Transcription
Two brothers, one clothing brand, $17 million of revenue in a single year. No fashion school, no big investors, and no celebrity co-signs. So, how did these two brothers turn a simple idea into a multi-million dollar business?
This is the story of Tuloness and how branding, timing, and hustle helped them scale to be one of the biggest clothing brands in the southeast. But what makes this story interesting isn't just the money, it's how they did it. They built a loyal audience and marketed to a certain demographic of people and turned culture into a business.
By the end of this video, you'll understand how they got there so fast, what are the number one mistakes most clothing brand owners make, and what were the key moves that helped them scale to a couple million dollars. This is Behind the Brand with Tuloness. Let's get into the video.
We're on another series of investigating millionaire clothing brand owners. So today we're going to go check out Dollar and Benji from Tulonz. You've definitely seen the logo.
>> Yo, what up, bro?
>> Yo, what's good, Pete? How you doing?
>> This is the headquarters. This is nice.
>> It literally explains itself. This will be our break room. Pretty much where we put up most of our mocks.
>> Can I see what's in the break room closet? What y'all What kind of snacks y'all be giving out?
>> Rice crisp. Ooh, the Nutella go crazy.
>> What's your favorite snack?
>> The Nutella.
>> Y'all let the employees play 2K on this too afterwards?
>> Yeah, we got Madden 2K Grand Theft Auto.
>> What are those? Those are like uh
>> just some pinball machine. Just some cool stuff. It got trinkets in it.
>> And you made this overseas.
>> Everything is 100% custom inside of the warehouse.
>> Like this isn't something you just put a sticker on. You figured out how to make this from A to Z.
>> Of course.
>> Like a kid in a candy store. Yo, I got a 21 bouncy ball. Even this. How did you guys make these?
>> Everything's made of everything. It's a fact.
>> What half do you manage?
>> I do all of the marketing for the business. All of the in-house website, email marketing. I guess everything in-house pretty much the brains behind everything trading wise.
>> He sources it, you sell it.
>> Yes, sir.
>> Grows the weed, you sell the [ __ ].
>> That's right.
>> This makes our office look like [ __ ].
>> So, this is my office.
>> Oh, [ __ ]. You got a nice office.
>> Right? So theme is peaches and wings. This was one of our drops. It was a tribute to Atlanta. So we had two popular things in Atlanta, which is the peach steak and the wings.
>> Three. Don't forget the strip.
>> Oh, and the strip club.
>> You made this, too?
>> Yes, sir. 100% custom. That's Benji.
>> How long you been running the brand for?
>> This is actually our 10th year in business. We started in Well, 900.
>> This is where the magic happens. Yo, this is crazy. You want to show us give us a tour of the warehouse?
>> Yeah, for sure.
>> How do you guys organize the Is it all by size, by skew?
>> We have rows and um assortment on the floor.
>> When an order sheet comes in, it'll send like J3, pick two of those out, go to F6 and pick two of those out.
>> Correct.
>> And you guys manufacture everything overseas?
>> Everything's overseas. We have it kind of down to a science where we have it for months on out. So, we have our spring collection as you can see in our little pop-up section when we get over there. We have everything we're going to be doing until probably the 4th of July already in the warehouse.
>> What's the best I feel like a lot of kids starting to bring out now. They either want to go Pakistan or China. Who manufactures better?
>> I just feel like it depends on if you know what you're asking for. So, I I could probably get something good in Pakistan that another person wouldn't know to ask for because they don't know clothing in depth. So, they don't know the type of stitching to ask for or how they want the material. Yeah, I mean it's deeper than GSM, you know, so they just got to know some.
>> It's deeper than GSM. What's the pros and cons of going to Pakistan? What's the pros and cons of going to China?
>> Pakistan is fast. Trading with the US is kind of easier. So import laws.
>> Exactly. So you can get those packages in faster if you don't tip by sea. Dealing with China can almost cost you double.
>> Yeah. When you do everything by sea, right? Like this spring spring summer collection, right? It's here today. When did you start designing and production and like sampling?
>> a lot of our silhouettes? because we work in the space we we work in street wear but it's like the model we follow is more so based on like bigger on numbers brands so it's like numbers so we use Nike as an example or Reebok and these things so our silhouettes are our silhouettes so we know the colors and sometimes black we have more inventory in and then all the other colors we just kind of sample it out to see how it goes so we don't really have to sample unless we're doing something.
