June 8, 2022 • 19 mins
Reuben & Toya Levi are owners of a mom-and-pop shop named Grits Co.
They return in this deep dive to teach our audience how to build a brand. In addition, they share the methods to engage with your audience, social media tips, and how to develop relationships with your audience online.
Guest IG: @weargrits
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. On today's deep Dive,
we are joined by the grits Co Owners Reuben and
(00:21):
Toya Leady. This deep dive is brought to you by
MasterCard bridging the Wealth Gap together with Freewood. Hey Money Movers.
If you missed our previous episode, Reuben and Toya are
the owners of the T shirt and lifestyle brand grits Co.
They told us the story about how they were inspired
to start their own mom and pop lifestyle brand and
the future of the brand, and we are here today
(00:44):
to welcome back Reuben and Toya to the show to
talk all about how you two can start a lifestyle brand.
Hi Reuben, Hi, Toya, Hi, thank you looking for having this. Well,
I'm so excited to have you back here, and I'm
really excited to have you back on the podcast today
so that you can inspire others to perhaps start their
own lifestyle brand and give them sort of a little
(01:04):
bit of wisdom on how you guys created and started
this successful brand. So let's take us back to the
beginning in our last episode, Ruben, you talked about always
having sort of a creative vein in you and Toya.
You always said you had the business sensibilities. I feel
like the two of you combined to not only start
a beautiful family together, but this incredible business. How did
(01:25):
you know that you were going to launch a business
and what were the first steps that you took? Oh Man, Yeah,
I actually previously started started it before meeting Toya, so
it was like a different iteration. And I really just
kind of like started. I just made a shirt. I
(01:45):
saw if I could go and sell it, you know,
and I try to you know, of course you try
to sell your friends and your family, and that's the
first thing usually everyone does, but that after a while
you kind of realized that doesn't go too far. So
I found a local like events, uh like I was
like Sneaker events, and I came with a couple of
designs and just went and sold it. I just went
(02:07):
just to see what, you know, how much I can sell?
And thank god I was in the I was in
the black, so like at least met double my double
my money, and I was like, okay, I'm happy. At
that point, I was like I need to make some
more shirts, and it just kind of like stuck with
it after with that, just uh, you know, as ideas
(02:29):
came and and then I started kind of formulating some
better like more collections and stuff later down a line. Wow, Okay,
that's a great example because I feel like oftentimes people
are looking to start a brand, and a T shirt
brand is really great because you know, I think there's
a lot of different ways where you can start manufacturing
and doing you know, minimum orders at a small number.
How did you decide or how did you know when
(02:51):
you could start making those big purchase orders to reproduce
your shirts in large volumes. That's kind of a tricky
one because it's it's more of a matter of gauging,
like you know, the frequency of how fast you're selling
and and how much you replanish your inventory, and you're
(03:12):
just gonna have to really just kind of watching the
the EBB and flow of your of your business um
to kind of gauge it. Even when ordering size is
some side like or some shirts some size is sell
really good, and it's sometimes like another design that's um
that size is totally different. So I mean there's kind
of ups and downs, just like just kind of depends
(03:32):
where we try to like try to have a good
meeting and where you can kind of break even and
feel good at Plus, we run everything from our home,
so we don't have a warehouse that we're running all
kinds of shipments out of. Um, it's based out of
what we have here. So we like to move our
inventory and keep it moving, so we don't sit on
(03:53):
a lot of inventory for a long amount of time.
That's why we tell people if you see a shirt
that you like, get it because it might be sold out.
And when we sell out, we usually don't reprint those shirts.
So these are like there's sort of an element of
rarity here. You gotta get it when you see it. Yes,
And that's why we have our followers, which we call
(04:13):
the Grits Gang and um, you know, they are part
of the newsletter, they're part of our social media on Instagram,
and they know exactly when a shirt is coming out. Um,
we show them the shirt, we ask them if they
want to buy in. If not, we don't. We only
print so many shirts and then once we're sold out,
we're sold out, and then we make another collection. I
(04:34):
think this is really interesting because I think this isn't
a mistake. I think a lot of early clothing brands make.
