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  • - Hey, everyone.

  • I've got a guest with me today.

  • - What's up, guys?

  • My name is Brett Conti.

  • I am a 24-year-old living in New York City.

  • I own a clothing company,

  • a skateboard company,

  • and I also make daily YouTube videos.

  • - Yep.

  • But your clothing company is what I wanna talk about today

  • 'cause I get a lot of questions about clothing companies

  • 'cause I have some videos about one

  • I started one when I was in University,

  • but, unlike mine, yours is pretty successful.

  • - Well, thank you!

  • I like to think so.

  • I'll tell my parents that.

  • - What made you start it?

  • How did you get into it?

  • - Okay.

  • My grandfather owned a textile company.

  • - [Charli] Cool.

  • - So as a little kid,

  • I was always so intrigued about like fabrics

  • and design and stuff like that

  • and when I was in, as you guys say, University,

  • when I was in college,

  • I just started sewing five panel hats,

  • pocket T-shirts, snapback hats,

  • all from scratch.

  • And then, you know, started to turn into a brand.

  • - That's amazing.

  • See I started mine at University as well.

  • - Did you? Okay.

  • - But I was mostly..

  • I was, like, screen printing on existing T-shirts.

  • So, that's cool that you were making your own.

  • - Yeah, yeah.

  • - So, where was this point where it was like,

  • this little thing, like who did you sell to

  • to start with?

  • Was it like friends?

  • - Yeah, yeah.

  • That's a good way to go with it.

  • - [Charli] Yep.

  • - [Brett] Of course, you know,

  • you don't wanna invest too much money into it

  • and have like all this inventory so you know,

  • I started small.

  • I was sewing everything myself so it was easy

  • to manage the inventory.

  • But, yes, selling to people on campus

  • and then, also, I'm a big skateboarder

  • so through the skateboarding niche market.

  • - [Charli] Yep!

  • - [Brett] I was able to connect with them

  • and sell to them and then just

  • eventually kept growing.

  • - [Charli] So how did you,

  • how did you grow it?

  • What are some tips there?

  • - Yeah.

  • For me, selling..

  • This was four years ago,

  • back when brick and mortar stores were a lot more popular.

  • I mean, they still are but you know it's kinda dying out

  • where the internet's taking over.

  • - Yeah, thanks, Amazon.

  • - Yeah, exactly.

  • So I was able to get it into a lot of small skate shops

  • at first.

  • - Cool!

  • - And that helped spread the word

  • because then the employees would talk

  • about how, you know, it's a local brand

  • and, you know, it would give the whole story behind it,

  • the name of my clothing company is called Fortune

  • and I got the name from wanting to help the less fortunate.

  • I've done stuff with the homeless here in New York City.

  • - [Charli] That's cool.

  • - [Brett] Toys for Tots.

  • So, having the employees of the stores know that

  • and sell that to the customer made it a lot easier.

  • - [Charli] Yeah, like it's got a story behind it.

  • - [Brett] Exactly, right, yeah.

  • - This is one of your T-shirts?

  • - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  • Actually like the signature thing that I like to do

  • with Fortune is like a small front left chest hit

  • and then like a big,

  • a big back graphic.

  • (Charli laughing)

  • - Okay, so you were selling into stores

  • and that's how it was like growing.

  • Now, though, you've got like a warehouse, right?

  • - Yeah.

  • - And it's like a big deal?

  • - Yeah.

  • - So how did you figure out all that stuff?

  • 'Cause I'm imagining that

  • you didn't know that before you started.

  • - Alright, so, you might not know this,

  • there's a big chain store called Zumiez.

  • - [Charli] I have heard of them.

  • - [Brett] They have over 750 locations in America.

  • They own chains in Canada.

  • They own a different chain called Blue Tomato in Europe,

  • and something else in Australia.

  • So, they're a massive company

  • and when I got my first big purchase order from them,

  • I was like, oh man.

  • I don't have the warehouse.

  • I'm doing this out of my mom's garage.

  • I had a purchase order with a cancel date

  • and I stayed up for three days straight

  • trying to fulfill this order just like by myself.

  • Had my friends come over, we had pizza,

  • they were helping me package stuff.

  • And it was very stressful.

  • I was like, alright.

  • This was the first and last time I'm packaging an order

  • this size with thousands of shirts

  • so, after that, I just called everyone I knew

  • in the industry and now have a whole fulfillment center

  • that handles everything.

  • - [Charli] Nice.

  • - [Brett] So much better.

  • - This is a design channel

  • so what about the designs?

  • How does that process work?

  • - Yeah, so, I used to design everything

  • and now I come up with most,

  • I would say about 90 percent of the ideas.

  • - Yep.

  • - And then now I have a full-time designer

  • who him and I will create a mood board.

  • - [Charli] Yep.

  • - [Brett] And you know,

  • we'll go through Google images and magazines.

  • And after we have a solid 10 to 20 images

  • for our next collection,

  • then from there we start,

  • like, oh, maybe a shirt like this would be cool

  • and just get inspiration.

  • Also something, being in New York City,

  • so easy to get inspired for new graphics.

  • - [Charli] Yeah, I found that while I was here.

  • - [Brett] So easy.

  • Sometimes when I'm having a creative block,

  • I just go walk around.

  • - [Charli] Yeah.

  • - [Brett] The energy just comes to you.

  • Yeah, yeah.

  • Go get a bubble tea and walk around.

  • It's like oh I can do this for days now.

  • - So do you wanna like give a plug

  • where people can go buy your T-shirts?

  • - Yeah, fortuneny.com.

  • - There we go.

  • - Check it out.

  • - Yeah, check him out.

  • Thank you for sharing some thoughts.

  • - Of course, thank you for having me.

  • - One last tip for like building a clothing brand.

  • What would be the main thing that you'd say?

  • - Focus on building the brand

  • and don't worry about sales at first.

  • - Kay.

  • I like that.

  • - Don't look at, like, your sales numbers at first,

  • think about how you're growing the brand.

  • You know, maybe,

  • I don't know, and especially now,

  • social media is so important so.

  • - It's like the brand personality sells the product.

  • - Yeah, exactly.

  • - I like it, thank you for being on my channel.

  • - Of course, thank you for having me.

  • - There will be links to Brett, his YouTube channel,

  • and store and everything in the description.

  • Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it

  • and I'll see you next time.

  • Bye.

  • It's hilarious saying your name

  • because everyone's going to make

  • Flight of the Concord jokes in the comments.

  • - The what?

  • - Have you ever seen that?

  • - [Camera Man] Brit.

  • - You've seen it, Brit.

  • - Brit.

  • (everyone laughing)

  • - What's your name again?

  • - Bret.

  • - [Woman] Brit?

  • - Bret.

  • - Brit?

  • - [Bret] Bret.

  • - Brit like, like Brittany?

  • - No, B-R-E-T.

  • - Oh, Bret.

  • - Yeah.

  • (casual upbeat tempo)

- Hey, everyone.

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