>> cuz you already have set things that already sell season after season it's just a new graphic a new design some
>> correct we don't make the t-shirts to us or or tops besides our staple items.
>> So, we do have staple items. So, I guess that will be we always going to start off the spring, summer, winter, any season with staple items essentially. So, we'll have those items in pretty much 6 months.
>> What What is this? This is the popup over here.
>> Yeah, this is something we wanted to do to kind of create a better experience.
>> Oh, this [ __ ] is crazy. Y'all got [ __ ] 4x4s and [ __ ] This is the I guess the pop-up experience. Oh, we would make a lot a variety of accessories from our bikes down to go basketball, go skateboard.
>> I see that with the brand. A lot of people just do shirts and stuff. You guys are so good with like the accessories.
>> All of these are going to be accessories.
>> Oh, even these are crazy.
>> Just showing a variety of different things that we have. Of course, the sunglasses, the basketball. So, this was actually a part of the toolless experience, which is something different kind of just going into the future. That's why you see the balls kind of like out of space. Yeah. Most definitely.
>> How do you figure out how to make stuff like this? Cuz I feel like a shirt, a hoodie, sweatpants, is like there's a there's a manual, but like do a basketball, a skateboard, like how did you figure out how to make this stuff?
>> We shop a lot. We do collect a lot of these items from Supreme. We have to follow like the cultural rules to make skateboards even though that's not so prevalent in the south. A cup, glasses, toothbrushes, just household items.
>> And it's then like to source this like what is it? Go to Alibaba, Trade Show.
>> Yeah, Alibaba.
>> Alibaba. We've never been to a trade show, never been out the country.
>> How do you get them to actually like make what you want to make?
>> So, I know to ask for templates for anything I want to do. And I'm basically just working backwards from there.
>> For like this, instead of you making your own toothbrush, you go to them and say, "Can you give me the template that you're using?" And then you customize it from there.
>> A lot of these item, we draw these out from the beginning. So, we pay the mold fee for this. This is our mold. This is our toothbrush.
>> For people that don't understand, can you explain them like what a mold process? Cuz like even for this, you got to make a mold. Exact. What What is that process? Explain that to them.
>> The molding process is basically for you to be able to sell more products in the future. If you don't plan on selling that specific product, I don't say invest in the mold. I say kind of use something generic. But when you do this, you have this model to go along with, but up front you pay the mold fees.
>> This mold fee was 6,500.
>> Is that for every size or is it just for
>> that that size?
>> Just for this one.
>> So for the big one is another 6,500. So just in this product alone and you got the big one this size and the small one you pay three mold fees. So how much was a mold for like a watch like this?
>> They dropped $5,000 off for like anything plastic. That's what's the going to be because it's just a component of machinery. We've also looked deeper into machinery. So we know like oh okay
>> it makes sense to pay for the mold rather than buying the mach into the shape that I wanted it to to inject it
>> cuz to maybe buy the machine it might cost you 200,000,000. You might as well just like renting sometimes better to rent than to buy the whole thing.
>> What do you think is the piece that blew you guys up?
>> So, we've had a lot of different eras of of success that I can say that most of you success or tooling this. One of our first items was a head, right?
>> A headband.
>> A head literally.
>> What was so special about the headband?
>> You have to ask the people.
>> It was just a headband. We literally made it. Of course, you get a lot of ideas from brands itself. of the thicker headbands that came out. I think like Louis V had the Supreme and Supreme had the thicker one and we literally just made the tulips thick headband and it was history. Yeah. I mean I think two or 3,000 units in a couple of week span maybe. Maybe. And that was hand to hand sales.
>> in the cop. You guys did like 20 million. Is that true or false?
>> That's definitely true.
>> How? Like that's so crazy. 20 million is like is a huge number. No.
>> Okay. So we had inventory. We don't aim to sell out of this business. We aim to have consistent sales date during co we were able to ship and then we had the products in in stock. A lot of these bigger stores, Sachs, Neimas, you couldn't go outside, but you guys had the inventory. People were still trying to get fly. And it was just like
>> the e-commerce per presence were there. We were pretty much committed to our customers. Of course, it's our business. So, we worked every day sending out orders ourself.
>> So, like we never missed a beat, right?
>> Literally, our UPS man would come, we would sit the packages back there and do social distance, pick them up, leave. That's it.