They're so excited about this incredible dream that they're gonna do,
and they're gonna create this brand, and they order thousands
of shirts and we're gonna sell this same shirt, you know,
and it's it's a big gamble. It's a big gamble
because you know, if people don't like your shirt, if
(04:55):
they don't like the quality, the size, the fit, if
they don't like the ink, if they don't like you know,
all of it goes into people will tell you like, UM,
the majority of our people who buy our clothes our men,
and the majority of the men are car club people
because we have a big following of car clubs. Well,
the majority of those men want black t shirts. So
(05:17):
a lot of the shirts that have I'm folding up
and send it out. I'm like, oh my god, another
black shirt. Like my husband's whole wardrobe is nothing but
black shirts. But that's what they like, that's what they
look good in, that's what they feel good in. They
always tell me how they like the cut of the
shirt on them, So I know not to change the
quality and the shirts that we use. UM and we
(05:39):
have people coming back years later letting us know, Hey,
I'm still wearing this T shirt and it's still in
good condition, and I want to buy a new one
just because I need another one. So this is so
important because I feel like oftentimes people miss the nuances
of the gems that you're lying down. You're like, we
went after an audience and we knew they liked our product,
and we keep selling to those same people and they
(06:00):
keep coming back. So sometimes I think people are very
quick to iterate and put out something new and put
out something new, but you lose customers that way. So
if you find a strong customer base, you keep at them.
I would always say, like, you know, love those that
love you, and honority everyone else. So like when you're
doing that, like it's really especially now they's just like
(06:22):
so many different like there's so many different places to sell,
so many so much competition. If you look on I
look at Instagram almost like it's just different channels, right,
so everyone is trying to like, hey, look at my channel,
and you have to kind of find your place and
find your niche and rather than trying to find something
that gets everybody, like, just find something that just works
(06:44):
for you and trying to see you can grow that
audience from there. So, as you've sort of built and
grown your business using social media, can you offer any
sort of advice to people on how they can grow
their sales online? So many people have started businesses, especially
out of the pandemic, where they, you know, really started
to thrive using social media. Can you offer any secrets,
(07:05):
tips or tricks to our audience. I would say to
make sure that you engage with people on social media.
Make sure you're engaging with them, going on to other
people's feed commenting so that they can see you trying
to get yourself better in that algorithm. Also, check on
your insights um Every every one of our pictures and
everything you post on your page has an insight button.
(07:29):
Check on those insights and see what everything is going,
how it's going out to, how many people are clicking,
if it's the hashtag that is bringing them, if it's
the actual just followers that are bringing them, If you're
coming up randomly in new people's feeds, how many people
are you averaging a week that you're getting as new followers.
Has somebody reposted something of yours that's caused followers or
(07:50):
people to bring attention to your page. So pay close
attention to those algorithms and the insights that you're creating
on a day to day basis on social media. UM.
Also check out other platforms. We don't do all the
platforms because our followers aren't all you know, we don't
have TikTok followers. If we do, great, but that's just
not where we spend our day to daytime at. But knowing, Okay,
(08:12):
I have a clothing line, I need to do those
cute little TikTok videos and maybe needs changing real quick
into something you know that's takes you five minutes or whatever.
And it's a good thing that you could put both
on TikTok and then use it on your reels on Instagram.
And reels is what's important on Instagram right now. That's
helping a lot of people get more algorithm going. So
anytime that you can engage in those things and know
(08:34):
what you're putting into your actual social media platform UM
is always best. So also going in and if you
are a person that's on Instagram, you want to change
it over to a business account or make sure you
have the title that you're work. Yeah, if you're an entrepreneur,
put entrepreneur under your name, put real estate agent, whatever
(08:55):
it is. Make sure that information is on there. Um
if it's not your business page, but you're personal page,
but you're still conducting business with both. So that that's
my tips, Toya. One of the things that I want
to really impress upon our Money Moves audience, especially those
of you that are aspiring entrepreneurs. I think a lot
of your success as you guys have really been so
hands on building this business. Oftentimes people think they're building
(09:19):
a business online and they're like, oh, I can outsource
it to all these fancy sco shops or social media
content creators, but you have to really understand your business
from top to bottom and the data as well behind it.
