there next to you. “If you got a wife or a girlfriend, it’s in the bed. It could either be in between y’all or it’s on the side, but it- Mm-hmm. never leaves you. And understanding- Mm-hmm. that that’s a part of what it is, um, you know, i- is part of the, part of the game, right? Yeah. Um, yeah, but it, you know, that, that’s why even for me, you know, when business got tough, you know, like during pandemic, you know, I had never laid anybody off. I had never done any of that, right? We- Mm-hmm. We employed everybody during pandemic. But then, you know, in ’23, ’24, it got real tough out here with the supply chain being messed up. So all of a sudden I had like 100 employees, went from 100 to 15. And, you know, and if I, if I call people and I gotta lay them off, the people who work for me know that I have exhausted everything I could if I had to lay somebody off. And, you know- Yeah. and, and it showed. Like, you know, when I was talking to people, they’re like, “Oh, we love working here. “Because I’ll starve to feed my team. Because- Yeah. that’s what you gotta do. When you’re the- Yeah. When you’re the boss, you’re the last one to eat. You take care of your team, you know, no matter, there’s payroll, even when the business was starting on up from the very beginning, a dec- 2 decades ago, everybody always got their paycheck on time. Like, they, there’s no like, you know, everybody got their health insurance. You know, it’s like, ’cause if your people are worried about how they’re gonna pay their bills and how they’re gonna take care of themselves, then how they gonna be able to do their job? Right? Yeah. So as, as a entrepreneur and as an owner of a business, you have to take care of your team so that they can perform for you. Mm-hmm. No, I believe that from you, honestly. Like, I feel exactly the same way, um, about that. And it, it’s really cool to hear somebody say it, especially somebody who’s been succe-successful as you’ve been. Um, to, to realize that it’s not just about the dollars and cents, it’s about what you’re building as a community and a people. And, and having somebody kind of rely on you and you rely on them for, for both ways. You know, it’s really, um, it’s really inspiring to hear you say like, “Hey man, I ain’t last. “I believe that, you know. We ain’t last at the end of the day. We make sure that people are taken care of, because, you know, it is your responsibility. And, and a lot of people don’t talk enough about the weight of that responsibility. You know, like y- you said a minute ago, when you go to bed, your business is there with you. Well, mine’s not laying in bed with me, but mine is on the ceiling of my bed right above me, and it’s always staring at me. I, I open, I open my eyes at night and that sucker is staring at me from the ceiling, and I’m like, “Why are you looking at me like that? Let me have some rest. “You know? UmYeah. I mean, look, like you said, it’s always with you. It- Mm-hmm. You know, and it, it doesn’t go anywhere. And, you know, and, and, you know, yeah, there’s stresses that come with business, but I, I can tell you for me, I’ve always been really good at dealing with that. Mm-hmm. Th- I, I don’t get stressed. I don’t worry about anything. Like, my brother- Mm-hmm. they were like, “Yo, Dre, I don’t even understand how you do it. “Like, even when things were going up and down, you know? Mm-hmm. I gotta make payroll every 2 weeks or do whatever it may be, you know what? I can go to bed at night. I can go to sleep. You know, you know what it is? The way I look at it is the time that you spend worrying is wasted energy, right? Mm-hmm. My energy can’t be wasted on worrying. My energy- Yeah. has to be, uh, focused on finding a solution, getting out of whatever’s going on. And that’s why- Mm-hmm. I tend to focus all my energy so I don’t spend a lot of time worrying. And then, you know, knock on wood, no matter what I’ve been in, I’ve always been able to figure things out, right? You know? Mm-hmm. Right. So maybe I better do that until I won’t one day. You know, but, but it, it’s a, uh, I’ve always been able to figure things out. So in my mind, that, that’s just always been my mentality. I’m gonna figure it out. Mm-hmm. AndIt’s always worked for me that way. And, uh, you know, it’s, uh, it- it’s, that’s the journey. Mm-hmm. So- Comes back to the journey. Yeah, uh, th- that’s the hustle, right? You, so going back to, you know, you were, um, came out of high school, you went to, you went to college. What school did you go to? I went to Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. ODU. Uh- L-you know, take, uh, school out of Norfolk. Uh- Mm-hmm. nice school that was local. I actually wanted to go to Florida State University, you know- Ah. growing up, even though, you know, even though I grew up in Virginia, uh, you know, I was a Florida State fan. But, uh, I got instant decision to go to ODU, and at that time, uh, now my brother, he was getting in a little bit of trouble at the time. I mean, he- Mm-hmm. you know, he, so I was like, “You know what? I need to stay at home. I need to make sure that everything’s right. “So I stayed at home, and I went to ODU. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, obviously I had the, the job and I was able to, uh, go there, and I did four and a half years there and, uh, enjoyed it. My, my friends that I, I met in college, good buddies of mine, even to this day. mean, we, we’re coming up on, uh, yo, no it’s been, it’s 30 years. It’s 30 years that I’ve known these guys, which is insane. And there’s a whole group of us that’s about 12 to 15 of us, and we’re all still friends. Yeah. We get together, we do guys’ trips, we do, do family trips, you know, the, you know, the wives know each other. Mm-hmm. And it’s just a, you know, it’s beautiful that we have that, right? And we all met in college, and most of them, 9 of us met the day before school started, we played pickup basketball. And been friends ever since, which is crazy. That’s crazy. Yeah, that’s, that’s a really cool deal. Was, was mom really influential in making sure that you went to school? Um, you know what? My mom was super, uh, my mom’s super smart, was like one of those unreal students when she was in school. Um, but she never went to college. Um, you know, she went and worked, she was working for the government professionally. And my mom was really on us about, you know, having good grades, and, uh, you know, she volunteered. She was very active. Like, she got Volunteer of the Year in the City of Virginia Beach for, for public schools- Mm-hmm. Yeah. uh, a year. It was either my junior year or my senior year. Like, that’s how active she was. Mm-hmm. On top of working full-time, right? So, uh, you know, for us, you know, the idea was we were gonna go to college. So mom- Mm-hmm. mom pushed for that. But it wasn’t like I, you know, I was the first generation to go to college, right? So that was the, uh, you know, that, and mom supported me and pushed me for that. You know, uh, for me, it was work hard. My mom is my, my role model. I see how hard she’s worked, I see how successful she was at her job, so you know, I need to go out and I need to do the same. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was the same way at my place. I was first generation to go through. It seems to, seems to make a mark on you when, when you make that’Cause I believe that as a family, we’re set up to make sure that our children are plateauing above what we’re doing, right? We build it up so they can stand on our shoulders, right? Every single time. And so, um, it kind of feels like that’s what was done in your home as well. Yeah, like even with my kids. My, my oldest, uh, he’ll be 25 on September 2nd, so I have a 24-year-old, a 21-year-old, and I have a 8-year-old. And my oldest, he didn’t want to go to school. You know, he has the entrepreneurial spirit in him. Mm-hmm. You know, he’s in f- he’s in film school. But he wanted to study film. And you know, he was going to a school and pretty much made him go, right? Mm-hmm. That was like, that was like, “We got a covenant. “I said, “You can do anything else you want, but I need you to go and finish school. “And you know- Mm-hmm. he didn’t understand it at the beginning, but he understands it now. He, he’s in school, he ended up transferring. You know, this school costs way more than the other one, but he, but he’s- Mm-hmm. like the number one student. Excellent student. Never caused me any heartache. But he got it one day ’cause I said, you know, “I want our family history. “And not to say this school is the only path, because it’s not. But you know what? You talk to people and they be like, “Man, my great-great-grandparents went to school. “And I’m like, “You know what? I want that for my family. “You know, 4 years of your life, 5 years of your life to go and get a degree- Mm-hmm. and you know, and start building, you know, a history and a legacy- Yeah. of education in the family. It doesn’t mean you can’t be an entrepreneur. You could still go on to be an entrepreneur. I mean, I went on- Mm-hmm. and was an entrepreneur. And you know what I’ve kind of learned from some of my mentors and friends that, uh, you know, their family, you know, people that are quite wealthy, they, most of ’em encouraged their children to go to school. You know, even- Yeah. you know, like, you know, you meet people that are in hospitality, you know, they always end up, you see these guys that go to Cornell and they go to these different schools to learn hospitality. You know, they, you know, the family encourages them to go get the education- Mm-hmm. before they become entrepreneurs. It’s- Mm-hmm. It’s a consistent thing, you know, so- Mm-hmm. there, there is some value in that and there must be some wisdom inYeah. You know, I think that, you know, I’ve told my kids as well, I want them to go to school. Uh, I want them to, you know, focus on grades and everything else. But the main thing that I want outta school, I mean, I think, you know, YouTube University, you can get a lot of things. And then, and even learning from the trades or learning from a business you wanna get into, you can learn that way. But the main thing you get from going to a college, the main thing you get is the relationships with the people that are your peers who have the same mindset and the same business acumen and those, and you’re able to make this network of people. And, and let’s say-you know, like you said, you know, one of my guys that I went to school with or whatever, you know, we played a pickup game and next thing you know, here we all together. You know, and it’s like, you’ll find out 15 or, or 5 or 10 years down the line when somebody does start to get something, they call somebody they trust. And who do they trust? Oh, I went to school with this guy. Like, I’ve got this bond with him. I knew him when he was nothing. He knew me when I was nothing. I trust him for what he’s got,Those are the types of relationships you build, you know, and, and that’s a, that’s a really big thing that comes outta college that I think not enough people talk about. Oh, I agree. The, the- Mm-hmm. There’s the, the social aspect of building these relationships and, you know, and like learning, it’s not as much about the specific piece of paper. I mean, obviously there’s- Mm-hmm. certain fields where you need it. I mean- Yeah. I got a BS in political science. Mm-hmm. I’m, I’m a fashion entrepreneur you know what I’m saying? Yeah, yeah. It’s like, but what I learned in getting my degree is applicable. I have a- Mm-hmm. a minor in philosophy. I also have- Mm-hmm. a minor in fashion, but, you know, the minor in philosophy helped a lot, the, uh, the BS in political science, you know, the critical thinking, the writing skills, you know, like all of those skills I use- Mm-hmm. you know, in my everyday. Even though I’m not practicing, I’m not a politician, I’m not working with the government. I’m not doing any of that and I ultimately, I didn’t end up even becoming a lawyer, but- Yeah. some of what I learned when I was studying pre-law, I apply. I, you know, you know as well as I do, contracts is a part of the game. You entrepreneur, you got contracts and- Yeah. uh, you gotta read over ’em, you gotta look at ’em, and it helps you a whole lot when you have some understanding- Mm-hmm. of what you’re reading and looking at, you know. And not only relying on your attorney. Obviously there’s gonna be some things you need your attorney for 100%. I mean, you al- always use your attorney, but it’s nice when you can look at it and understand. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I agree. Y- you know, it’s funny you said the philosophy side of, of your degree. Um, you know, I recently hired somebody with a philosophy degree and, and because, you know, I want them dealing with my clients, right? You need to know how to read people, you need to know what h- what’s going on in the room, you need to know how to, how to parse your, uh, your comments for what they’re bringing back to you as well. Um, as you’ve gone through and built your, your company with that philosophy degree, you’ve used that, I’m sure, to pick employees, you know, what the, what the personalities are that they have. Is this, is this correct? No, yeah. I mean, well, you know, philosophy is just all about thinking. It, it, it is- Mm-hmm. As a matter of fact, I minored in philosophy. If I would’ve- Mm-hmm. took philosophy classes when I first got into college, I would’ve majored in philosophy. That’s how much- Hmm. I enjoyed philosophy. Mm-hmm. That’s how- Yeah. valuable I thought it was. And then when- Mm-hmm. you start doing research on, like, Fortune 500 CEOs-look at how many of ’em are, have minors or majors in philosophy. There’s a lot of them because they- Hmm. you know, they, the thinking process, um, that, that you get outta that and the way that you think and y- you critically solve problems is- Mm-hmm. I mean, is, the value is just unreal. It, it’s like- Yeah. So, I, I’ve, I applied a lot of that. Mm-hmm. Also, the other thing was, you know, and this is why I always tell everybody to work, you know, even my boys from college. Uh, some of ’em had never worked when they had got to college. And when they were in college, I, I tell every college student, “You should have a job. “And people are like, “Yo, should I have a job? “I say, “Yep, you should get a job. You should get a job. “I’m not saying you gotta work full time l- like I did or how some people do, but- Mm-hmm. y- when you go to college sometimes you don’t even know who you are, you don’t know what you wanna be, you don’t know what you wanna do. So it’s good to be able to get out into the workforce and, you know, it, it may change your path in life. But also working is valuable because for me, I became a manager at such a young age. And I was actually managing people that were older than me. Mm-hmm. So there was a lot of maturity that I gained from that. I learned how- Mm-hmm. to manage people when I was a teenager going into my early 20s. Um, and I think it’s helped make me become a, a pretty effective manager, you know, as a leader of a business. And I always say as a leader of a business, right, your team should want to run through a brick wall with you. If you say- Surely. “Team, we’re gonna run through this brick wall. “And they say- Mm-hmm. “All right, we’re going. “That’s- Yeah. the kind of leadership I think is needed. And, you know, and- Mm-hmm. I instill that leadership. My brother does and, um, you know, and some of that, you know, yeah, is, is built on whatever your, your traits are and your characteristics are. Yeah. But also-In, in fairness, I’ve been, I’ve been in management since I was 19, 20 years old. I’m 48. Mm-hmm. I know I don’t look like it, but I’m 48 years old. Hey, same here, buddy. We, we’re-70, 76, baby. Yeah. You know? And, but that, you know, that experience has been invaluable as I’ve gone through life and, uh, in my businesses. Yeah. No, I, I totally agree with that. When you go through and you start picking out people, uh, these personality assessment tests are really big, and, and, uh, a lot of entrepreneurs are using those right now. Do you use those in your companies? actually have not. Uh- Okay. you know, I w- I was just reading something about that the other day. Mm-hmm. I mean, right now, I’ve hired probably about 5 or 6 people in the last, since this year started. You know, we have- Mm-hmm. went to a point where all we did is downsize, downsize, so obviously things are going right because I’m hiring. Yeah. I’m, I’m bringing people back on board. But most- Yeah. of the people, no, all the people that I’ve hired were rehires. Okay. So I already know their personality. I didn’t have to assess them. You know, they had worked for the organization before. Um- Yeah. I may get to the point here now where I’m gonna have to hire somebody, uh, who’s not a rehire, so, uh- Hm. you know, maybe modify their approach of how we look. Mm-hmm. But, you know- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. most of the people that work for me, they’re salesmen, so, uh, you know, from that standpoint, it’s pretty easy to read. Um- Mm-hmm. you know, when, when we were doing a lot of licensing and distribution, you know, we had to hire marketing people. We, you know- Mm-hmm. My brother, he has, he, he always, he runs the operations, so he hires the ops people. But see, I’m not as involved in that, so he, he’s interviewing and, and assessing those people. You know, I’ve- Mm-hmm. been kinda on the brand side, marketing side, the sales side. Now obviously, you know, yes, you gotta hire, like, a CFO. You know, I’ll be involved in hir- hiring the finance guys, you know, which, you know, those can be some quirky guys. I’ve, I’ve had some cool-finance guys. But you know, it’s, uh, you know, and usually what ends up happening, unless you just got an unbelievable financial mind, usually, you know, I will have to bring in my accountant, right, to help me assess a CFO or a controller- Yeah. just because my experience in finance is not enough to be able to assess-those people by myself, right? Yeah, I call those my translators. Yeah. You know, it’s funny. Like, uh, the, the reason I started this company called The Smoking Gun was because I was having a conversation with the CFO that we had, and the things that I was doing in marketing and proving those channels and how they worked, he didn’t believe it. He couldn’t see how it was working. I knew it was working, and then I wasA- and he wanted to understand how these marketing channels that we were using spend on, or bidding towards, were actually, um, where was the ROI behind each one of these? Well, I could, I built a bell curve for, like, social media that was like a day or 2 in and a day or 2 out, right? I had, uh, YouTube, which was 2 weeks up and 2 weeks out. I had, or 2 weeks out, and then it would run at, at 5% for like a year, right? Uh, TV, w- you’d put it up, you’d go up 2 weeks, and then you’d have 2 weeks more of, of, uh, uh, retail that would come in behind that. You know, and so I built a bell curve for all of these spends and how they would work, and then I lined them up, you know, in an order, and then I would alternate that order so I could judge them against each independently, right? And that way I wouldn’t have, like’Cause it, all of them contaminate each other, but when you sequence them in order, you’re able to dissect them because you play them in a sequence, right? And so I went and got a, uh, a, a analytics guy from, uh, SMU. That’s, uh, a local school here in, in Dallas, and he had a master’s in, in analytics, and I said, “What I need you to do, here’s my, here’s my thing, this is what I need you to do. I need you to sit next to me and help me translate to the CFO exactly what we’re doing. “He s- he said, “Tell me about it. “So I told him. He’s like, “That’s a brilliant way to do it. You oughta trademark this thing. “I said, “Don’t worry about all that crap. I just need you to be able to talk to my guy real quick. “And so-as we’re going through and doing that, it was like leaving somebodyIt was, it, it worked, you know? We were able to communicate now. He’s like, “Oh, I actually see this. “So it was leaving somebody a smoking gun of truth, proof of truth, right? And so those are the things, the translators mean everything when it comes to how do you connect with somebody. Because it may be going okay in your mind, but on the other side, the guy who really needs to get that information, are you translating that information to the next person so they read it, so they understand it, so they’re on board with it? You know what I mean? Do you, do you have that same type of feel? Oh, no. I definitely have that same type of feel. And that’s why, like- Mm-hmm. uh, even for some of the stuff I’m doing, like my brother does operation, right? It’s like, it’s almost like talking a foreign language. Like, I sit down and I talk to him, like, “Yeah, I understand ERP. I understand this. “But like, like the, detail, the finite detail of what needs to be done and, you know, and the EDI process, like yeah, I know what EDI is, dealing with the accounts, but I, I didn’t fully understand everything that goes into EDI. And, you know, and- Right. there’s so much terminology and, you know, you need somebody that understands that, right? Yeah. It, it’s like, you know, even for the finance side. Before we ever had a bookkeeper, I kept all the books. Hm. But I learned once I got a bookkeeper, before a controller, before a CFO, how much I was lacking. And you know, I thought I was pretty effective. And I was- Mm-hmm. at the time being. But it was so much missing. That’s why, you know, you need experts. And you know, and- Mm-hmm. um, you need experts there, and you know, and being able to communicate. I, I find, you know, if you’re a real effective entrepreneur, you, you know enough about most of the things so that you can understand what’s coming to you. Right. You know? But everyYou know, I always look at it like this, right? You have, let’s say, you know, you got a plate on the table, right? Most people can only see that plate. That’s all they can see, and that’s all they’re, they’re ever gonna see, ’cause that’s the way their mind works. But we need to be able to see the table. So not only the plate, but we need to be able to see the table. We need a macro view instead of a micro view. And, and I look at thatThat, to me, is one of the biggest things that you run into with communicating to people. Hm. So many people are trained to only look micro. And you need more people that see macro. Hm. And, you know, and you can help develop and train and teach people how to see