Steve Seger: Jake, welcome to the show.
Jake: Thanks, Steve. Glad to be on.
Steve Seger: Yeah, man, this will be fun. And I know we talked a little bit up front, but I'm gonna kick things off with a couple quick questions, may have follow ups. so bear with me here, but they'll be kind of semi-rapid fire questions, okay? right.
Jake: Let's do it.
Steve Seger: Best sports logo ever. Your favorite.
Jake: Ugh. I'm a Game Cox fan, so I'm just gonna be biased and say South Carolina Game Cox. I did, yeah. But they're unique,
Steve Seger: Did you go to SC? Yeah. Okay. If you
Jake: you know, the Game Cock. And I don't there's only one other school that I can think of that has the Game Cock as a mascot, but definitely Game Cox for me.
Steve Seger: right. If you could sell one clothing item besides hats, what would it be?
Jake: Sweatshirts actually.
Steve Seger: it. What professional teams do you root for? And I guess you root for SC in college.
Jake: South Carolina, Carolina Hurricanes, and the Carolina Panthers are my three
Steve Seger: Okay.
Jake: teams.
Steve Seger: Loyal to the hometown state. You're from North Carolina, right?
Jake: I am, yes. I was I grew up in Raleigh.
Steve Seger: Got it. How many hats do you think you own right now?
Jake: You mean like hats for my business or me personally?
Steve Seger: Personally.
Jake: I probably have about a hundred of them right now. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Does it fluctuate or do you kind of like have like a sweet spot where you're like, I gotta start offloading some of these?
Jake: Yeah, I definitely try to keep it around the hundred or lower. If if there's some that if my you know, my stash is getting a little too big, I definitely I usually just sell on my website. I put on there when I get tired of a hat or want to get rid of it.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Do you have like a handful of hats or like one hat that you would never sell no matter what?
Jake: I do have one, yeah. It's actually a vintage South Carolina one that has the the old, you know, 90s SEC logo on there. So that's one I don't think I'll ever sell because I think it's one of the most rare hats I've ever found, obviously on the Gamecock. So that's definitely one that I'm I'm never gonna sell. I d I do. You want me to get up and get it? Or okay, yeah.
Steve Seger: Do you have it around you right now or is it off buried away? Yes, can I see it? I do camera I d I do the YouTube version of this too, so I think the people watching would definitely wanna see it if they can.
Jake: Probably need to clean it up a little bit, but but this is what it looks like.
Steve Seger: yeah. that is nice. Yeah, if you're watching on video, it is a keeper. Can I see the bottom of it too? yeah, it's got the green brim.
Jake: Yeah, I mean it's just you know, the typical green underbill.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: Yeah, definitely never getting rid of this. Fits nice too. I love the way it fits. Like
Steve Seger: yeah.
Jake: nice and high crowned, just like you want it. But all
Steve Seger: Where'd you find it? Was that eBay too?
Jake: of them, pretty much everything I get off eBay, people always ask me, like, do you go to thrift stores? And to be honest with you, I ain't got time to go around and and shop at thrift stores. So it's all eBay.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What is your like browsing process like when you're on eBay? What does that look like?
Jake: So I used to browse a lot more than I do because, you know, now my designs are a majority of my business. But I just get I sign up for eBay alerts. So whenever, you know, a new posting comes on eBay of whatever alert that I signed up for, then I then I'll go and browse because it'll it'll it'll give you, you know, twenty different hats per per search. So usually I'll service I'll save a search like, you know, vintage South Carolina Game Cox hat and you know, you'll all get an alert for, you know, five or six different hats to hit eBay. So I get first dibs on all of them. But I used to browse by just going through like every team and every every league and just searching searching literally, you know, vintage Carolina Panthers hat, then vintage Tampa Bay Buccaneers, then vintage so on and so forth.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. I wonder if you could use like AI now to do that for you. Like literally tell it here's a picture of my 10 favorite hats every morning. Go and look for these exact, like similar models for it.
Jake: A hundred percent, yeah. The thing is I'm pretty picky about what I buy. Like I've always been, you know, very picky about the the style, the design, the the maker of the hats. I'm all I'm pretty picky about that kind of stuff. So I I think I AI probably would help out, but I think my process is pretty efficient, so
Steve Seger: Yeah. Yeah. Do you do any kind of in person like pop up shops or anything? I remember
Jake: yeah.
Steve Seger: when I was in Charlotte for a little bit, I would do, I think Noda had a couple of good ones that I would go to. Do you
Jake: Yeah, Charlotte has a few. They've got front porches, one of the bigger ones.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: and then there's another company that runs markets on Camden Street, which is in South End.
Steve Seger: Okay.
Jake: they do that one Saturday every month. But the main one I actually usually go to is Soda City Market in Columbia. it's one of the biggest markets in the country, actually. They have like two hundred vendors come every Saturday to Columbia and they just do it on the main street of of downtown Columbia. So,
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: It's actually been really hot out, so I haven't been going as much. 'cause honestly it's pretty brutal out there. But like now that it's football season, fall, it's starting to cool down a little more, I'll definitely be going. Couple months.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Last warm up question, and then we'll jump on into the meat of the discussion. And this is when I ask everyone, so you're not the first, but could you beat Liam Neeson in a fist fight?
Jake: No, absolutely not. That's an easy that's an easy answer. I've never been in a fight before, so
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: definitely not.