You mentioned checking the insights page on every post. I
think that's just such a great recipe for success. Yes,
(09:39):
we are very hands on, and we have been for years. Um.
I remember when we first got started, Rubing had this
idea that he wanted tags in the back of the
shirts and they had to be these woven tags. So
instead of us outsourcing someone to sell the woven tags,
and he ordered a thousand of them, and then I'm
here at the sewing machine, putting the tags on the bat,
(10:00):
you know. And so those are the stories that our
fans love. They're like, I still got an original shirt.
Look at me that is an original because everyone knows
my hands were the ones sewing it. Um. He also
has little His creativity is just crazy, and he has
he has details that he likes, real specific. So he
(10:20):
has some hand tags that hang on the shirts that
when you get it and it has to be hand stamped.
And so basically we started making the girls do that
because they they can hand stand them, and then I
put them on there. We fold when I fold him
up nicely, put him in a nice bag, make sure
everything is stilled so that when it is shipped you
(10:40):
don't get damaged. Um. But the presentation is key, and
he's made sure to instill that in me, making sure
that I'm the delivery department, the order department. It's just
having intentionality, like you know, anybody can buy a ch shirt,
but you know, like trying to leave leave the leave
(11:01):
an impression on pon someone that when they get the
T shirt of how you take care of it, how
his package, like having advantage field requires like also us
doing it by hand. A bit to give it like
something more of like a natural kind of you know
feel to it. And you know, like I think that's like, um,
that's a part to like keeping customers too, like giving
(11:22):
you know, when we first started also we did we
did like handwritten notes just like you know, it was
a shooting't like I didn't the business started growing so fast. Well,
it's like you've got to develop relationship with your customers.
Like the people appreciate those touches, it feels like you know,
and I think a lot of people want to support
(11:43):
black businesses, want to support early entrepreneurs, and so when
they get a handwritten note, it means a lot. I
mean I don't get a lot of handwritten notes period
in life anymore. So when I do get whatever exactly
you know, your business. Yeah, so we just like the
same way we try to leave that resition with like
our customers, like with the product um online. I like,
(12:05):
even when we think about our clothes or what content,
always think about creating content that's that is share able.
It may not have like definable part of like what
we do, but it's part of our universe. So like
if someone can take that and share it with someone
else then that's also brings people back to us to
see what else they have going on, you know, and
that's really worked over so over the years. That and
(12:25):
just in number one thing, just you know, remaining consistent.
You know, that's the hardest part, right Toya, I am
going to be thinking of you sewing on one thousand
tags onto the back of every shirt. But you know what,
it also makes me think that, you know, it's really
speaks to the idea that everyone thinks, Oh, I'm gonna
start a business. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna start
this business and I'm gonna move to Florida and sit
(12:47):
on the beach and just like sip cocktails, Well, my
business runs itself and I make money in my sleep.
And it's just never the truth. So this is like
the real behind the scene story. Now, yeah, there we have.
You have some stories and it's it's fun and it's
been fun, Like I said, growing it with him, uh
by his side, watching us both go through it, it's
(13:09):
been a blast. It's I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't
trade it for the world. Okay, So I've got a
couple technical questions right here. You guys have a lot
of really unique designs. Can you talk about how you've
put thought into like protecting I P and if it matters. Nowadays,
a lot of entrepreneurs um come within an idea, a design,
(13:30):
et cetera, and they're like very hesitant to release it
because they're like, what if somebody steals it? How has
this affected how you put out your designs and your
T shirts. You can't be afraid because someone's going to
steal it. You know it's going to someone's gonna steal it,
Like that's just how the world is all people, you know, artists.