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>> What about this? What is this? This is a like a [ __ ] life-size basketball court.
>> Most definitely. It's so crazy. We're actually about to change it to black. That's why you see it's kind of messed up cuz we just did a full remodel of the warehouse. But it's a tool in this court. This is actually a mini size full court. So, we learn how to actual full court. We have our own custom game at the bottom. That's why you see the four, the three.
>> And how did you guys figure out how to make this type of stuff? This is all China, too. Or
>> everything.
>> Everything.
>> Everything.
>> You a China wizard, bro. You more Chinese than me. The [ __ ]
>> at this point. And of course, we got the guy back here.
>> Oh, and this is also China, too.
>> How much is it to make something like this?
>> 15,000 [ __ ]
>> 15,000? That's a [ __ ] steal. Cuz this is like the [ __ ] that they have at real gyms. Heavy duty [ __ ]
>> We import a lot. So, our boxes are bring
>> Everything comes barcoded with the with the frosted bag, hang tag, and everything.
>> Yes. Everything.
>> I saw that you guys are getting into more like fitness and [ __ ] right? You was big.
>> 300 lb.
>> And now you run every day and [ __ ] What made you want to do that?
>> Just committed to different things, learning about our health, getting old, understanding that what what truly matters to us. I want to live and enjoy it, man. And so
>> I have a friend uh he's black and he was trying to get a space, right? And the Jewish landlord was like, "You can afford this?" He just didn't know, right? What would you say to like people from different cultures that have never seen this type of like black excellence? Like if I went to the landlord, he wouldn't say nothing to me, right? But why is he saying it to my friend? So it's like what would you say to those people and like what you built?
>> A lot of time it's not about your color. Of course you going to experience racism and things in that. But if we got the paperwork to pay
>> and the credit score and everything to pack up what you're talking about, it's going to be easy anyway.
>> So, right, we don't have to deal with anything. Most of the time, most of the things that we do from purchasing real estate, getting a building like this, I don't have to talk to anybody. My business is in order. I'm just sending over emails and then we can meet
>> all the paperwork is correct. So that way the paperwork and the money for you.
>> Yes, exactly. Sending over shipping to let them know that we actually have a purpose for loading docks. Just all of the information. They have a lot of branded stuff, but like we tell we try to tell people this story all the time. Our diamonds like our jewelry, he won money at the casino. Yeah. Right.
>> So you So all of this is for fun.
>> Exactly.
>> But then everything you made is back.
>> It's about business.
>> I saw uh you guys have an Airbnb. What is that about? Like what made you want to do that? If most brands, they don't even think about doing an Airbnb. That's crazy.
>> It's just an extension of our brand. So we were all into it for the experience. And we're brothers. We're blood brothers. These are all the things that we've always talked about. So this is aimed like fantasy factory.
>> We always wanted a warehouse. Even if we did nothing in it, it was just the passion of having a warehouse and we always did clothing. So when we made our first success, the only thing the next step that we knew for our success was to get a warehouse because this is what we wanted to do. It's not about work. It's not about chasing money. We passion passion. This is who
>> older. I'm older.
>> You guys ever fought when you were younger?
>> Oh yeah.
>> What did you guys fight about?
>> That was the time. No, we real brothers. We we fight.
>> Now, when you guys have like a disagreement in business, how do you handle that?
>> You're grown men.
>> Yeah. So, it's it's
>> right.
>> So, I mean, even if we wanted to go back and forth, I mean, we before we do that, we'll ask Chad or something like who's we only talking over facts.
>> You're looking at things objectively, not subjectively.
>> Yes. Exactly. We don't have time for that. I don't have time for his opinion. He don't have time for mine. We got to do ours right quick.
>> Was there ever a point in the business where he says a loss and how did you like overcome that?
>> We don't really consider it losses because I mean you're working every day. I think that a lot of people are confused because they don't understand that you're working for it. What we understand on the daily is that we have something to do. We really don't look at it as a loss. We got an end in our strategy in here. No product is lost.
>> Instead of making a little jacket, for instance, a letterman jacket, if you put enough patches on it, it's going to cost about $40 to make.
>> Bikes cost lits. We make bikes.
>> Oh, like bikes like
>> Yeah, those those are our bike. those are bike.
>> It's cheaper to make a bike than it is to make a [ __ ] letterman jack.