Steve Seger: He's he was professionally trained from like ages like nine to seventeen. so he kicks ass apparently. And I mean obviously he he's a big dude. He's like six four. But he is in his seventies. So maybe you maybe you're not giving yourself enough credit if you can
Jake: Yeah, I mean, hey, I I will say Batman begins. He was he was Bruce Wayne's like mentor and and
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: trainer, so I definitely would be getting my ass whooped by him, whatever age it was. Like I guarantee you n he's seventy, but I've I'd I'm not even gonna if if he threw some punches at me, like I'm I'm out of there, man. I'm I'm running if if I get in a f if Liam Neeson's trying to get in a fight with me.
Steve Seger: So that's a bit that I stole from Family Guy. There's like an episode where Peter, he every time he drinks, he's like, I could totally beat Liam Neeson in a fist fight. Yeah, I just keep asking it.
Jake: I've never z I watch f I watch a lot of Family Guy. I don't I don't that doesn't really I don't remember him saying that, but I guess I don't watch it enough.
Steve Seger: Yeah, watch it. There's like one episode where he specifically d like keeps saying that and then the Liam Neeson came on and voiced himself and comes on and like beats the crap out of Peter on it.
Jake: I just love the ones where he's beating up the chicken. Those are my favorite episodes.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Yes, yes. all right. Enough of that. We'll jump on into the the background and kind of the the story behind why I wanted you to have why I wanted to have you on the show today. And that's the really cool business that you've you've built with Shell's Vintage. I've been a fan since college. I know we talked a little bit about it up front, but can you take me kind of back maybe where you grew up and leading up to getting into entrepreneurship and how that idea of shells kind of sort of formulated and came about.
Jake: Absolutely, yeah. So grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. to be honest with you, I was kind of had a passion for, you know, wanting to start a business. I had a lawnmowing business in my neighborhood. was doing that, you know, pretty much all throughout middle school and high school and always like talk to my dad about random ideas I had to start businesses. but you know, after that I went to South Carolina, ended up majoring and they actually have an entrepreneurship major at South Carolina, so they have some really cool Cool entrepreneurship classes that I really enjoyed at South Carolina. So I graduated with double major in business management and finance from South Carolina. Was doing, you know, some business events there. But then again, also I always had that desire to, you know, start a business. I actually did, so I graduated. South Carolina in 2019 with that double major. didn't have a job coming out of college. So The three months post grad I was living at home, you know, applying for jobs. But I always had a a little collection of vintage hats that, you know, I would wear out to the bars in Columbia and people would just offer me absurd amounts of money for these things. And obviously I never took up on it. But you know, just sitting around for three months applying for jobs. Obviously my mind is just running through stuff, like, you know, obviously trying to get a job, but also like my my mind is always like, Okay, what can I do to Potentially start a business. So that that came to mind, and I always was searching for hats on eBay. so one day literally was like, Okay, I woke up and was like, I'm gonna start this hat business today. So went and blew $750 of graduation money on my first batch of of eBay hats. You should have seen my parents' faces when they showed up to the door. There was just like a pile of 20 or 30 eBay boxes, and they were like,
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: What are you doing with your life right now? right now. but anyway, so yeah, like started the Instagram, all that. Started, you know, flipping the hats, kind of boosting posts on Instagram, ended up getting a sales job where I was actually making, you know, like 250 cold calls a day. It was something literally like leading re reading off a script. It was something straight out of, you know, like Woofle Wall Street kind of thing. But I was but then I would come home from work and you know work on the business until I went to sleep. Usually that was just you know, searching eBay for hats, but also, you know, starting to teach myself stuff. regarding accounting and you know advertising ended up you know you know doing the website all that good stuff but so that was going well you know I was doing weekly drops and started to gain a really, you know, good following. It's funny. Last weekend I actually ran into a guy. He was like, dude, I I started following you and you had like less than a thousand followers and now you have fifty thousand. So it's all it's always great to run into those kind of people. but anyway, yeah, so it was was doing well with the flipping the vintage stuff. and then
Steve Seger: What what year was this about when you were just starting?
Jake: it was like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, and then twenty twenty-one is when, you know, I was kinda like, well, this is going really well with flipping the vintage hats, but you know, there's only so much you can find on eBay if I really wanted to, you know, scale as business and be able to quit my full-time job and really throw myself into it. So started designing my own vintage hats, literally just based off of the all the designs that I knew that I liked and knew my customers liked, you know, all the hats from the nineties. so I released my first wave of state snaps, which is now obviously one of my main product lines. And I think it was the North Carolina and South Carolina is what I started out with. And I dropped them on in I think it was maybe like early July twenty t or sorry, early twenty twenty one. And the one day like of sales that I did when I first dropped those was obviously like blew any day of sales that I had out of the water. and then started, you know, ordering more of those other designs of state snaps. I think of my other first ones were Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, a bunch of different hats that I was obviously just Kind of like I said, taking the inspiration from all the nineties hats that I was selling, but also I wanted people to be able to rep not only their state, but also the obviously the team that they cheered for. I wanted them to be able to to rep their state and team all in one, you know, cool retro style design. then my city hats, you know, kind of followed that as well. But in July of twenty twenty one I was doing well with obviously the mixture of selling the vintage hats and now my designs. So I told my parents I was like, mom and dad. I'm I'm quitting my job and I'm I'm throwing myself into this this business. and obviously they're like super nervous as any parents would be. but from then on I literally like just kept so slowly scaling the business, slowly learning everything about it, slowly spending more on advertising, building up more inventory, doing more pop ups, all that good stuff and you know, since then just been releasing the designs, restocking a lot of you know, just continually this slowly scale a business. But that's basically the the short story of everything.
Steve Seger: Yeah. When you were just absolutely grinding, calling two hundred fifty people a day, did you have a moment where you almost stopped?