As an artist myself, I think like I don't know
if it's Picasso, but like great artists, like with good
(13:53):
artists copy, great artists steel, it's like people do that,
but like a great artist will take it and it
makes something more of it. So like for me, it's
you can't be afraid to put out stuff because that's
like that's part of being an artist, Like you gotta
put it at me. You gotta live in to the
whim of like what the world is gonna take, how
man they interpreted? And that leaves room for you to
(14:15):
create more because you're getting it out there when you're
trying to hold on it. I mean, you're really gonna
choke you. You're really choking your blessing. You know what
I'm saying. It has to be like shared, that has
to go out to the world. And I think sometimes
like fear is a lot of the biggest hurdles entrepreneurs
have to get over is the fear. And you can
talk yourself up into someone might steal it someone like this,
but like you just got to get it out there exactly.
(14:38):
Nobody remembers jay Z's losses, right no, because he's he's
done some bad losses, but of course he keeps going
and moving. It's like that that grit like you see
that kind of turn into something and you're like, oh,
I just remember you remember all the good stuff afterwards,
but you have to go through the bad stuff too.
(14:58):
That's all we can learn, you know. Okay, My next
slightly technical question is you guys built this whole business online? Well, Ruben,
you talked about, you know, in the very beginning, you
were going to a couple of like UM car shows
or sneaker shows and then you sort of moved to
selling a business online. Did you have someone build you
a fancy website, did you use some of the built
(15:19):
in tools, Like how can you encourage just the early
stage entrepreneur who's got, you know, five T shirts to
sell to really get started. I think every every entrepreneur
in any business, they should get their hands on everything
due to hard work of it to figure it out.
So like a lot of young people come to us
(15:40):
and asked me, like about starting a line, and they'll
they don't even have like the basic knowledge of like
the programs or like the process. So like you got
you got screen printing, but you also got dt G.
You've got different types of stuff, and every part that
you don't know something actually cost you money and you
(16:00):
want to pay somebody else to do that. And if
you're relying on somebody to tell you and you can't
tell if they're telling you it's truth or not, you're
gonna it's gonna cost you money way down the line,
way more than you could have. So I always like
tell people like to get acclimated to like these programs
to how delivering because that's a big part. Also like
understanding your costs, how to cut costs, because I mean
(16:24):
making T shirts or clothing period involves a lot of
a lot of upfront credit costs for like a lot
of things. So I mean you think those things out,
you know, um, nowadays the website, I just use what
is available. Uh, I start off with big Hortel. I
think now like you can mean Squarespace, Shopify. I mean,
(16:45):
there's so many things available like online and Google. Like really,
people don't have a really good reason anymore, like not
to be able to do something. Say that again, you
can have anything. We saw I saw recently where a
young girl was picking up seashells off the beach and
selling them online for like bucks a seashell talking about
this is from California, you know, and she's making good
(17:08):
money and she can go anywhere and pick them seashells
up right. And that's the thing. I think. It's like
you need to just understand if you've got an idea
and you think there's an audience for people who will
want to buy it, test it out, and like you said,
I feel like now there's with technology, there is so
much at our fingertips that allows us to just get
started and going back to you know, no grits, no glory,
(17:30):
like we've got the grit you've got that we've got
the work ethics, so just get out there and go
do it. Yes, so totally. If you think about where
we're came from, man, I think we should be like, yo,
we can really build a lot. We've built a lot.
You know. It's been such a pleasure having you on
the podcast today. We love your story, we love your
(17:51):
family values, we love your grit and we love the glory.
So thank you so much for being here today. Can
you remind our audience where they can find all pieces
of your brand T shirt, et cetera. On social media?
You can follow us at where Grits that's w E
A R G R I T s on Instagram, Twitter
(18:12):
and Facebook. Um you can also follow go to where
grits dot com to buying of our items. Thank you,
so glory, Thank you both, Thank you so much for
being here today. All right, Money Movers, that's all the
time we have for today, But make sure to follow
Reuben and Toya on all their social media handles and
if we helps you make your money moves, please make
(18:34):
sure to let us know by sending us a like,
sharing the knowledge and leave us on review on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to the Bank Greenwood dot com and check
out the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an
(18:55):
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you get your podcasts from
Hey Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. On today's deep Dive,
we are joined by the grits Co Owners Reuben and
(00:21):
Toya Leady. This deep dive is brought to you by
MasterCard bridging the Wealth Gap together with Freewood. Hey Money Movers.