outside of the plate. And they, they will. But it, itThat’s something that some people naturally have it, and then some people, they have to be taught because they- Mm-hmm. they have to think in a different way than they’re used to thinking. No, that, that’s, that’s smart. That 40,000-foot view is, is something that’s really hard for a lot of people. Forest for the trees, right? Um, so you graduate college. You know, your first job outside of college is what? My first job outside of college was, there was a local, uh, apparel company called RP55. They used to have a brand, RP55, and they had launched a, a denim brand called Azzurri. So when I was graduating from college, I basically said, “If I don’t go get a job with these guys, then I’m gonna move to New York. “But I knew I was gonna get the job. I already knew them. I had worked on some of their brands. Uh, I had boughtNot worked, I had bought them from the retail store I was working at. Mm-hmm. Um, so I got a job. That was, like, in fall of 1999. And I was over there, and when I first got there, I was working, uh, with one of the owners. His name is, uh, Mike Shockett. There’s 3 principals in the company. Mike Shockett, Ralph Reynolds, and George Metzger. And all 3 of them are mentors of mine. Mentors of mine. But they’re a- they’re all different in the mentorship, right? And the one that I spent the most time with, Mike, when I first got there, my desk was right outside his office. So, you know, through osmosis, you get to learn everything. If you can sit next to- Hm. ownership and leadership, you learn. And, you know, and I was helping him with production, but I wasn’t selling. When I first came on the fashion side of the business as, on the wholesale side, you know, all the salesmen were garmental salesmen. Like, professional guys that wore suits. Most of them were older. Um, you know, there weren’t that many minorities. Not that many women. You know, it was just, it was a, it was a gated sales community, right? And what really changed the business was the urban fashion revolution that started happening in the mid-’90s, when, you know, the FUBUs, the ECKOs, the Enyches, the Phat Farms. When those started coming up, now you had all these jobs, uh, that were coming up, and it kind of reshaped the, the sales industry. Like, even for the designers. Because a lot of the, like, for street wear, a lot of the street wear designersNow it’s different, ’cause street wear has become so big, but it, but, you know, the only place these young designers were getting the jobs, it was either in action sports or it was in urban fashion. And the urban fashion jobs were paying. So all of a sudden, you have all this youth and energy that’s, that’s in the business. And I got into the game. They, they used to send me out on the road with the salesmen, the garmental salesmen. My, my mentors. The Ira Bookses of the world. Hm. The Howard Cohens. Like, Bob Costolo. Like, these guys were like legends, right? And you know, very professional. And I learned how to be a professional salesman. But my sauce that I added was I was actually the customer. And I had a lot of experience because I came from retail, and I was in management. So the buyers that I’m dealing with, I used to do their job. I’m selling them. Hm. And, you know, there was a level of credibility I had, uh, that some of these guys wouldn’t have. Like, you know, some of my mentors, you know, they could tell somebody, “This is the hottest thing on the street,” they may not believe them. But if I told them it was the hottest thing on the street, they would believe me. So- Mm-hmm. I was able to navigate and become a pretty effective sales rep. I was doing the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. And at 1 point, you know, I’m, uh, I was 24, 25 years old, and I had a, like, 9, $10 million territory as a independent salesman. So I was making the kind of money I would have made if I w- would have gone to law sch- I was actually making more money than quite a-quite a few lawyers, you know, so it was a, uh- Mm-hmm. I- it actually worked out really well. By the time I was 25- Mm-hmm. I bought, I bought my, my s- my second home with my, uh, my, my wife. I got married when I was 25. But I, uh, you know, so I was, like, kind of well on my way in, into the business. And it was, uh- Mm-hmm. You know, and I was there forI was there for four and a half years. five, five and a half years. Five and a half years- Mm-hmm. I stayed in Virginia and, and worked, worked with the company. I was an independent salesman, but I was pretty much exclusive to working with them. And, you know- Mm-hmm. and I learned so much. I learned so much, you know, their business grew. I learned so much about running a business and running that kind of business. And, uh, and it was invaluable experience, right? And then in ’99, decided to move to New York. And what made me move to New York was when Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream came out, Pharrell’s brand that he started with Nigo, of From a Baby 38. Yeah. I- i- they launched in 2003. While I was a salesman, I was alreadyAnd I’m from the neighborhoods that Pharrell is from. Mm-hmm. I’m like, “I should be the one selling this brand. “I’m a kid that’s from Virginia. I’m from where he’s from. I said- Yeah. “Nobody’s gonna care about this brand more than me. Nobody’s gonna take care of it the way somebody from home would. “But, you know, I was naive. Because even though I was a successful Midwest, Mid-Atlantic rep, I wasn’t, you knowYou didn’t have the internet making the world small. So, you know, I wasn’t in New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, or Milan. I wasn’t in a major fashion market. Um, so I said, “All right. “Sold my house, I moved to New York, and I said, “I’m gonna start an agency. “And I said, “The next time a brand comes along that I think I should be the one selling it, I’m gonna make it so they have to hire me. “Mm-hmm. And it’s funny, because full circle, we’ve been doing BBC and Ice Cream for 10 years. The same brand that made me leave Virginia and move to New York to start my business, you know, we’re involved in and have been running it for the last 10 years. Hm. Um, which is crazy. So, that’s like my full circle moment with, with what made me leave home in the first place. But when I- Yeah. moved to New York, my first brand for the agency that, that I got, and I got it before I moved to, to New York, was there was a footwear brand, probably remember, Creative Recreation Footwear back in the day. Mm-hmm. It had the straps on the toe, the sneakers. Uh, you know, these guys, they had a small business, submillion dollars, and we got involved and their business grew to, like, 33 million dollars in 36 years. Whoa. So, that was the first brand for the agency. second brand was Crooks & Castles, which is, you know, one of the OG streetwear brands that really made a lot of noise, uh, during a certain era. Then we did Hells Bells, then we started doing a whole bunch of other brands. Alife, G Shock, you know, and, you know, we just became known as this agency for brands, so we’re well on our way, you know. Mm-hmm. And I’m here from Virginia, moved to New York. And even though I had Midwest and Mid-Atlantic relationships, I had never worked the Northeast, I had never worked the West Coast. Um, my partner- Mm-hmm. Antoine had did the Southeast. So, we were really good in the Southeast, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic. But, you know, we had to learn other areas and other territories. Um, but, uh, yeah, it was crazy. You know, just to go in there, and then, you know, we, you know, developed a, a pretty good reputation, um, early on. And then, uh, became, kind of became one of the go-to agencies. Um, so, you know, and our timing was right. You know, IMm-hmm. People always say, uh, you know, I always say, “There, there’s a certain amount of luck to everything. “People are like, “Ah, lucky. “I was like, “You know what? Timing is a big thing. “Because what we were doing at the time, it was the right timing for it. Because I- Mm-hmm. knew some other people that had tried to do what we were doing, and they were a little early. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. You know, we were even a little early for streetwear, because, you know, I moved to New York. I was like, “You know what? Streetwear is going to be the next big thing. “And I got involved, but that was during the timeYou remember, like, Rock & Revival, True Religion- Mm-hmm. like, Glamrock- Yep. Shanal Da Jay, Ed Hardy. You know, that was a thing, and everybody’s like, “All right, the next thing is gonna be streetwear. “And the next thing- Mm-hmm. is, is and became street wear, but glam rock lasted a lot longer than everybody thought it was- Mm-hmm. gonna last. It kept going. So it actually slowed- Mm-hmm. us down some. I mean, we, um, I mean, we were at the forefront of street wear, but it took a little while for the market to catch up while glam rock worked- Mm-hmm. itself out. And you know, and now, I mean, glam rock is back stronger than ever, right? You know? I was gonna say, I’ve- I’ve seen it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it’s crazy. Yeah. And- and you know, and it’s like, i- it’s all forms of- of youth fashion, youth culture. Mm-hmm. So you know, that’s really what- Yeah. So even though, you know, I- we definitely have a strength in street wear, I’m in the youth culture fashion business. But now, I’m not the youngest guy in the room. See, when I started- Mm-hmm. off when I was 19, when I was 20, 21, or 22, I was the youngest guy in every room. Now most of the time we’re at the table for dinner, I’m the oldest guy at the table. I surround myself with youth, I’m always around youth. Um- Yeah. but you know, one day it happens fast. You wake up, you’re like, “Oh, I’m the oldest guy here. “Yeah. Yeah. I- I feel that. I’m in that boat right there. Um, you know what? It’s cool, because I see a lot of these brands that, you know, are starting to resurface again. Do you think that’s because, like you said, it’s because the youth that are picking them up now? Do you think it’s because the kids that are coming up, their parents that experienced this were telling them about that? Do you think these kids are thrifting? Do you think these kids are just researching? How do you- how do you think these brands have such a lull, but they seem to come generationally? It’s not 5 or 6 years. It’s from, it’s- it’s an 18 to 20-year span, which makes me think it’s like, a generational thing. No, I think there’s a, there’s a few things going on. So obviously there’s heritage brands like Marie Francois Girbaud. I’m relaunching Girbaud, and Girbaud- Yep. in the early 2000sI mean, even going in, even in the ’90s, like, when I was in junior high, we wore the Girbaud Brand X-Gene. By the time you got- Well, I had them leather front bad boys. Yeah. And then you know, and by the time-you got to the late ’90s, they had the shuttle jean, the one with the Velcro, which became- Yep. a big one. And the reality is- Mm-hmm. I never even owned a pair ofAnd most of the guys my age, you know- Mm-hmm. unless, you know, y- you would see it in Louisiana, you see it in Chicago, but most of the guys my age- Mm-hmm. we never owned shuttle jeans. But that’s what made- Mm-hmm. them big. Like I, at 1 point they were like a $500 million wholesale company, and then they went bankrupt, uh, in 2012. And now we’re relaunching it. And over the years we’ve relaunched brands. We did ProKeds and Keds, um, we did Diadora Footwear. Uh, I mean even BBC and Ice Cream, when we got involved, BBC and Ice Cream is almost 24 years old at this point. It’s some- Mm-hmm. become a heritage brand. Mm-hmm. And you know, we’ve always been guys that could go back and take something that was existing, you know, masters of strategy, and- and bring it back into the market. But to answer- Mm-hmm. your question, the original question you asked is like, I feel like sometimes fashion is cyclical. So oh, Kappa. Kappa’s a heritage brand. I- I’m talking- Right. about all the brands, I ain’t even talk about Kappa. That’s how- Yeah. I first met you, when I was doing Kappa with Gumball. But um- Yeah. and Kappa was never that big in the US. So even though it was a heritage brand, it was much bigger in Europe, but it had history. Mm-hmm. So sometimes the cycle of fashion, you know, as a heritage sportswear brand, that just became a big movement in like 2015 going forward. And you know, we were there to ride the wave, to know the timing. But what I see- Mm-hmm. happening now is social media has changed the world. You know, a- a cell phone, remember when we were kids we had encyclopedias, right? Mm-hmm. Now a kid don’t need encyclopedia, you know? Yep. It’s g- All they need is a phone. ChatGPT. With a mini computer in their pocket. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And also on the social side, there’s so much research because there’s so much content, so much media, so many ads from the past, so many videos, and I feel like that exposes younger people to things from the past, and then they can do the research, and they can become engaged and interested in it. It’s even the- Mm-hmm. same thing that’s going on with music. That’s why you have this revival of all these like, songs from the ’90s, from the ’80s. Like there’s songs that come out- Yeah. you know, there’s movements like right now in New York, you go out, they playing ’90s hip hop in so many- Yeah. of the restaurants. They do it in LA too. Mm-hmm. But reality is, most of the people in there, you know, I mean, 1995 was 30 years ago, you know what I’m saying? So just think about- Mm-hmm. how I- how much came out or, you know, or NWA. Like, you know, a lot of guys I know, they weren’t even alive when NWA was around. They didn’t know the legacy or the history. Yeah. So, but they learn it, you know? Yeah. They, whether they learn it through social media or like, you know, you see these IG accounts where they’ll have ’80s cartoons. Like, you know, when we were kids, you know, we used to know all the- Tom and Jerry, baby. Yeah. Tom and Jerry- Mm-hmm. you know, ThunderCats. You know, like all the, all the, you know, Chippendales, Rescue Rangers. You know what I’m saying? Like- He- He- He-Man, He-Man PSAs, baby. Yeah. You know, I think, I think that has a lot to do with it. I- I think- Yeah. people are able to learn about the past. Like my son, my 21-year-old, Jalen, he knows everything about ’90s hip hop and ’90s video games. He’s just- Yep. he’s into that. Like it’s- Yeah. He’s more into that than he is into what’s current. And uh, you know, but the way he’s able to do that, YouTube, online- Mm-hmm. um, social, you know, he- he can expose- Yeah. and delve into it and do all the research. Yeah. I guess, I guess what I’m getting at is thatNot that they can’t get the information, not that they can’t find it if they wanna find it. Mm-hmm. My thing is, like, if you’re, if you have a brand, let’s say you’re picking up a brand and you’re trying to say, “It’s been long enough that this brand has been expired before I pick this back up again. “When was the peak? When was the fall? When is the next resurgence? If I can understand what the cause of the resurgence is- Yeah. then I can understand when I need to buy. So, like, if the, if the resurgence is father has son, son grows up under tutelage of father, comes into his own by the time he’s 20, 21, 22. Next thing you know, he’s picking up dad’s things, and now he can buy his own stuff that dad had been telling him about the entire time. And now that causes a wave, because dad’s been influencing this kid with his music choices and withDude, when I was a kid, I was wearing Vision Street Wear, and we had Powell Peralta boards and blah blah blah, right? And so I’m telling my kids the entire time ofAnd so they think I’m dad, and dad had some cool stuff, so they pick up dad’s cool stuff when they’re able to get their own stuff. But that cycle, right? If I’m able to, if I’m able to define what causes that cycle, if you guys have, like, uh, I don’t know, data on, like, how long something’s down before it’s back up, then I can also plan for, hey man, I need to look toIf r- if this year’s now is 1995, I need to look to 2005 because I need to buy it before it’s big again. Well, no, I can tell you. Uh, I think it’s, there’s different tracks that get us to where we’re at. So Vision Street Wear, shout out to Vision. I used to do Vision for 3 years. We, we did Vision Street Wear- Yeah. we went to relaunch it. And actually, Vision was really cool. The problem with Vision was when it sold out back in the day, it was so messy and the company that owns it is a big company now. Um, some things may have too much dirt on them to come back. So Girbaud, let me use them as an example. Although Girbaud was over-distributed and went bankrupt, it was always really cool. It never sold out. And I think part of what’s made it, made people interested in it coming back, is, you know, there’s a whole Y2K movement in fashion right now. And during the early 2000s, Girbaud was a really big brand. So you see it in, on Depop, and you see the kids vintage shopping. So anything that’s Y2K, that’s why glam rock is going crazy right now. That’s why you see, like, a brand like Affliction is back. You see it at Zumiez. It’s- Yeah. So sometimes it’s the trend of what’s going on. Or if you look at, uh, Neo2000 runners. So now if you look, ASICS, Saucony, um, they’re, they’reYou know, obviously New Balance had it, but there, there’s this whole wave. So if you’re one of the brands that represented that era, you know, you’re winning right now. But prior to that, it was ’90s runners, right? Yeah. But it’s already shifted from ’90s to 2000. So really what it looks like we’re going, we’re going in a cycle. We’re in the Y2K part of it now. Now it’s interesting. So what comes after Y2K? Then it’ll be whatever was in the 2010s, right? Um, which is still, you know, for a lot of people it’s Y2K. So I think that’s the cycle that we’re going on now. Um, and we’ll see what’s, we’ll see what’s next. So I, I, I think that’s gonna be next. Mm-hmm. So if you’re looking just purely in what’s driving trend and what people are doing, I’m thinking whatever was happening in the 2010s may end up being next. But I think this early Y2K trend will last longer. And that’s just one part of it. Then there’s- Mm-hmm. a whole bunch of other stuff going on. Like you look in the higher fashion, you know, like flares and bell bottoms are coming back. Well that’s ’70s and ’80s- Yep. you know. So it’s like- Yeah. it’s, you know, there’s, there can be multiple things going on at the same time- Mm-hmm. right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think with social media you get a lot of thing, like, the, the, the cycles speed up so fast, right? Yes. It used to be, used to be much bigger gaps, like tenure gaps between stuff. But now they’re 3, 4, 5 years in between something’s in and out. And sometimes within one season, you know, things are i- are in and out. And so by them speeding up so fast, you gotta have multiple, you know, uh, decades playing a role in these things to, to give variety, right? Well, and also if you look at sneaker culture, one of the other things- Mm-hmm. too is the retro sneaker game- Mm-hmm. was sped up so fast, you know, mainly Nike and Jordan and then followed by Adidas. They- Mm-hmm. they’re cycling through these retros so fast, so it’s speeding up the process, right? And it’s- Right. and, uh, it’s making it move faster. So, like for example, right now, even if you work at Puma, all of a sudden low-profile Pumas, driving-style shoes, Speed Cats, uh, Puma Monstros are really going well. I remember Puma Monstros were a thing in, like, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, when I first moved, or even, maybe even before that. Probably 2003- Mm-hmm. to, like, 2008. Mm-hmm. You know, there was 1 point Puma Monstros were one of the biggest shoes in America, that’s how many they were selling. Mm-hmm. Well, if you look at what’s going on, I mean, we’re more than a decade removed from that. But now- Mm-hmm. you see guys running around with Speed Cats, and low-profile sneakers have never done but so well in the US anyway. If you look at the- Mm-hmm. Heritage Sportswear trend, you know, my, the Kappa business is down right now. It’s off-trend. Heritage Sportswear is not the move, and, you know, sports brands are, are doing or not doing as well. But you know what’s coming up? The Olympics in t- 2028. You have the, uh, you have the World Cup, so you see the soccer jerseys going crazy right now. But, you know, in, in the ’84 and ’88 Olympics, Kappa sponsored the US track and field team, which at the time was the, one of the greatest teams ever assembled. Well, the ’84 Olympics, the next Olympics are in LA. So it’s gearing up forand, and I’ve seen it come. I’ll say, “You know what? Heritage Sportswear’s about to come back. “Because when it first really caught, it was 2015, then it rolled into ’16, ’17. By ’18, it was really starting to cook. Well, 2028 is 10 years later. Mm-hmm. that’s crazy. So a, a foundation, tell me n- right now, how many brands do you have, and what are they? Okay. Uh, well, right now, I don’t know. Let me count them off. So we have Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream. That’s th- the brand that, uh, Pharrell owns. And although it’s 2 brands, they’re kinda sister brands. We c- we, we consider them 2 brands. We sell them, we operate them as 2 brands, even though they’re always together. We, we do Kappa. So we have Kappa Sportswear for North America. We’ve recently signed, uh, Off-White, so the brand outta Italy that was founded by Virgil Abloh. Um, we also do Palm Angels. And then, uh, we’re doing Girbaud, uh, so that’s a relaunch for us. Rolling Loud, the music festival- Mm-hmm. they have a brand. It’s a great brand. They sell it online, and they sell it at their festivals. It’s very trend right, whatever’s going on in hip hop fashion. And they have a global brand that’s known ’cause they do festivals all over the world. So we’re handling- Mm-hmm. that for wholesale. And then the last brand I have is Overtime. So Overtime started off originally as, like, a media company. They, they have that basketball league in Atlanta, where the Thompson Twins came out of there. I mean, they- Mm-hmm. probably had 50 or 60 players come out of the basketball league. They also ha- have the, like, number one 7 on 7 football league in, in the US now. And they exist in all different kinds of sports. They have scripted, uh, shows. Travis Hunter’s show when he was in college was a, was a Overtime show. So