Jake: my gosh, yeah. Well every almost every day, like it would towards, you know, two or three months in, I was already, you know, tired of it, obviously, because I had this like building passion that I wanted to do something that wasn't an eight to five, you know, typical desk job, which actually what I was doing, I wouldn't even consider that a typical eight to five, making two hundred and fifty cold calls a day.
Steve Seger: Sounds like torture.
Jake: it was, man. I my
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: elbow would get tired because I was just holding the phone like this all day long. So like I'll get home and my elbow I'd be just be like sitting at my my my sitting on my couch like this all night because my elbow is like sore from holding the phone like this all day. But yeah, man, I was what I mean, me hating that job just gave me even more of that passion to go home and and work harder on the business and just, you know, keep grinding away at it. So I guess I could kind of thank my hatred for that job for for helping me to to kind of push me over that that hump.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember I know we talked about it a a little earlier, but when your when I first found your page, it it was not below a thousand, but I think it was definitely below like five thousand when I started getting on there. And I think I just it popped up on like Instagram, like you were saying. Were you doing a lot of a lot of paid marketing on there? Like how did that look early on too, or when did you turn that on?
Jake: Yeah, I mean I was doing yeah, I was doing a little bit of it. It's it's different now. All I was doing if if you're a business owner and listening to this, I liter I was just pressing boost post, you know,
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: in the corner of every Instagram post that you have and you can spend however much you want per day on I mean, I was probably spending you know, if I had like a really good drop or like some really good content that I was like, Okay, this would probably do well, you know, advertising wise, I'd probably spend like twenty or thirty dollars a day on on a couple posts just kind of weekly. But you know, continually I was just spending like more and more on those boost posts, and that's how I originally built up that following.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Do you still use that or has it grown to a point where you don't need to as much?
Jake: Not as much. I I basically just run, you know, the the meta Facebook ads, which are actually it's di it's it's it's separate from just boosting posts.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: but I still do that every once in a while, you know, if I have some good content or I just drop something or I wanna, you know, build up hype for a a future drop, I'll boost some posts.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Can you share a little bit how you initially began to manufacture your own hats and how you were learning all that and stumbling through it on your own in the back end?
Jake: Yeah, absolutely. So I had no obviously no experience with any kind of hat manufacturer. So I would just message other hat companies and ask them, you know, like You know, where do you guys manufacture your hats? what are some of the ones you've used? Like would you which ones would you not use? Which ones would you, you know, throw my way? A lot of them would actually gatekeep it, which is, you know, which is understandable. But the I started out with Puka, which is w pretty big ha pretty big manufacturer. Now they're actually based out of Ohio. but I started with Puka, was using them. pretty much for the first two years of the of the business. and then I I was like, you know what, I I could probably get this cost down by just going straight to the to the factory and not using kind of Puka as the middleman. I also knew that I wanted to get into stores and start making wholesale deals. so that's when I started kind of searching Alibaba for a new manufacturer and I knew that the prices on there were a lot better to make it fully custom just like I always did, but also be able to get it to a to a price where I could start selling to stores.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Were you hiring designers or were you drawing these out on
Jake: no.
Steve Seger: your own?
Jake: No, I I was doing everything on my on my own. I ne I didn't have any graphic design experience at all. Like I didn't do anything college graphic design-wise.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: literally just down downloaded Canva, which I know Canva is really popular, but it's definitely like very beginner friendly and people who don't have a lot of experience with graphic design, it's very like it's pretty easy to use. so that's what I started on, like, and I still well that's still what I use for everything is Canva. but But yeah, man, I've never hired a designer because I've realized that like I've I'm pretty good at it and I know exactly what I want. So I've never hired a designer for anything.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Was there at any point like a very expensive mistake that you made that maybe now you could have avoided, but you learned, I guess, the hard way?
Jake: Yeah, and a lot of them the mistakes are actually just gambling on it was, you know, agencies, advertising agencies, email agencies. I remember there was one advertising agency that I was actually recommended to by a friend. I guess he he knew someone that was that started the company. not too like they didn't know the person too well, but so I I started using them and they were charging me twenty five hundred bucks a month, which at the time for me was a lot of money. and they literally so I was pay I paid them for probably three months and they gave me pretty much nothing. Like the my friend was starting to was like trying to sell me and be like, Look, man, you just gotta let them, you know, kind of build up the creatives, build up the strategy, all that kind of thing. But they were just giving me absolutely nothing. So that was definitely a big mistake. I mean, $2,500 a month is not like a a huge amount of money in the gram scheme of things, but that's definitely one that pops into mind. Also ordered a bunch of hats from one. Manufacturer that you know they're they came to me. I probably spent you know close to ten thousand dollars on inventory from this manufacturer, and a lot of the hats were just absolute pieces of shit to be to for lack of better description. I mean, just like pieces of embroidery hanging out of all of them, like you know, rips in the in the stitching, and they are packaged like they just tossed them into the to the box, so a lot of them are misshaped, all the brands. and stuff. So I was definitely, those are probably the two biggest ones that come to mind.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Where do you keep all your inventory today? Is it like are you do you not have it in hand? or is there
Jake: I do. I do actually. So I used to I mean I've got some that I keep here in hand in my I mean I just have a a a studio apartment here and I have some shelves that I keep a lot of it on but I started using a a a 3PL third party logistics company so
Steve Seger: Okay.
Jake: a lot of my inventory is at their warehouse.
Steve Seger: Yeah, I got it. Is that is that near you or is it somewhere else where you can't get to it as easily?