If you missed our previous episode, Reuben and Toya are
the owners of the T shirt and lifestyle brand grits Co.
They told us the story about how they were inspired
to start their own mom and pop lifestyle brand and
the future of the brand, and we are here today
(00:44):
to welcome back Reuben and Toya to the show to
talk all about how you two can start a lifestyle brand.
Hi Reuben, Hi, Toya, Hi, thank you looking for having this. Well,
I'm so excited to have you back here, and I'm
really excited to have you back on the podcast today
so that you can inspire others to perhaps start their
own lifestyle brand and give them sort of a little
(01:04):
bit of wisdom on how you guys created and started
this successful brand. So let's take us back to the
beginning in our last episode, Ruben, you talked about always
having sort of a creative vein in you and Toya.
You always said you had the business sensibilities. I feel
like the two of you combined to not only start
a beautiful family together, but this incredible business. How did
(01:25):
you know that you were going to launch a business
and what were the first steps that you took? Oh Man, Yeah,
I actually previously started started it before meeting Toya, so
it was like a different iteration. And I really just
kind of like started. I just made a shirt. I
(01:45):
saw if I could go and sell it, you know,
and I try to you know, of course you try
to sell your friends and your family, and that's the
first thing usually everyone does, but that after a while
you kind of realized that doesn't go too far. So
I found a local like events, uh like I was
like Sneaker events, and I came with a couple of
designs and just went and sold it. I just went
(02:07):
just to see what, you know, how much I can sell?
And thank god I was in the I was in
the black, so like at least met double my double
my money, and I was like, okay, I'm happy. At
that point, I was like I need to make some
more shirts, and it just kind of like stuck with
it after with that, just uh, you know, as ideas
(02:29):
came and and then I started kind of formulating some
better like more collections and stuff later down a line. Wow, Okay,
that's a great example because I feel like oftentimes people
are looking to start a brand, and a T shirt
brand is really great because you know, I think there's
a lot of different ways where you can start manufacturing
and doing you know, minimum orders at a small number.
How did you decide or how did you know when
(02:51):
you could start making those big purchase orders to reproduce
your shirts in large volumes. That's kind of a tricky
one because it's it's more of a matter of gauging,
like you know, the frequency of how fast you're selling
and and how much you replanish your inventory, and you're
(03:12):
just gonna have to really just kind of watching the
the EBB and flow of your of your business um
to kind of gauge it. Even when ordering size is
some side like or some shirts some size is sell
really good, and it's sometimes like another design that's um
that size is totally different. So I mean there's kind
of ups and downs, just like just kind of depends
(03:32):
where we try to like try to have a good
meeting and where you can kind of break even and
feel good at Plus, we run everything from our home,
so we don't have a warehouse that we're running all
kinds of shipments out of. Um, it's based out of
what we have here. So we like to move our
inventory and keep it moving, so we don't sit on
(03:53):
a lot of inventory for a long amount of time.
That's why we tell people if you see a shirt
that you like, get it because it might be sold out.
And when we sell out, we usually don't reprint those shirts.
So these are like there's sort of an element of
rarity here. You gotta get it when you see it. Yes,
And that's why we have our followers, which we call
(04:13):
the Grits Gang and um, you know, they are part
of the newsletter, they're part of our social media on Instagram,
and they know exactly when a shirt is coming out. Um,
we show them the shirt, we ask them if they
want to buy in. If not, we don't. We only
print so many shirts and then once we're sold out,
we're sold out, and then we make another collection. I
(04:34):
think this is really interesting because I think this isn't
a mistake. I think a lot of early clothing brands make.