they, they built a hell of a business, um, all direct to consumer. And we are- Mm-hmm. taking the brand and selling it wholesale, you know, and it’s like, you know, we opened a Footlocker right away. Big Sporting Goods is interested in it, you know, so it’s, uhBut right now, they are the new sportswear brand for the young kids. Mm-hmm. Like, when you go look at it, uh, you know, let’s say alpha, uh, th- this is before alpha, Gen Z. Let’s say Gen Z. ‘Cause you could say Millennials, but let’s say Gen Z. If you go to, like, a youth football or youth basketball, you will see these Overtime is the biggest thing because all the young athletes, who are social media stars now, grew up with Overtime. And even the basketball league, it’s called Overtime Elite, if you talk to, like, teenagers, they know more players in that league sometimes than they know in the NBA or even in college, because it’s theirs. And what’s- Mm-hmm. interesting about the league, and it’s become pretty successful, they stream the games on Amazon. They’ve had s- they have a scripted, uh, TV show that, like, follows the teams. And that’s just on the basketball side, so the brand has really become known for basketball. Um, but the, the, the following and how much engagement there is, and, like, it’s even changed the way people are fans of teams. So in that league, it was a league that was born in social media. So- Mm-hmm. even though 6 of the teams are in Atlanta, and maybe there’s 4 or th- or 3 that are outside of Atlanta, doesn’t matter that the teams are based in Atlanta, because the fans of the teams, they may be fans of the players, kinda like what happens with the, you know- Mm-hmm. LeBron James, wherever LeBron James goes, there’s L- LeBron James fans. this is the new way sports is consumed. So whereas, you know, if you in, you know, if you from Dallas, you’re a Cowboys fan, right? Yeah, 100%, yep. Well, a- and there’s Cowboy fans all over the world and, in other sports. Mm-hmm. That’s what’s happening with this sports league. So it’s, it’s- Mm-hmm. interesting to, like, watch what’s happening. So it’s, something can be so big locally that it’s worth picking up. Something can be, doesn’t necessarily have to be a national brand before you say, “Hey, this is something I want to take a bite off of. “It just has to be on point, has to be directed at the right type. They have to have a good-quality material. You know, something, something, something you feel is right. What, what, what makes you think, “I’m going after a brand specifically”? What makes you pinpoint something? Well, nah, there’s several things. Usually, we don’t go after a brand that’s local. Like, it, for us, usually we’re looking for something that can have a national appeal. And what I mean by national is- Mm-hmm. 0 obviously local is veryIt could be regional. Like, you could have a brand that does really well in the Northeast and the Southeast or the Northwest and the Midwest. That’s a big enough region where you can have a business. But usually, we won’t focus on local, right? Mm-hmm. Um, I mean, there’s a lot of things we look at. We look at, uh, first of all, we look at the aesthetic and design of the brand if we, if we think it’s good. We look at the design team behind it. Uh, we, like, try to assess their talent and how far we believe they can take it. We look at the business structure. You know, in the past, when we first started the agency, you know, we were more, it was easier for us to work with startup brands. It’s a lot harder now. You know, obviously I have a company. Mm-hmm. I got a machine to, to feed. You know, so, um, that makes it more challenging. So, you know, operations and s-And we even help with operations sometimes. Like, I have a backend ops team here. I know factors, I know warehouses. You know, sometimes a brand may need that. They may need us to help them with that missing piece so that they can move forward. But, you know, a brand, if the designer’s talented and the designs are the best but they can’t deliver, ship, collect, then you know you don’t have anything. So, you know- Mm-hmm. it’s, it’s quite a few factors that we look at. Now, obviously you’ve got some brands that are just major brands, right? Mm-hmm. Um, you know, Jerbo, I chased down. I wanted that brand, but I knew it. It was a known thing. Kappa- Mm-hmm. when we got Kappa, it was really small here, but the heritage sportswear trend was coming. And when we were able to- Mm-hmm. get involved, it was like right timing, right? So yes, we did a good job. We knew what we were doing, but also the timing was great. Because, like, if I was just to start with Kappa today, I wouldn’t have nearly the kind of success that I had because the timing is, is wrong now, right? Right, right. Um, Off-White and Palm Angels, unbelievable opportunity to get involved with them. Um, obviously their, their parent company that had them before had gone through some trials and tribulations and, you know, the, the brand got sold, both brands. So they have new licensee, new, new operators, new owners, pretty much kept the product, design and marketing team intact. So the brand part is still the same people. Well, you know, rest in peace Virgil. He’s not there, but his team is still there. Mm-hmm. All, all they changed is the operators changed, right? Mm-hmm. So there’s potential and opportunity there. Um, so, you know, we look at, we just look at different things, man. And, and it’s like- Mm-hmm. But a lot of it is the same thing. Can they operate? How much potential does the brand have? Can the design and product team put out what we need, um, to be able to be successful? Well, and it’s not just about the garment too. It’s not just about, you know, uh, are they able to get it here on time? What’s the quality like? What’s the design like? What’s the team like? What are each of these brands having to do to, um, bolster their view, bolster their, uh, their standing in the communities, you know, globally? Like how do, how are they putting themselves out there? Are they doing their own social media or are they doing their own web development? Like, what’s happening when it comes into that point? I mean, all of them are doing that. They, they, they do gotta push on social media. Uh, some, some brands have a personality. So I have another brand, uh, Alice Hollywood. Partner’s, one of my partners in another brand- Mm-hmm. we did called Midnight Studios and Midnight Raid, uh, Shane- Mm-hmm. Gonzalez, creative director. Well- Mm-hmm. he’s that kid. The brand, this brand that we just started 2 years ago is on fire. But it’s all the celebrity, all the influencer kids. It’s, uhAnd it’s, it, it’sUh, we have what we call a moto couture, uh, cross. So it’s like an iron cross. You know, Alice, you know, y- you know, if you think about rock and roll and how many different artists or groups ha- have been, have the name Alice in there. It’s a very simple 5 letter word. You know, the brand’s called Alice Hollywood. We got a office on Sunset Boulevard, can’t get more Hollywood than that, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Um, but it’s resonating. Mm-hmm. But part of what makes it work, that brand is him. Mm-hmm. He’s that kid. He’s creative director for Playboi Carti. He was Aug’s first creative director with A$AP Rocky. You know, when Skepta comes to town, Skepta comes to see him. He goes to London, he goes to see S- he’s like that kid. So when you have a, somebody that has that much relationship and aura around them, now it’s like, all right, “What can we do to, to maximize that? “Right? Mm-hmm. And for him, usually with any successful brand, you need a creative and you need a business person. Sometimes the creative is the business person too, but usually it’s not that way. Not, not the- Mm-hmm. kind of business person they need. So that’s why him and I have a really good relationship, because I’m not a creative. Anybody always ask me, “Oh, you’re in fashion? “No, they don’t ask me that. They meet me, they’re like, “Oh, so what are you, a designer? “Because the first thing people think about is a designer, right? Right. I be like, “No. I’m in the business of fashion. “I work with creatives. I’m not even that creative. Even though some people tell me I am, I’m like, “Ah, I’m not”I can’t draw. You know, yes, I, I have ideas, but I’m a businessman. I’m the business guy. I organize it, I do the strategy, I can work and handle the finance. You know, I, you know, I, I’m able to see what we were talking about. I, I can see that table. Mm-hmm. I’m not looking at the plate, you know? And, and that’s what you need, right? And, uh, yeah, man, I got this brand that’s justAnd it’s small, but- Mm-hmm. it’s, it has the energy. And, you know, and, and, you know, and that, and that’sYou know, sometimes when you look at a brand, there’s brands that we look out, look at out in the world, they’re huge brands. But then there’s brands where the brand is bigger than the business, right? You know, like, yeah, LVMH, Louis Vuitton is Louis Vuitton. Yeah, I, I can’t say the brand is bigger than the business, right? But you have- Mm-hmm. brands out there, but over time- Mm-hmm. their brand is bigger than the business. Mm-hmm. Rolling Loud is an apparel brand. Their brand is bigger than the business. And not that their business isn’t of good size. Billionaire Boys Club and ice cream, the brand is bigger than our business. Our business could be a lot bigger, you know? So you start to look at it, and then, you know, you end up with big brands. You know, there’s, there’s brands out there, like you wouldn’tI mean, I’m, I’m trying toYou would never say Nike’s brand is bigger than their business. Their business- Mm-hmm. is equal to their brand. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That’s massive. You know, same thing with Adidas. Massive- Yeah. massive brands. But there are, like, small brands or brands that are smaller that are huge, right? Mm-hmm. Isn’t there a point too where the business can get bigger than the brand and then the brand becomes watered down, and then next thing you know, there’s no longer a business there? Yes. It can happen. And that’s, uh, that’s what happened to Girbaud in 2012. Hm. Mm-hmm. The business in 2007 to 2008, they did 500It was over 500 mills, like $570 million wholesale in the United States. So at retail, they had a billion dollar brand, right? That business is too big for that brand, and that’s what- Yeah. happened. It was everywhere, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, and it burned out. The, I mean, it happens- Yeah. you know, it happens- It-just like that. I mean, I say just like that. Everything doesn’t have the potential to get that big. Mm-hmm. But, you know, uh, but some things do, and it did. So what happens at that point? Is that somebody who’s just a really good salesman and they’ve gone in and sold it to their Rolodex of everyone they know and everyone bought in at the same time? Is that how that happens? Nah. Well, there’sYou know, from a strategy standpoint, let’s just say in businessI’ll even take it a stepI’ll, I’ll take it back. So when urban fashion came along, you know, the, the garmentals that controlled a lot of the brands, you know, it actually worked perfect because in urban fashion there was no such thing as selling out from doing too much business. Hm. That didn’t exist. Mm-hmm. Now, you can sell out for other reasons, but it wasn’t because you got too big. ‘Cause if you think about it, in the community around the way, the person with the most money, the richest person is the coolest person. So- Yeah. selling more and doing more business just makes you a, like, the idea is a cooler brand. So for the urban fashion, the brands couldn’t get too big, but they did because they didn’t protect them. Now if you look at street wear, street wear was the opposite. Everything was cool, it was niche, it was protected. Now, I mean, they, you know, it’s become different. But when I first got into street wear, all the guys that owned the street wear brands, they cared about selling out. It came from, like, some of that came from skate culture, you know? Mm-hmm. They, they didn’t want to be too big, you know? They wanted- Right. to protect it. And, you know, so I think some of that plays into what we’re looking at now. Like, when you’re, when you’re saying, you know, a brand becoming too big and selling out or just chasing the dollar. Like, you know, sometimes the people that own the business, they know what they’re doing. They, they look- Mm-hmm. at the life cycle of something, they’re like, “Oh man, we’re gonna pump and dump. We’re gonna burn this out. “You know? Mm-hmm. And, and that’s, that’s how they proceed. The way- Mm-hmm. I look at brands, I look at brands as an annuity. I wanna build, likeI don’t wanna grow too fast, but I wanna grow. If, if growth is a part of it- Mm-hmm. and we can grow fast, then that’s what we’ll do. But I wanna be here. Yeah. You know? I’m not looking for things that can, that can be done in, in 2 years, 3 years. You know, I want brands that could be here a decade, could be here so, you know, I can build something and have a good foundation. No pun intended, right? Mm-hmm. I think pun intended. Well, let me ask you this too. Is there a, is there a kiss of death for success? Like, when it comes to, umLet’s say you have a brand that’s been established, it’s doing well, it’s starting to become everywhere. Next thing you know, you see this thing in Kohl’s or Dillard’s, and next thing you know everybody’s like, “Nah, I’m out on this. This is not cool anymore. It’s all this bad”You know, li- if you, if you get caught wearing some, some Kohl’s stuff, people are gonna really call you out on it, right? ItYes. And i- so, that’s what happened to Vision. So, Vision Street Wear, s- cool name, cool history, very cool brand. But in the ’80s, they mainstreamed the soul, then when Montgomery was, they just went down channel, Strive Rite- Yeah. got involved with them. And you know what? And they never recovered. Now, sometimes that can happen. You can go down channel and you can disappear and then come back. It never really disappeared, ’cause when Strive Rite had it, it was showing up in Payless years and years and years. But I just think at a certain point the brand got so tarnished you weren’t able to, to clean it up. But like, yeah, there’s over distribution. Going down channel- Hm. Um, depending on what kind of brand you have, like, going down channel can be the kiss of death. You know, you’re a- Mm-hmm. mainstream commodity type brand, um- Mm-hmm. usually that can bring you out. Now some brands they, like, break through and that’s what they were intended, what it was, they were intended to be anyway, right? Yeah. But usually with a fashion brand, that will normally hurt your lifecycle, right? Y- you know- Yeah. ’cause every fashion brand isn’t meant to become this massive brand that’s sold at- Mm-hmm. Kohl’s and, you know, and that- Yeah. that channel of distribution. Now, sportswear brands- Is it-are interesting because they are and they can. So, like, you look at Nike, adidas, Puma, Fila. You can name any sportswear brand. Fila, as much business, Fila probably sells more shoes $35 and under than any other part of their business, but it’s still- Mm-hmm. Fila. Nike, biggest- Mm-hmm. family footwear channel brand. You know, you could go to a rack room, you could go to any store, it doesn’t affect Nike, adidas, Puma. Sportswear brands have the ability to do that. Hm. That’s crazy. Is there a certain price point that you look for for your product to make sure that it stays relevant? Because there’s something too somebody saying, “Oh, I’ve got the crown jewel. Uh, I bought”What, what’s Kanye say? “I spent, uh, $400 on this just to say you don’t know what this is,” or whatever his lyric was- Yeah. Uh-huh. Now- Or he said, “You ain’t up on this,” is what he said. Now, well, you know what? It’s not necessarily a price point, but obviously things that have a certain price point or a higher price, uh, tends to have more perceived value. Right. Um, but I’m, I’m trying to think of something that’sI mean, it’s gonna be what- I mean, let’s take a-what Ka- Kanye’s doing with Yeezy now. I mean, everything- Right. was $20 and under. That was the whole thing. Um, obviously, you know, Kanye’s got other problems. But-I’ll tell you what. He’s, uhBut the $20 Yeezy stuff he was selling was cool. Yeah. You know, people wanted it. The, the cool kids wanted it. It wasAnd it was $20. Mm-hmm. So, um, price isn’t always the determining factor, right? There can be something- Mm-hmm. affordable and cool, but generally speaking when something is affordable and it’s for everyone, sometimes- Yeah. the coolness of it may wear off because, you know, it gets to everyone too fast. Yeah. Yeah, ’cause I’ve, I’ve always heard it’s better to sell 2 shirts at $80 a piece than 10 shirts at $10 a piece, right? It, it depends- Yeah. on your business model. The, uh- Yeah, yeah. For me, I don’t have any problems. So like, for example, you know, I- I work with, uh, Palm Angels and, you know, I work with 2 different licensees that manage the business here in the US. And one of ’em, um, this company C Life, this man has an incredible company. I went to his office, you know, he does business from DTLR down to Costco, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, and he said to me when he was taking me on this tour, he’s like, “Ah,” he’s showing us what they were doing for Walmart, and he said, “You wouldn’t be interested in this. “I said, “Oh, you know, I’m interested in that. “So for me- Mm-hmm. even though my background is fashion, higher end- Yeah. street contemporary to designer fashion, I love this business. It was- Mm-hmm. interesting to me to see the kind of business that could be done at Walmart and Target with a lower price point. It’s a lower margin business, but it’s a lot- Volume? of volume, like, you know, and as the salesman in me, I would love to get a PO for two million pieces. That’s crazy, you know? Mm-hmm. So it’s just a different kind of business. Mm-hmm. And when you go from, like, boutique shopI mean, most of, most of the places that are selling, like, really high end fashion pieces are all, like, boutique type shore, uh, stores, right? But as opposed to, like, Walmarts of the world, I mean that’s a volume play, right? And so theAre the, are the, the points that these places take vary differently? Does a boutique take less points? And I know Walmart’s like, I don’t know what it was, what it is for fashion, but it was like 45 points to 47 points for some of the stuff we were selling. Yeah, well the other thing about, uh, Walmart is, yeah, with the boutiques, your- your- as a business, your internal margin is higher. Yeah. Obviously when- when the volume goes up, the price, you know, the margin goes down. But now you’re looking at gross margin dollars, right? Mm-hmm. So all of a sudden if you got a $10 million order, you don’t need to make net 15%, ’cause if you’re net 9% or you’re net 7%, you still make a hell of a lot of money. So that’s- Mm-hmm. I think that that’s the difference. What I’ve learned about that market, and I don’t even do business in that part of the market. I, that’s just never been my space. Yeah. Um, it’s been intriguing to me, but it- it’s- it’s different. It’s a different space. I specialize- Mm-hmm. in men’s street contemporary fashion. You know, we do accessories, we do footwear, but it’s on the men’s side. We do unisex, we’ve done some women’s in denim and footwear and sunglasses. Mm-hmm. But that’s where it comes. Like, we don’t do contemporary women’s, as- Mm-hmm. you know, like, whereNow most of the business we’ve done with women’s stores or women’s, or men’s stores that carry women’s, so they’re unisex- Mm-hmm. stores. But like there’s a whole contemporary women’s business with these boutiques, and that market is actuallySo one of the things for us, we made an effort years ago to say, “You know what? We’re not in women’s. “Because the only way for us to really have gone into women’s from a contemporary standpoint is we would need to go, needed to go and build a division and go and poach somebody or hire somebody to run that division so that we could do it properly. Mm-hmm. When you come to looking for, uh, brands or trends or things that you guys are gonna do with these different brands that you’ve acquired, I know you travel all the time. I see you anywhere and everywhere, uh, from, from Milan to LA to New York toI mean, you’re everywhere. Um, talk to me about the process of traveling for trends, seeing what’s new, seeing what colors are happening. Like, what, where are you going and why are you doing it? Man, I’m traveling everywhere. You know, Europe, Asia, umThese days, I was in Tokyo earlier in the year. I haven’t been going to Asia as much since pandemic. Um, but I’ll be honest with you, the world has changed. Because I’ve been traveling like this since probably ’06. I was traveling when, you know, particularly a lot of Americans weren’t traveling. I- I feel like we travel a lot more now. But the internet has made the world small. So back in the day, the only way you knew what was going on in London, Barcelona, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Amsterdam, is you had to go. Mm-hmm. Now, the internet allows people to cheat. And- and then I say cheat, and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but you don’t have to go to these places to see or understand what’s going on. Now, it’s still not the same as if you go there and experience it firsthand, but there’s so much information and it’s so easy to get the information, that you can learn about places without going. Um, but- Mm-hmm. I still travel quite a bit. I- I think it keeps me sharp. Um, and, I mean, and now there’s a new frontier. There’s- there’s the online space. There’s the streamers, there’s the, you know, so everything’s changing, you know. Um, you know, you got all these brands that are, you know, direct to consumer online, ’cause any kid can start a brand and go to Alibaba, they can start making stuff. So it’s like the- the landSo that’s another space, and in order to learn about that space y- you don’t even have to leave your house sometimes. So it- Mm-hmm. is just different ways to learn about trend and what’s going on. But I still do- Mm-hmm. travel quite a bit. I enjoy it. Um, and it- it is one of the things that has kept- kept me very sharp on this. Mm-hmm. Because I understand what’s going on globally, and always have. And now that the game has changed, I still do. So are you bringing this back, uh, this information back to all these licensees that you have and sayingI mean, ’cause you’re talking to each one of their