Jake: It's in it's in Abbeville, South Carolina, which is like middle of nowhere, South Carolina. It's probably about like two hours and forty-five minutes away. So I've driven there a few times. I mean it's not that bad of a drive. but it's definitely it's i you there's driving there, there's you're there's definitely a few moments where it's like, where the hell am I?
Steve Seger: Yeah. And I saw you started to look to hire on your website. Are you have you made a a first hire yet? Or is that?
Jake: Yeah, so I hired a f a social media manager last year. and he worked he was busting ass for me for for that year. I had to dial it back a little bit just because I was, you know, got myself in a little bit of a a cash flow crunch, which business owners listening to this listening to this could probably relate to. so I had to kinda it wasn't anything to do with him really. I just had to kind of tighten the budget a lot. So I s he started doing a lot less for me. He still does some stuff for me every once in a while.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: but he was my first hire. That was like my first time interviewing anybody, you know, putting out a job posting, any of that good stuff, which I now realize I don't really enjoy that type of thing, you know, the business, interviewing, posting jobs, all that good stuff, but obviously it's an extremely important part of it.
Steve Seger: Yeah, what was different? I mean, like, did you just grow to a point where you couldn't handle the social media side, or was like your least favorite part of the business?
Jake: It was it's it was that yeah, it was definitely a mixture of it. I didn't really enjoy doing it. I knew that I wasn't the most social media savvy person either. So it's like if you
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: can't do the job well, hire somebody else that'll do it it do it better for you. So that's definitely where my head was at and I was like my business was doing doing well, so I you know, had some money that where I was like, I think I can hire somebody to do this for me. But in my s into getting myself into a little bit of a pickle that I'm actually out of I'm out of it now but I had to you know kinda dial it back a little bit with with his services.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. One thing that I think would be cool to understand, and you probably have such like a deep knowledge of the kind of hats that you want to to buy.
Jake: Thank you.
Steve Seger: and I feel like a listener that is relatively interested in hats might be interested in understanding like, what do you look for? Like if you could give like a like a two-minute masterclass on Jake's process for finding a hat that he loves, like what are like Two to three things that you're like, gotta have this, gotta have this.
Jake: You're are you talking like of like buying from a manufacturer or f or finding them on eBay? Okay.
Steve Seger: Finding them on eBay probably just for like the more layman hat shopper, I guess.
Jake: Yeah, well obviously a lot of the ones on eBay are really dirty. So like that's something I always pay attention to. definitely the the brim or the the crown shape is something that I also really pay attention to. A lot of the vintage hats you find now can be really actually like shallow and small. So I try to, you know, find hats that have the taller front part of the hat. And obviously a lot of the the hats now they have a lot of the brims are misshaped or cracked. So I mean those are pretty much stuff right off the bat that I think a lot of people probably already know.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: the main thing that I am picky about it is the design. You know, not only the quality of the of the embroidery, but I don't buy hats that where they just throw logo on there and that's it. Like I like I buy the stuff that is has the has the pizzazz, you know, either whether it's just like a cool script writing of saying, you know, South Carolina on it or a mixture of having having the logo and some really cool, you know, like designs, lines, kind of other elements to the hat that make it look like it's actually vintage, which it is. But there are also a lot
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: of, you know, vintage vintage hats you can find where they're they're just, you know, regular logo hats.
Steve Seger: Yeah, I gotcha. And
Jake: And then another part too that I forgot is is the the company. Like the manufacturers are very important. I'll give a few that are the best ones. The game, the game hats are one that comes to mind. Number one apparel is also one. Logo 7, sports specialties. Young Ann, Young On Hat Company. What else? Yeah, there's a lot of them out there, but those are like the top five. And those, you know, when I'm going to search for a vintage hat, a lot of times I just I'll just search by company and kind of go through what they have on eBay.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Man, you're giving away the playbook too, right there.
Jake: Yeah, but hey in I'm I'm confident in my abilities, you know. Nobody can do it better than me in my mind.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What does day to day look like for you now? I mean, I'm sure it's changed a lot since you started
Jake: Yeah, I mean it's it's actually it's kinda the same. Usually in the morning it's actually a lot of backend kind of admin stuff. You know, I still run all my own books, I still do my all my own advertising, obviously the design and all that kind of stuff. So it kind of differs a day to day, obviously, but usually in the morning I'll I'll go through all my my emails, which is a lot of it is you know just eBay notifications. So I'll do my
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: quick, you know, eBay notification search to start out the day. And then I usually it's followed by you know, going on QuickBooks and categor categorizing all my transactions from the previous day and then after that I usually ship ship some hats obviously like I use my 3PL for a lot of that but I still have to ship some stuff so print out the labels ship some hats hit the post office that usually takes me about an hour so it's not like a huge chunk out of my day and then the afternoon I is kind of when my creative juices are are flowing in the afternoon so the afternoon is usually kind of more of you know Designing stuff, creating ads, kind of doing the back-end ad setup. Maybe kind of I also do my own email marketing. So designing emails is another big part of it. I like to spend the second half of the day kind of doing the more design stuff because the morning is more like, you know, is I want I want to knock out all the boring stuff before I can get to all the stuff that I actually enjoy.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What platform do you use for the the email marketing and keeping track of your whole list?
Jake: Yeah, so I I use a platform called Redo, which I know the big one's Clavio. I used to use Clavio, but
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: their their cost just was kind of was not making sense for my business. So stopped using Clavio and started using Redo, which is a great tool. I would suggest that it's like half the price of Clavio and and you know, pretty much all the features that that Clavio offers. So if you're like if you're listening to this, you're somebody that is you know, you're like you're like I was and you think you're paying way too much for clavia, which you probably are, then I would check out redo.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. And you've had some pretty big celebrities wearing your hats. Like I when I was looking at your website and your pages, like there's some pretty big names that are on there. Have you gotten to meet anyone through the business or has anything happened where someone like really big has reached out to you directly?