They're so excited about this incredible dream that they're gonna do,
and they're gonna create this brand, and they order thousands
of shirts and we're gonna sell this same shirt, you know,
and it's it's a big gamble. It's a big gamble
because you know, if people don't like your shirt, if
(04:55):
they don't like the quality, the size, the fit, if
they don't like the ink, if they don't like you know,
all of it goes into people will tell you like, UM,
the majority of our people who buy our clothes our men,
and the majority of the men are car club people
because we have a big following of car clubs. Well,
the majority of those men want black t shirts. So
(05:17):
a lot of the shirts that have I'm folding up
and send it out. I'm like, oh my god, another
black shirt. Like my husband's whole wardrobe is nothing but
black shirts. But that's what they like, that's what they
look good in, that's what they feel good in. They
always tell me how they like the cut of the
shirt on them, So I know not to change the
quality and the shirts that we use. UM and we
(05:39):
have people coming back years later letting us know, Hey,
I'm still wearing this T shirt and it's still in
good condition, and I want to buy a new one
just because I need another one. So this is so
important because I feel like oftentimes people miss the nuances
of the gems that you're lying down. You're like, we
went after an audience and we knew they liked our product,
and we keep selling to those same people and they
(06:00):
keep coming back. So sometimes I think people are very
quick to iterate and put out something new and put
out something new, but you lose customers that way. So
if you find a strong customer base, you keep at them.
I would always say, like, you know, love those that
love you, and honority everyone else. So like when you're
doing that, like it's really especially now they's just like
(06:22):
so many different like there's so many different places to sell,
so many so much competition. If you look on I
look at Instagram almost like it's just different channels, right,
so everyone is trying to like, hey, look at my channel,
and you have to kind of find your place and
find your niche and rather than trying to find something
that gets everybody, like, just find something that just works
(06:44):
for you and trying to see you can grow that
audience from there. So, as you've sort of built and
grown your business using social media, can you offer any
sort of advice to people on how they can grow
their sales online? So many people have started businesses, especially
out of the pandemic, where they, you know, really started
to thrive using social media. Can you offer any secrets,
(07:05):
tips or tricks to our audience. I would say to
make sure that you engage with people on social media.
Make sure you're engaging with them, going on to other
people's feed commenting so that they can see you trying
to get yourself better in that algorithm. Also, check on
your insights um Every every one of our pictures and
everything you post on your page has an insight button.
(07:29):
Check on those insights and see what everything is going,
how it's going out to, how many people are clicking,
if it's the hashtag that is bringing them, if it's
the actual just followers that are bringing them, If you're
coming up randomly in new people's feeds, how many people
are you averaging a week that you're getting as new followers.
Has somebody reposted something of yours that's caused followers or
(07:50):
people to bring attention to your page. So pay close
attention to those algorithms and the insights that you're creating
on a day to day basis on social media. UM.
Also check out other platforms. We don't do all the
platforms because our followers aren't all you know, we don't
have TikTok followers. If we do, great, but that's just
not where we spend our day to daytime at. But knowing, Okay,
(08:12):
I have a clothing line, I need to do those
cute little TikTok videos and maybe needs changing real quick
into something you know that's takes you five minutes or whatever.
And it's a good thing that you could put both
on TikTok and then use it on your reels on Instagram.
And reels is what's important on Instagram right now. That's
helping a lot of people get more algorithm going. So
anytime that you can engage in those things and know
(08:34):
what you're putting into your actual social media platform UM
is always best. So also going in and if you
are a person that's on Instagram, you want to change
it over to a business account or make sure you
have the title that you're work. Yeah, if you're an entrepreneur,
put entrepreneur under your name, put real estate agent, whatever
(08:55):
it is. Make sure that information is on there. Um
if it's not your business page, but you're personal page,
but you're still conducting business with both. So that that's
my tips, Toya. One of the things that I want
to really impress upon our Money Moves audience, especially those
of you that are aspiring entrepreneurs. I think a lot
of your success as you guys have really been so
hands on building this business. Oftentimes people think they're building
(09:19):
a business online and they're like, oh, I can outsource
it to all these fancy sco shops or social media
content creators, but you have to really understand your business
from top to bottom and the data as well behind it.