creative teams and marketing teams and saying, “Hey, I’m seeing this. “Or, “I’m not seeing this. “Or, uh, are you- are you giving that information back to them and they’re making, you know, “Hey, the new color is, n- n- you know, mustard or honey or whatever this year”? I mean, we share information. I mean, some of the companies, like, you know, we’ll take the Off-White brand for example. They- they got a design team out of Milan. They honestly don’t need us to give them- Yeah, true. Yeah. trend. They’re pretty much- Yeah. on point when it comes to trend. Now obviously, there’s other things that we can help them with. So yeah, there’s certain guys where we provide more trend, and what we provide will be more valuable, and there’s other guys that- Mm-hmm. kinda have that, right? So it- Mm-hmm. it just depends on the project. Mm-hmm. Are there any, are there any, um, personal brands that you have that you’ve, you’ve seen out there, and you thought, “I thought that one was gonna kill it. I thought this one was gonna be the best. “And it justStraight up. ‘Cause what I’m seeing in, in a lot of brands is sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn’t, right? Oh y- Are there any out there that you just thought was a surefire hit and just missed? Oh yeah, there’s been some. I mean, you know, you know, we’re like, you know, we’re like batters in a box, right? You know, I always say- Yeah. to people, I said, “Man, I done hit a lot of home runs, but I didn’t-” Mm-hmm. ” I didn’t struck out before. “I’ll- Yeah. tell you one that we struck out on some years ago. We, we, we got involved with Under Armour. Mm-hmm. And this was the year before Stephor the year that Steph went on to win his first chip, you know, when his- Mm-hmm. sneaker, and all of a sudden, UA had this Steph Curry sneaker they could sell. And when Under Armour came to us, they were launching a new division called UAS, and that’s what they were talking to us about. But then, you know, what was going on with Steph, and we, we got interested in that, and they said, “Oh, we could do something with it. “Man, you know, and the guys at Under ArmourBecause you know, Under Armour was like a jock brand, you know? Like, they, you know, they- Mm-hmm. didn’t know anything about the boutique business, and we got involved, and we just thought Under Armour was gonna be the biggest thing for us in our space and- Mm-hmm. we made serious investment. We added more staff to it. And for a few reasons, it didn’t go. Now, you know, and I say Under Armour. Under Armour’s an incredibly successful brand. It’s a big brand, but what- Mm-hmm. I’m talking about was at that point, Under ArmourLike my kids, they only wear Nike. I grew up wearing- Yeah. Nike, that’s it. So, when my kids played soccer, baseball, football, basketball, whatever it was, it was all Nike. But what I learned- Mm-hmm. watching my kids is there were other parents, there was a lot of Under Armour out there, like when they played soccer, the base layers, and I could see it, so you know- Mm-hmm. you had a generation of kids that was growing up where Under Armour was cool enough to them that some of the parents were buying it. So I’m like, “You know what? The next part of the puzzle for Under Armour is off-field. “Because they were wearing it on-field. On-field, yeah. I don’t feel enough of them were wearing it off-field or off-pit. Right. And to me, that was low-hanging fruit, right? Get the sneakers going, you know, and Under Armour, they couldn’t get out of their own way at the time. It was too, uhTheir business was built to do business with Dick’s and, and, and Sports Authority, and everything was around that, and even with Foot Locker. Foot Locker was coming in, and we were there when they signed A$AP Rocky. Now you know- Hm. A$AP Rocky’s with Puma now, but they, I mean, if you think about it, Under Armour signed A$AP Rocky during that time, and you know- Mm-hmm. he’s a fashion style icon, right? Mm-hmm. And it never translated. The UAS division that was done, um, hired a designer out of Europe to do it. The stuff was nice, but it was too nice, too expensive. You know, I, I felt like they, you know, they jumped over dollars to pick up pennies, right? So it was cool what it was, but it was just like, “Man, the business is going into the I-95 corridor. You’re based out of Baltimore, let’s go get this money from DCLR. Let’s go get Jimmy Jazz in the North. Let’s go get, you know, let’s, let’s hone in on the sneakers. “You know, and, and- Mm-hmm. it just, it didn’t happen. So that was one of the ones. Mm-hmm. That was probably the big one that, that I just remember where it was like, “Man, we thought it was gonna be so much for us, you know, business- Yeah, yeah. for us, and it didn’t happen. “And does that change your model of your company as youLike, “Hey, we scaled up for this. We’ve got to scale down. “Or are you just redistributing your team to other places? Um, it has changed the model over time. But uh, we don’t tend to scale up- Mm-hmm. until the business warrants it. So we go into likeEven with the different brands that we have now, like Jerbo, I have one rep covering the whole country. Now in the- Mm-hmm. future I’ll have 2. I might have 3, but I have one. Um- Hm. Off-White and Palm Angels, I have one. It probably makes sense for only one for both of those. Rolling Loud, one day it may make sense for me to have 2, but a lo- most of the brands, I start with one rep. Usually it’s one, one or 2. BBC and Ice Cream, we have 4 salesmen. Well, we have 2 reps and 2 sales assistants. So we kinda- Mm-hmm. grow the business, uh, grow the team as the business grows, you know? Because it’s which came first, this chicken or the egg, right? Yeah. And it’s like, you know, I got the right brands. You know, I signed all these new deals. You know, I’m not doing the business quite yet because most of what I’m doing, we start shipping in SS26, right? Mm-hmm. That’s the beginning, you know? So that’s when- Mm-hmm. okay, we’ll start to do some volume, we’ll start to make some revenue, and, uh, hopefully we can grow the business and invest in the teams. Yeah. When you, uh, you’ve gone through and you, you have this, a lot of highs and lows and, uh, that you’ve talked about going through this and, and now you talk about the resur- the resurgence of what you’ve, you know, kind of picked up a lot of brands. Like, what’s next? What’s next for you afterIs there something after you’re like, “Man, I gotta plateau this thing up even more”? Because, you know, it’s not just, it’s not just bolting on brands. You’ve gotta have something out there. I know you’re a deep thinker, so what you got? Well, my, well, my plan originally when I moved to California in 2017, the thing that I learned is we w- we had become this formidable sales agency, right? Mm-hmm. But the biggest things that we had, we didn’t own. Like even now, KAPA, yeah, we own the license, but we don’t own the mark. We don’t own the IP. Mm-hmm. You know, Off-White and Palm Angels are great. We don’t own those IPs. I mean, even BBC and Ice Cream, we’re partners in the US operation. We don’t own the IP. Now the brand- Mm-hmm. I told you about, Alice Hollywood, I own the IP with Shane. We’re partners, right? Mm-hmm. So the thing that was missing for me is I really want something that we can own and maybe one day we can sell it. Because as an agency, we can’t really sell the agency, right? And it’s like, uh, so that’s still the elusive thing that’s out there. And you know, and there’s, there’s brands that we own, Midnight Studios, Midnight Rave, ROKIT, it’s just, but none of them were that big. So we had- Mm-hmm. these things that we owned. We had another brand, well-known, Blue Carrots. Like these are all brands that the foundation own. These were our IPs. Mm-hmm. Um, we just haven’t hit with one yet, right? Mm-hmm. So ultimately that’s still a big goal, to have something that we own that’s ours, right? That one day- Mm-hmm. if we want to, we can sell it. What type of capital investment are you talking about when you say, “Man, I’ve gotta get a brand out here. I’ve gotta build it. I’ve gotta get it ready. I’ve gotta try to launch this thing. “Like what kind of capital goes into something like’Cause I, uh, everybody with a, a Cricut and a, and a, uh, Photoshop or Illustrator thinks they got a brand on the, on their hands. And so, but reality was, like, what are you really looking at? I mean, it depends on what it is. Like when, uh, we were doing Midnight Studios and Midnight Rave, it was an already existing brand. We restructured it. Fashion brand, we were doing like, we did a fashion show in LA. We did New York Fashion Week. We invested over maybe a 2year period, we probably, we lost almost 2, $2. 7 million on the brand. Lost, right? Oof. Yeah. So, um, you know, and that was the investment, but we learned something from that. We have other brands. I would say ROKIT, you know, by the time it was all said and done, we probably, uh, compounded boss was 2000000. You know what I’m saying? So, um, yeah, it’s not for the, the faint of heart. Now, Alice- Mm-hmm. the brand, uh, that we’re doing now, low overhead, low maintenance, you know, there’s only like one, one person on the payroll. I’m not even on the payroll. You know, we have a office. Uh, we warehouse and ship the goods ourselves. The brand is small, you know, you know, sub-$2 million brand, but- Mm-hmm. the overheadSo there’s investment that’s been made in the brand, but the brand is, it’s positive. It’s in the black. It’s paying for itself. Mm-hmm. Now, you know, nobody’s getting rich off it, but- Mm-hmm. it’s a sustainable business. So- Mm-hmm. I mean, it just varies, you know, and sometimes people go out and they raise money. See, the beautiful thing about my business was we were self-financed. So even when we started doing the licensing, distribution and ownership, we never raised capital. It was all on our back. And we had did quite well. I mean, at 1 point we had peaked. We were like a 70 M business and, you know, before pandemic, we were, uh, engaging a company so that we could go and sell a third of the business. And we looked good. We looked great on paper. We were profitable. Books looked great. Mm-hmm. Anybody that looked at it was like, “Oh my God, you guys are doing this much business and you know-” Mm-hmm. ” and you’ve never taken investment? “Then pandemic happened. Mm-hmm. And we weren’t able to sell even a portion of the business. So that was a payday that was lost, right? ‘Cause by that time- Mm-hmm. you know, yeah, ’21 was great. Everybody made a ton of money, you know, online, digital sales. ’22 was when it, the wheels started to fall off. And then by the time we got to ’23, ’24, man, we were drowning. And that’s when I learned that when you’re 100% self-financed, when things get tough, you don’t have the, the, you don’t have the financial muscle behind you to survive some of what’s going on. Like, you know- Mm-hmm. we’re no smarter than Nike. During that time, at 1 point Nike came out and said they had $12 billion in inventory, which is ungodly, right? But it’s Nike. They can have $12 billion in inventory. For me, my company at 1 point, we had $23 million in inventory, paid for. And you know, you start to look at it, that’s a self-financed business. Yeah. And yeah, and then we ended up having to sell off quite a bit of that at a