Jake: I've messaged a few people, that's about it. I haven't met anybody in person, but it's pretty cool. I've messaged like C J Stroud, Danzby Swanson, Jackson Dart, Garrett Wilson, you know, a few different people on Instagram. So that was pretty cool to like, you know, message them on Instagram directly. But I've never met any of them in person. I played football with Braxton Berrios in high school for a year. So like I know Braxton. obviously I've met him before. but other than that, not not yet, not yet. Hopefully, hopefully at some point I'll meet, you know, somebody that I've thrown a hat to. But I'm guessing you're probably curious, you know, how do I get these hats to all these famous people. I'm assuming you're probably wondering.
Steve Seger: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jake: Yeah, yeah. So like it's funny 'cause everybody always asks me, like, how are you getting all these famous people to wear your hats?
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: and I'm like it's it's honestly a super simple process. I just I kind of once it's it's actually, you know, once I get a new design in for like say, you know, like a Chicago, my Chicago Cubs theme design,
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: or you know, whatever else, I will just take you know five or six of the big name players on the teams and just directly address them and send the hats to the the training facility with a little note inside the hat being like I don't really ask them for two. Much because obviously they're celebrities, they probably get a lot of free stuff, have other brand deals, all that good stuff. So I just send them a note, say, like, hey, thought you would like this hat, you know, appreciate it if you would just wear it in exchange. And I'll usually say, like, love to watch you play, you know, respect what you're doing, all that kind of stuff. But I usually just keep it simple, send it to a training facility or stadium, and and try to get lucky with it. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Man. So that and that's worked pretty well. Like you've seen people just wearing them and there we go right there.
Jake: Yeah, 'cause I mean usually it just like, you know, if they get mail, I think it usually just shows up at their locker. and a lot of times I see like a lot of them have worn it in a postgame interviews and stuff, which has been really cool to see.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: but also like a bunch of walk ins, you know, how they people are the like the the media teams of teams are always doing Taking pictures of the athletes when they walk in, kind of like an outfit check and all that kind of stuff. So that's where that's a lot I I see a lot of my hats in the in the walk-in pictures as well.
Steve Seger: That's cool. Where do you want to grow the business to? Like do you have an endpoint in mind or is it just you're loving
Jake: Heh heh.
Steve Seger: what you're doing and it's just gonna keep rolling for now?
Jake: Yeah, I mean Endpoint, obviously I don't really I haven't thought that far in advance. I really
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: am been just been trying to build out the product lines as much as I as I can because I'm still missing a lot of you know cities and states that people obviously would like to to have a design for. So my main my main goal right now is just building out those product lines to where I'm at a point where people are going to a website and they can find something for their state, for their city, for their team. I want to get to a point where Where I'm not missing anything for people.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: I also want to go into more of the obviously I do have some lifestyle designs, but I'm a big golfer. I'm really passionate about golf. So I'd like to, you know, design some more retro style golf stuff. I do have a couple retro style designs for golf. My my 19th hole hats are a big seller. but definitely kind of build out the more lifestyle product line as well with the golf, like I mentioned, but also, you know, other stuff like I have like a happy hour design that I haven't released yet. I've got, you know, stuff for skiing and snowboarding that I haven't released yet. So I
Steve Seger: Ooh, cool.
Jake: kind of right I'm focused on building out the product lines and also doing some more wholesale stuff with stores. But right now I think that's my main focus. I also want to get more into the custom, custom stuff. But yeah, it's kind of on the back burner a little bit right now until I until I'm build out my product lines a little more.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Can you see like do you have data on what geo like geographic reason or regions are buying the most amount of hats? Like does that exist?
Jake: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean Obviously North Carolina and South Carolina, just because I have a lot of designs from there and that's where you know where I'm from. That's where the I'm based in Charlotte, so that's where the company is. But also some other big states are, you know, the foot funny enough, it's like the big football states. Ohio, Texas, Florida are three huge ones. California, a big one. Colorado's a big one. but Tennessee is also a big one. I've you know, my Nashville and my Tennessee volunteers. hats sell really well. So Tennessee is another big one. But basically a lot of you know places in the Southeast. Georgia of course Atlanta stuff and my Georgia store my Georgia stuff sells well. so it's you know obviously me have being in the southeast and having a lot of designs that are you know southeast focused. I need to build out my western coast stuff a little more. Like I have some California stuff, but I'm definitely lacking on that end. So I I I need to I need to get on my my West Coast designs.
Steve Seger: Mm. Do you I mean, do a lot of your friends wear your hats out and stuff too? I'm assuming. Yeah.
Jake: Yeah, of course. I mean my friends are very supportive of what I do, so I I like I appreciate them for being as supportive as they are. A lot of them are are like, you know, some of aren't the they don't like to wear the the retro style stuff, which I completely respect. But a lot of them do. So it's kind of just a mixture.
Steve Seger: Yeah. I mean I'd imagine a lot of people like kind of what we were talking about earlier is like you see one person with a hat and you're like, Where'd you get that at? And then it just kind of organically spreads from there.
Jake: Yeah, yeah. It's kinda crazy 'cause a lot of my friends if I haven't seen like some of my friends for a while, they're like, dude, I see your hats all over the place Which is really cool to hear 'cause like, you know me I go out every once in a while but I'm not you know, in all places at once where I can see people wearing So it's cool because to hear people, you know, s say that they see my hats everywhere. Cause a lot of times me just, you know, sitting in my apartment doing all the back end stuff, I don't get to see the the stuff come to fruition with with people wearing out in the wild. So I love to hear that.