You mentioned checking the insights page on every post. I
think that's just such a great recipe for success. Yes,
(09:39):
we are very hands on, and we have been for years. Um.
I remember when we first got started, Rubing had this
idea that he wanted tags in the back of the
shirts and they had to be these woven tags. So
instead of us outsourcing someone to sell the woven tags,
and he ordered a thousand of them, and then I'm
here at the sewing machine, putting the tags on the bat,
(10:00):
you know. And so those are the stories that our
fans love. They're like, I still got an original shirt.
Look at me that is an original because everyone knows
my hands were the ones sewing it. Um. He also
has little His creativity is just crazy, and he has
he has details that he likes, real specific. So he
(10:20):
has some hand tags that hang on the shirts that
when you get it and it has to be hand stamped.
And so basically we started making the girls do that
because they they can hand stand them, and then I
put them on there. We fold when I fold him
up nicely, put him in a nice bag, make sure
everything is stilled so that when it is shipped you
(10:40):
don't get damaged. Um. But the presentation is key, and
he's made sure to instill that in me, making sure
that I'm the delivery department, the order department. It's just
having intentionality, like you know, anybody can buy a ch shirt,
but you know, like trying to leave leave the leave
(11:01):
an impression on pon someone that when they get the
T shirt of how you take care of it, how
his package, like having advantage field requires like also us
doing it by hand. A bit to give it like
something more of like a natural kind of you know
feel to it. And you know, like I think that's like, um,
that's a part to like keeping customers too, like giving
(11:22):
you know, when we first started also we did we
did like handwritten notes just like you know, it was
a shooting't like I didn't the business started growing so fast. Well,
it's like you've got to develop relationship with your customers.
Like the people appreciate those touches, it feels like you know,
and I think a lot of people want to support
(11:43):
black businesses, want to support early entrepreneurs, and so when
they get a handwritten note, it means a lot. I
mean I don't get a lot of handwritten notes period
in life anymore. So when I do get whatever exactly
you know, your business. Yeah, so we just like the
same way we try to leave that resition with like
our customers, like with the product um online. I like,
(12:05):
even when we think about our clothes or what content,
always think about creating content that's that is share able.
It may not have like definable part of like what
we do, but it's part of our universe. So like
if someone can take that and share it with someone
else then that's also brings people back to us to
see what else they have going on, you know, and
that's really worked over so over the years. That and
(12:25):
just in number one thing, just you know, remaining consistent.
You know, that's the hardest part, right Toya, I am
going to be thinking of you sewing on one thousand
tags onto the back of every shirt. But you know what,
it also makes me think that, you know, it's really
speaks to the idea that everyone thinks, Oh, I'm gonna
start a business. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna start
this business and I'm gonna move to Florida and sit
(12:47):
on the beach and just like sip cocktails, Well, my
business runs itself and I make money in my sleep.
And it's just never the truth. So this is like
the real behind the scene story. Now, yeah, there we have.
You have some stories and it's it's fun and it's
been fun, Like I said, growing it with him, uh
by his side, watching us both go through it, it's
(13:09):
been a blast. It's I wouldn't take it. I wouldn't
trade it for the world. Okay, So I've got a
couple technical questions right here. You guys have a lot
of really unique designs. Can you talk about how you've
put thought into like protecting I P and if it matters. Nowadays,
a lot of entrepreneurs um come within an idea, a design,
(13:30):
et cetera, and they're like very hesitant to release it
because they're like, what if somebody steals it? How has
this affected how you put out your designs and your
T shirts. You can't be afraid because someone's going to
steal it. You know it's going to someone's gonna steal it,
Like that's just how the world is all people, you know, artists.