loss. Um, you know, you, it’s hard to recover from that, right? Yeah. Or like my, my Kappa business, we wereI mean, we peaked with almost a 50M business. Then, you know, as the business started declining, you lose 15 one year. You lose another 15 another year. Well, you think about your business, regardless of how profitable that bi- that money was, that’s 15 million that was flowing, revenue flowing through your business that helps fund other things. Yeah. Remove 15, and then the next year-remove another 15. Hm. So in a 2year span, we lost 30, right? And you know, you know, yeah, you’re putting your own money into the business, you know, loaning the business money, you’re investing your money. Like it, it’s, it’s, uh, it can get crazy. But that’s why when I look back, we always did this ourselves. I was like, “You know what? Maybe, you know, maybe I should’ve did it a little different. “Um, but it’s not like you live in regret. It’s just, you know, you learn, you go through the experience, and uh, you know, it makes you sharper for what’s next. ‘Cause uh, you know, raising money is a different kind of art, you know? Mm-hmm. And then maybe one day I’ll have something that’s worth raising money for. Well, you don’t have no board meetings you gotta go to right now, so that’s pretty good. Yeah, I definitely don’t have any board meetings. But you know, I mean, at the end of the day, there’s, that’s 2 parts to it, right? One is, you take an investment from somebody. Now you’reIt’s, it’s cool, people see it as, as money coming in, but at the end of the day, you’re, you’re kinda owned by somebody else too, and you gotta justify your decisions, and is everybody- Exactly. getting the money back and right? I mean, that’s a tough way to live, right? Yeah. Oh, I’ve always been independent. Me and my partners, we were free. You know, we were only accountable to ourselves, right? Mm-hmm. And uh, that, that is a sense of freedom, you know? And you know, and we ended up betting on ourselves, you know? And that was like one of the things that, you know, even right now when I had to roll up sleeves, like, “Yo, forget it. You know what? I’m gonna bet on myself. “Right? Mm-hmm. “I’m gonna figure it out,” and that’s, that’s what I did. That’s what we did. Yeah. Figured it out, right? Mm-hmm. And now, you know, opportunity comes when the world is on fire. Well, the world is on fire,Just like it was in ’07, ’08, ’09 and ’10 with the Great Recession. We came out of that like aLike we, we didn’t experience any decline. We came out of that like a phoenix rising from the ashes because- Mm. what’s next comes during these times and periods. So what you wanna do is just put yourself in position to make sure that you’re where what next is coming from, right? So you know, my brand roster right now, and you know, and I got 2 more that I’m working on that, that, uh, I, I won’t be able to reveal on this one, but if we close these, in the history of my company, I have an agency for 20 years, this will be the best roster of brands my agency has ever had. Wow. Now, in our 20th year, or about 19th year. And you know, that’s, that’s staying power. Because in this business, you know, as soon as you’re irrelevant, you’re out of business, right? Mm-hmm. So the only way you can stay in the business, you have to evolve. Well, I got into this business when I was 17. Urban fashion in the mid ’90s. And you know what? It’s 2025 and I’m still here. And you know, I’m more on top of the game now than I was at any other point in time. Mm-hmm. And it’s like, you know, that’s a testament to being able to evolve and change with the game, but still remain relevant. Mm-hmm. I love the fact that you’re so hungry at this point. You know, you’re just rolling and you’re like, “I’m getting more and I’m doing this and I’m growing this,” and it’s, it’s really cool to see ’cause a lot of times somebody’s been doing it for 20 years, they’re like, “Bro, I’m ready to check out. Like, this is enough. Like, where’s the light at the end of the tunnel? “Is that, does that ever hit you or are you just still rolling with it all the time? Man, I’m still rolling. I still got that hunger and that drive, um- Mm-hmm. because I haven’t made it yet. I’m like that, you know, my brother calls me the goal pole pusher ’cause I’m always-pushing the goal post back. Uh, uh, whenever- Yeah. I, uh, I go the goal post. Whenever I, I get something- Mm-hmm. it’s like, “Oh man, Dre, you’re always pushing it back. “But see, that’s- Mm-hmm. That’s that drive. I like just have that drive, right? Or like, even when things, they got tough during that 2year period. You know, for me, there’s no retreat, there’s no surrender. I, I have- Mm-hmm. to succeed. You know why- Yeah. I have, uh, to succeed? Because too many people are dependent upon me. Not only- Hm. my family. My employees, they are my family, right? My mo- my, my, my mother and my brother, my, like, my actual blood, you know, and when you look- Yeah. at it, it’s like I ha- I had to succeed. I had to make it work, right? And, you know, and to have that- Mm-hmm. innate drive, but I’m still having fun. You know, I’ve been in the game all these years, I’m like, “I’m having fun. “It’s exciting to me. Um- Yeah. you know, the business excites me, the brands excite me. Uh, you know, I like closing deals. I love- Mm-hmm. the strategy part. I love to look at something like, “All right, this is how we started year one. What does it look like in year 3, year 4, year 5? What have we built? “Mm-hmm. Or, “What are we going to build? “I still get happy about that, you know, and I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna wanna do it, but I, I mean, I don’t see any ti- uh, no way I’m slowing down. You know, so I’m, you know, I’m- Mm-hmm. 48, be 50 in 2 years. There’s no slowdown in me. I gotta just keep going, you know? It’s, uh, I, I am a more guy, and, you know, and not- Yeah. more because of theIt’s not a greed, but it’s just I want more, you know? I wanna- Accomplishment. do more. I wanna accomplish- Yeah. more, you know? And it’s like- Yeah. it’s, you know, I, you know, yeah. Like, I’ve been in the game and I, and I think, uh, you know, I’ve been reasonably successful. But in my mind it’s like, “Man, there’s so much more. “Like, like I said, one of those things I, I told you- Mm-hmm. like owning a brand that- Mm-hmm. can build and sell would be incredible because I’ve built- Yeah. so many brands. My agency- Mm-hmm. man, it was, uh, one time we, we ran a list of all the brands we’ve been involved in. It’s crazy. You know, some are heritage, some are designer, some of them are fashion, some of them startup, urban brands, whatever it may be, action sport- Mm-hmm. escape brands. We’ve, we’ve done it all. And, uh, you know, and it’s, it, it’s pretty incredible. For all of them that we built, though, none of them were ours. Mm-hmm. I feel that. Yeah, owning something is, is gotta be a, a great accomplishment to bring something and not just sell it through that, um-and, and make some money on it, but, man, build something from the ground and call it your baby and, and, and nurture that thing along the way and it being super successful has gotta beYou know, I, I can see where that goal would be, you know, the one you want to obtain for sure. Well, if you think about it, the joy that I get out of my business, The Foundation, this is my brand. It’s my business, and it’s the thing that I’m proudest of, is- Mm-hmm. I mean, it’s tattooed on my back. Like, you know, I, I, I always say, “The Foundation is on my back. “It’s literally on my back, right? And it’s- Mm-hmm. But that feeling that I get in building my brand and my business, I can’t wait wh- uh, uh, uh, I have it now. I have it with Alice. I, I love it, right? It’s like, you know? Yeah. Um, and, and we’ve had it with some other things. It’s just, to be able to do it and hopefully turn it into something that’s as successful, if not more successful- Mm-hmm. than what I’ve been able to do with my main business is a goal. Yeah, that’s, that’s amazing. You know, you, you said something a minute ago about accomplishment and, you know, I, I, it sounds cheesy, I know, but, like, I feel like I’m addicted to accomplishment. Like, being able to check the box on something or m- do something else or learn something else. It’s always, uh, I don’t know, man, it, like, it raises the, the hair on my arms and then neck. It’s, like, so, uh, refreshing and, and energizing for me, you know, to, to do those types of things. So, um, I feel you when it comes to that, for sure. M- I tell you what, man, I, I have had such a great time talking to you, uh, on, on this so far. And, man, it’s been an hour and 43 minutes, and man, it’s just kind of really flown by. Like I told you, it was just gonna , it was gonna slide by real quick. But before we dip up out of here, I just, is there anything that you wanna tell anybody where they can find you or find your brands or how to follow you guys or, or anything like that? Yeah, I mean, my, my company is called The Foundation, so that’s T-H-E underscore F as in Frank, N as in Nancy, D as in Day, T as in Tom, N as in nancy. com. Um, and not dot-com. I mean, Dre_ uh, I mean, dre_fndtn, that’s the IG. Uh, my website is www. thefndtn. com. And then, uh, me personally, uh, my name is Dre Hayes, um, dre_hayes on, uh, on IG. Um, you know, and that’s same guy, just, you know, still here. Been here a long time and, uh- Yeah. don’t plan on going anywhere. Dre, I’ll say this, uh, before we close up, man. I, uh, the very first day that we met you guys, you guys were walking in. I’d been on the rally before. I’d seen you guys the first time. You were kind of looking around. I gave you guys my number and said, “I’ve been there the, for the first time before. Here’s my number. If you guys have any questions about where we’re going, hit me up. “And you guys texted me directly afterwards, and we’ve been good friends ever since. And I just, I’m telling you this, I’m happy to know you. I think that you are, superb individual. Uh, anyone who gets to know Dre Hayes, anyone who gets to know the, the human being that he is, intelligent, smart, and absolutely a genuine cat, and we’ll always have your back and I, I appreciate your friendship. Oh, man. Oh, man, I appreciate that. Like, yeah, man. It’s all love. Team Texas. That’s my family. Like, oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. And I miss the Gumball days. We, uhMan, we gotMan, we had so much fun. But, uh- Yeah. I gotta come down to Dallas, man. I gotta come and see you. I ain’t been down there in a minute, man, and, uh, I, I’m due forI’m actually due for about 3 or 4 trips, I know. I, I got, I got some catching up to do. Well, come on down. We’ll sneak down to politics and, and pull Derek out of there, too, so. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, Derek just moved there. So it’s- I know. Yeah. So, yeah. So I, you know, he, he’s calling on me too. “When you coming? When you coming? “So I was like, “You know what? “”I got too much family down there. I gotta come see them. “Yep. 100%. Dre, thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you, man. Uh, thank you for having me. I’m glad we were able to do it, man. Thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s always good to catch up. Yes, sir. Well, everybody, until next time, that’s the blueprint.