Steve Seger: Yeah. And we were talking about earlier how there was like a pop in Oxford. Could you actually see that data like back when that was happening? Or was it just Ohio that you can see the data on? Oxford, Ohio was where I went to school.
Jake: You said you Yeah, no, with you with you, like are you talking about the like when you were s putting all your friends onto my hats? Because yes, no, I could. I could see it. I was like and my
Steve Seger: Yeah, I'm just curious. no way.
Jake: Shopify, I remember when that was going on and it still kind of is. Like there's some there's some random places that I get in my Shopify that I'm like, that is just like why are so many people visiting my website from this small town in in Ohio and there's another one in Illinois. It's called like I can't think of the name off the top of my head, but it's another small town in Illinois. But when that was going
Steve Seger: hold on.
Jake: on I was like, Yeah, like Oxford, Ohio, like what in the world is going on here? Like why are so many people buying hats and and visiting my website from Oxford, Ohio?
Steve Seger: That's so funny. They I mean, literally everyone was wearing when when I was there. That was that was kinda cool.
Jake: Hey, props to you for that, man. You're the you're the one that was spreading the word.
Steve Seger: I don't wanna take credit for it. I'm sure there was other people that were sending them around, but it's still cool though. Kinda sweet. Yeah.
Jake: It is man, it is. It's crazy. Like it's crazy to to also see people just like out in the wild that that recognize me because I'm like I didn't I don't really I mean I'm not famous obviously, but it's like I've never had people just randomly recognize me before in public. So that's just like a really weird thing for me sometimes.
Steve Seger: No way. Are you wearing your like Shell's hat when you're out and they run up to you and
Jake: Well, I mean yeah, well it's not only that, but it's like I've I have some some videos that I posted of me doing, you know, back end stuff before and I do that for the sole reason because people just like love to see that kind of stuff. You know, I'm
Steve Seger: Uh-huh.
Jake: the last person in the world that wants to become recognizable and famous, but I know people like to see the back end side of things. So that's why I put my face out there for people.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Well hopefully that this this is another resource for people to learn more about ya. for the listener here, where can they go to find all of your different platforms and everything? And buy hats.
Jake: Of course, yeah. I mean Instagram's obviously the big one. Shells Vintage on Instagram. www.shellsvintage dot com is the website. Those are pretty much my two main platforms, man. Like TikTok I'm not too active on or or Twitter. So definitely hit up the Instagram or the website or the Facebook page too.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. I'll link everything too in the description. So anyone that's wanting to go shopping, you'll have all of the shells vintage links available to you and
Jake: Could I could I get a could I give out a discount code for the listeners? Yeah, use
Steve Seger: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Jake: a use shout out shells21, all caps, if you want 15% off your first order.
Steve Seger: There we go. A little bit of value there for the listener. I love that, Jake.
Jake: Yeah, shout out shells, no caps, no hyphens, anything. Shout out shells twenty-one.
Steve Seger: I will put that also in the description too. Jake, this was great. Thank you, man, for the time. I appreciate it.
Jake: Absolutely. Thanks, Steve. I'd have me on again if you if you need somebody else because I would I'd love to have an overc another conversation. I love doing this.
Steve Seger: we'll absolutely do it. Yeah.
Jake: Thanks, Steve.
Jake: Thanks, Steve. Glad to be on.
Steve Seger: Yeah, man, this will be fun. And I know we talked a little bit up front, but I'm gonna kick things off with a couple quick questions, may have follow ups. so bear with me here, but they'll be kind of semi-rapid fire questions, okay? right.
Jake: Let's do it.
Steve Seger: Best sports logo ever. Your favorite.
Jake: Ugh. I'm a Game Cox fan, so I'm just gonna be biased and say South Carolina Game Cox. I did, yeah. But they're unique,
Steve Seger: Did you go to SC? Yeah. Okay. If you
Jake: you know, the Game Cock. And I don't there's only one other school that I can think of that has the Game Cock as a mascot, but definitely Game Cox for me.
Steve Seger: right. If you could sell one clothing item besides hats, what would it be?
Jake: Sweatshirts actually.
Steve Seger: it. What professional teams do you root for? And I guess you root for SC in college.
Jake: South Carolina, Carolina Hurricanes, and the Carolina Panthers are my three
Steve Seger: Okay.
Jake: teams.
Steve Seger: Loyal to the hometown state. You're from North Carolina, right?
Jake: I am, yes. I was I grew up in Raleigh.
Steve Seger: Got it. How many hats do you think you own right now?
Jake: You mean like hats for my business or me personally?
Steve Seger: Personally.
Jake: I probably have about a hundred of them right now. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Does it fluctuate or do you kind of like have like a sweet spot where you're like, I gotta start offloading some of these?
Jake: Yeah, I definitely try to keep it around the hundred or lower. If if there's some that if my you know, my stash is getting a little too big, I definitely I usually just sell on my website. I put on there when I get tired of a hat or want to get rid of it.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Do you have like a handful of hats or like one hat that you would never sell no matter what?
Jake: I do have one, yeah. It's actually a vintage South Carolina one that has the the old, you know, 90s SEC logo on there. So that's one I don't think I'll ever sell because I think it's one of the most rare hats I've ever found, obviously on the Gamecock. So that's definitely one that I'm I'm never gonna sell. I d I do. You want me to get up and get it? Or okay, yeah.
Steve Seger: Do you have it around you right now or is it off buried away? Yes, can I see it? I do camera I d I do the YouTube version of this too, so I think the people watching would definitely wanna see it if they can.