As an artist myself, I think like I don't know
if it's Picasso, but like great artists, like with good
(13:53):
artists copy, great artists steel, it's like people do that,
but like a great artist will take it and it
makes something more of it. So like for me, it's
you can't be afraid to put out stuff because that's
like that's part of being an artist, Like you gotta
put it at me. You gotta live in to the
whim of like what the world is gonna take, how
man they interpreted? And that leaves room for you to
(14:15):
create more because you're getting it out there when you're
trying to hold on it. I mean, you're really gonna
choke you. You're really choking your blessing. You know what
I'm saying. It has to be like shared, that has
to go out to the world. And I think sometimes
like fear is a lot of the biggest hurdles entrepreneurs
have to get over is the fear. And you can
talk yourself up into someone might steal it someone like this,
but like you just got to get it out there exactly.
(14:38):
Nobody remembers jay Z's losses, right no, because he's he's
done some bad losses, but of course he keeps going
and moving. It's like that that grit like you see
that kind of turn into something and you're like, oh,
I just remember you remember all the good stuff afterwards,
but you have to go through the bad stuff too.
(14:58):
That's all we can learn, you know. Okay, My next
slightly technical question is you guys built this whole business online? Well, Ruben,
you talked about, you know, in the very beginning, you
were going to a couple of like UM car shows
or sneaker shows and then you sort of moved to
selling a business online. Did you have someone build you
a fancy website, did you use some of the built
(15:19):
in tools, Like how can you encourage just the early
stage entrepreneur who's got, you know, five T shirts to
sell to really get started. I think every every entrepreneur
in any business, they should get their hands on everything
due to hard work of it to figure it out.
So like a lot of young people come to us
(15:40):
and asked me, like about starting a line, and they'll
they don't even have like the basic knowledge of like
the programs or like the process. So like you got
you got screen printing, but you also got dt G.
You've got different types of stuff, and every part that
you don't know something actually cost you money and you
(16:00):
want to pay somebody else to do that. And if
you're relying on somebody to tell you and you can't
tell if they're telling you it's truth or not, you're
gonna it's gonna cost you money way down the line,
way more than you could have. So I always like
tell people like to get acclimated to like these programs
to how delivering because that's a big part. Also like
understanding your costs, how to cut costs, because I mean
(16:24):
making T shirts or clothing period involves a lot of
a lot of upfront credit costs for like a lot
of things. So I mean you think those things out,
you know, um, nowadays the website, I just use what
is available. Uh, I start off with big Hortel. I
think now like you can mean Squarespace, Shopify. I mean,
(16:45):
there's so many things available like online and Google. Like really,
people don't have a really good reason anymore, like not
to be able to do something. Say that again, you
can have anything. We saw I saw recently where a
young girl was picking up seashells off the beach and
selling them online for like bucks a seashell talking about
this is from California, you know, and she's making good
(17:08):
money and she can go anywhere and pick them seashells
up right. And that's the thing. I think. It's like
you need to just understand if you've got an idea
and you think there's an audience for people who will
want to buy it, test it out, and like you said,
I feel like now there's with technology, there is so
much at our fingertips that allows us to just get
started and going back to you know, no grits, no glory,
(17:30):
like we've got the grit you've got that we've got
the work ethics, so just get out there and go
do it. Yes, so totally. If you think about where
we're came from, man, I think we should be like, yo,
we can really build a lot. We've built a lot.
You know. It's been such a pleasure having you on
the podcast today. We love your story, we love your
(17:51):
family values, we love your grit and we love the glory.
So thank you so much for being here today. Can
you remind our audience where they can find all pieces
of your brand T shirt, et cetera. On social media?
You can follow us at where Grits that's w E
A R G R I T s on Instagram, Twitter
(18:12):
and Facebook. Um you can also follow go to where
grits dot com to buying of our items. Thank you,
so glory, Thank you both, Thank you so much for
being here today. All right, Money Movers, that's all the
time we have for today, But make sure to follow
Reuben and Toya on all their social media handles and
if we helps you make your money moves, please make
(18:34):
sure to let us know by sending us a like,
sharing the knowledge and leave us on review on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to the Bank Greenwood dot com and check
out the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an
(18:55):
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