>> So a lot of times I understand that I'm not
>> because I understand what those people who even work have jobs at do in fashion and I can't take credit for that and I understand that if I try to take credit for for that they might attack me in some type of way. So I know that we do import export and we understand the marketing and building a brand. So, we're building something that we hope to grow to space like Nike, Reebok, or athletic wear or athletic sports or athletic street wear.
>> How do you guys have like such good analytics? Like what where does Cuz I feel like a lot of creative people, they want to come up with the gym, the pop-up shop, the bikes, but they don't really understand like the numbers that have made sense behind it. How did you learn that skill?
>> Okay, so now I can reverse that back on losses. So sometimes we invest in a product that cost less than a basketball court and that's a loss. I mean that that's what I would consider a loss. It's like damn instead of paying the motor we could have just got a basketball or instead of paying the mold and see making those we could have made bought this store or this thing right here. So every experience you have, you learn from. And that's what flips it.
>> With the bikes, we've been able to with that product and the investment itself, we've been able to sponsor over 30 to 40 Christmas and back to school giveaways and everything.
>> It cost cheaper to make this than a [ __ ] varsity jacket.
>> Yes. I don't mind being training. The bike cost 20. Everybody can get on Alibaba and make a bike. I just know that people are not going to pay for the inventory or have an Uber at the store to get
>> What's the like what's the rough range to make one of these? $28 for shipping
>> even with shipping.
>> Yeah,
>> that's a steal.
>> You're right. It is going to be more expensive than [ __ ] it. It is going to be more expensive than
>> And that was our first one. So, this is actually our second release of box bikes. We had this be first. You s
>> we can also say how comes with trial and error. If you look at the bike,
>> the reason we got them flipped over.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Cuz we don't have the kickstand.
>> Forgot.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> We forgot.
>> Yeah.
>> We forgot.
>> Yeah. Hey, the factory. Look out.
>> You know, like competition riding be a mix that don't come with the kickstand. So, we actually be a mix of what we say for the kickstand.
>> Yeah. And you guys do all direct to consumer. You're not in stores. You're not going wholesale. You're going direct. Why is that? How much are you guys doing in sales now?
>> We typically we do anywhere from a half a million to a million dollars a sale.
>> And is it ad driven or is it just community?
>> No, community.
>> So, you guys don't do no Facebook ads?
>> Yeah, we we'll do ads, but I mean it was organic from we're actually just growing as a brand. So we learned marketing to actually just fit in the big space with brands to have emails, to have text messages, to just have the same infrastructure as the bigger brands, but it was all organic. We literally when I started to learn marketing, we were already at maybe about 400 to 500,000 subscribers already
>> without us even knowing. We were doing nothing with them.
>> They was already there was the streets was already behind it type.
>> Exactly.
>> For the people that don't know, I know what it is. But what does tul mean? So two line this, it actually means two line this, which is a dollar sign.
>> Y'all about the money,
>> right? So they actually call me Benji. They call him Dollar, but it's just an extension of the brand. Um Benjamin Franklin and Dollar Beard.
>> What about the jewelry? I see like Okay, so I got a moist knife chain, right?
>> This [ __ ] ain't no moist knife. Like what is this, bro? What is this?
>> It's not BZ. I'm not going, bro. But it's nice.
>> You cleaned it yesterday cuz that [ __ ] dancing.
>> My [ __ ] My [ __ ] hit is selected and picked right. I know how to pick this. I know how to make with all them.
>> Right.
>> A lot of times people don't know even talking to a jeweler.
>> They want white gold and go in the jewel and ask for silver and then they mad at the jewel later because they asked for a silver chain. I don't wear silver. I wear white gold. So if you were mimicking what I was doing, then you did it wrong.
>> Last question. If you could go to like a 18-year-old version of yourself, right, and you guys are trying to figure out how to build this, what's one advice you would give yourself?
>> Enjoy the process. You didn't know you were I was building it to to this. I didn't know this what it was going to be. It's not a rush thing. It's like some of this stuff happened up when it's supposed to happen. Like I want we He talk about nice cars and like nice [ __ ] but we understand that the average person who ride this car is 40 years old. So we see all our time. It's time to have it. We just work that.
>> Humble yourself.
>> You get what I'm saying? Humble yourself. That's it. And just trust the process.
All right guys, this is Behind the Brand with Superine. We're giving you an inside look of Tulonz. Only here.