Jake: Probably need to clean it up a little bit, but but this is what it looks like.
Steve Seger: yeah. that is nice. Yeah, if you're watching on video, it is a keeper. Can I see the bottom of it too? yeah, it's got the green brim.
Jake: Yeah, I mean it's just you know, the typical green underbill.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: Yeah, definitely never getting rid of this. Fits nice too. I love the way it fits. Like
Steve Seger: yeah.
Jake: nice and high crowned, just like you want it. But all
Steve Seger: Where'd you find it? Was that eBay too?
Jake: of them, pretty much everything I get off eBay, people always ask me, like, do you go to thrift stores? And to be honest with you, I ain't got time to go around and and shop at thrift stores. So it's all eBay.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What is your like browsing process like when you're on eBay? What does that look like?
Jake: So I used to browse a lot more than I do because, you know, now my designs are a majority of my business. But I just get I sign up for eBay alerts. So whenever, you know, a new posting comes on eBay of whatever alert that I signed up for, then I then I'll go and browse because it'll it'll it'll give you, you know, twenty different hats per per search. So usually I'll service I'll save a search like, you know, vintage South Carolina Game Cox hat and you know, you'll all get an alert for, you know, five or six different hats to hit eBay. So I get first dibs on all of them. But I used to browse by just going through like every team and every every league and just searching searching literally, you know, vintage Carolina Panthers hat, then vintage Tampa Bay Buccaneers, then vintage so on and so forth.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. I wonder if you could use like AI now to do that for you. Like literally tell it here's a picture of my 10 favorite hats every morning. Go and look for these exact, like similar models for it.
Jake: A hundred percent, yeah. The thing is I'm pretty picky about what I buy. Like I've always been, you know, very picky about the the style, the design, the the maker of the hats. I'm all I'm pretty picky about that kind of stuff. So I I think I AI probably would help out, but I think my process is pretty efficient, so
Steve Seger: Yeah. Yeah. Do you do any kind of in person like pop up shops or anything? I remember
Jake: yeah.
Steve Seger: when I was in Charlotte for a little bit, I would do, I think Noda had a couple of good ones that I would go to. Do you
Jake: Yeah, Charlotte has a few. They've got front porches, one of the bigger ones.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: and then there's another company that runs markets on Camden Street, which is in South End.
Steve Seger: Okay.
Jake: they do that one Saturday every month. But the main one I actually usually go to is Soda City Market in Columbia. it's one of the biggest markets in the country, actually. They have like two hundred vendors come every Saturday to Columbia and they just do it on the main street of of downtown Columbia. So,
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: It's actually been really hot out, so I haven't been going as much. 'cause honestly it's pretty brutal out there. But like now that it's football season, fall, it's starting to cool down a little more, I'll definitely be going. Couple months.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Last warm up question, and then we'll jump on into the meat of the discussion. And this is when I ask everyone, so you're not the first, but could you beat Liam Neeson in a fist fight?
Jake: No, absolutely not. That's an easy that's an easy answer. I've never been in a fight before, so
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: definitely not.
Steve Seger: He's he was professionally trained from like ages like nine to seventeen. so he kicks ass apparently. And I mean obviously he he's a big dude. He's like six four. But he is in his seventies. So maybe you maybe you're not giving yourself enough credit if you can
Jake: Yeah, I mean, hey, I I will say Batman begins. He was he was Bruce Wayne's like mentor and and
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: trainer, so I definitely would be getting my ass whooped by him, whatever age it was. Like I guarantee you n he's seventy, but I've I'd I'm not even gonna if if he threw some punches at me, like I'm I'm out of there, man. I'm I'm running if if I get in a f if Liam Neeson's trying to get in a fight with me.
Steve Seger: So that's a bit that I stole from Family Guy. There's like an episode where Peter, he every time he drinks, he's like, I could totally beat Liam Neeson in a fist fight. Yeah, I just keep asking it.
Jake: I've never z I watch f I watch a lot of Family Guy. I don't I don't that doesn't really I don't remember him saying that, but I guess I don't watch it enough.
Steve Seger: Yeah, watch it. There's like one episode where he specifically d like keeps saying that and then the Liam Neeson came on and voiced himself and comes on and like beats the crap out of Peter on it.
Jake: I just love the ones where he's beating up the chicken. Those are my favorite episodes.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Yes, yes. all right. Enough of that. We'll jump on into the the background and kind of the the story behind why I wanted you to have why I wanted to have you on the show today. And that's the really cool business that you've you've built with Shell's Vintage. I've been a fan since college. I know we talked a little bit about it up front, but can you take me kind of back maybe where you grew up and leading up to getting into entrepreneurship and how that idea of shells kind of sort of formulated and came about.
Jake: Absolutely, yeah. So grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. to be honest with you, I was kind of had a passion for, you know, wanting to start a business. I had a lawnmowing business in my neighborhood. was doing that, you know, pretty much all throughout middle school and high school and always like talk to my dad about random ideas I had to start businesses. but you know, after that I went to South Carolina, ended up majoring and they actually have an entrepreneurship major at South Carolina, so they have some really cool Cool entrepreneurship classes that I really enjoyed at South Carolina. So I graduated with double major in business management and finance from South Carolina. Was doing, you know, some business events there. But then again, also I always had that desire to, you know, start a business. I actually did, so I graduated. South Carolina in 2019 with that double major. didn't have a job coming out of college. So The three months post grad I was living at home, you know, applying for jobs. But I always had a a little collection of vintage hats that, you know, I would wear out to the bars in Columbia and people would just offer me absurd amounts of money for these things. And obviously I never took up on it. But you know, just sitting around for three months applying for jobs. Obviously my mind is just running through stuff, like, you know, obviously trying to get a job, but also like my my mind is always like, Okay, what can I do to Potentially start a business. So that that came to mind, and I always was searching for hats on eBay. so one day literally was like, Okay, I woke up and was like, I'm gonna start this hat business today. So went and blew $750 of graduation money on my first batch of of eBay hats. You should have seen my parents' faces when they showed up to the door. There was just like a pile of 20 or 30 eBay boxes, and they were like,
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: What are you doing with your life right now? right now. but anyway, so yeah, like started the Instagram, all that. Started, you know, flipping the hats, kind of boosting posts on Instagram, ended up getting a sales job where I was actually making, you know, like 250 cold calls a day. It was something literally like leading re reading off a script. It was something straight out of, you know, like Woofle Wall Street kind of thing. But I was but then I would come home from work and you know work on the business until I went to sleep. Usually that was just you know, searching eBay for hats, but also, you know, starting to teach myself stuff. regarding accounting and you know advertising ended up you know you know doing the website all that good stuff but so that was going well you know I was doing weekly drops and started to gain a really, you know, good following. It's funny. Last weekend I actually ran into a guy. He was like, dude, I I started following you and you had like less than a thousand followers and now you have fifty thousand. So it's all it's always great to run into those kind of people. but anyway, yeah, so it was was doing well with the flipping the vintage stuff. and then
Steve Seger: What what year was this about when you were just starting?
Jake: it was like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, and then twenty twenty-one is when, you know, I was kinda like, well, this is going really well with flipping the vintage hats, but you know, there's only so much you can find on eBay if I really wanted to, you know, scale as business and be able to quit my full-time job and really throw myself into it. So started designing my own vintage hats, literally just based off of the all the designs that I knew that I liked and knew my customers liked, you know, all the hats from the nineties. so I released my first wave of state snaps, which is now obviously one of my main product lines. And I think it was the North Carolina and South Carolina is what I started out with. And I dropped them on in I think it was maybe like early July twenty t or sorry, early twenty twenty one. And the one day like of sales that I did when I first dropped those was obviously like blew any day of sales that I had out of the water. and then started, you know, ordering more of those other designs of state snaps. I think of my other first ones were Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, a bunch of different hats that I was obviously just Kind of like I said, taking the inspiration from all the nineties hats that I was selling, but also I wanted people to be able to rep not only their state, but also the obviously the team that they cheered for. I wanted them to be able to to rep their state and team all in one, you know, cool retro style design. then my city hats, you know, kind of followed that as well. But in July of twenty twenty one I was doing well with obviously the mixture of selling the vintage hats and now my designs. So I told my parents I was like, mom and dad. I'm I'm quitting my job and I'm I'm throwing myself into this this business. and obviously they're like super nervous as any parents would be. but from then on I literally like just kept so slowly scaling the business, slowly learning everything about it, slowly spending more on advertising, building up more inventory, doing more pop ups, all that good stuff and you know, since then just been releasing the designs, restocking a lot of you know, just continually this slowly scale a business. But that's basically the the short story of everything.
Steve Seger: Yeah. When you were just absolutely grinding, calling two hundred fifty people a day, did you have a moment where you almost stopped?
Jake: my gosh, yeah. Well every almost every day, like it would towards, you know, two or three months in, I was already, you know, tired of it, obviously, because I had this like building passion that I wanted to do something that wasn't an eight to five, you know, typical desk job, which actually what I was doing, I wouldn't even consider that a typical eight to five, making two hundred and fifty cold calls a day.
Steve Seger: Sounds like torture.
Jake: it was, man. I my
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: elbow would get tired because I was just holding the phone like this all day long. So like I'll get home and my elbow I'd be just be like sitting at my my my sitting on my couch like this all night because my elbow is like sore from holding the phone like this all day. But yeah, man, I was what I mean, me hating that job just gave me even more of that passion to go home and and work harder on the business and just, you know, keep grinding away at it. So I guess I could kind of thank my hatred for that job for for helping me to to kind of push me over that that hump.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember I know we talked about it a a little earlier, but when your when I first found your page, it it was not below a thousand, but I think it was definitely below like five thousand when I started getting on there. And I think I just it popped up on like Instagram, like you were saying. Were you doing a lot of a lot of paid marketing on there? Like how did that look early on too, or when did you turn that on?
Jake: Yeah, I mean I was doing yeah, I was doing a little bit of it. It's it's different now. All I was doing if if you're a business owner and listening to this, I liter I was just pressing boost post, you know,
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: in the corner of every Instagram post that you have and you can spend however much you want per day on I mean, I was probably spending you know, if I had like a really good drop or like some really good content that I was like, Okay, this would probably do well, you know, advertising wise, I'd probably spend like twenty or thirty dollars a day on on a couple posts just kind of weekly. But you know, continually I was just spending like more and more on those boost posts, and that's how I originally built up that following.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Do you still use that or has it grown to a point where you don't need to as much?
Jake: Not as much. I I basically just run, you know, the the meta Facebook ads, which are actually it's di it's it's it's separate from just boosting posts.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: but I still do that every once in a while, you know, if I have some good content or I just drop something or I wanna, you know, build up hype for a a future drop, I'll boost some posts.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Can you share a little bit how you initially began to manufacture your own hats and how you were learning all that and stumbling through it on your own in the back end?
Jake: Yeah, absolutely. So I had no obviously no experience with any kind of hat manufacturer. So I would just message other hat companies and ask them, you know, like You know, where do you guys manufacture your hats? what are some of the ones you've used? Like would you which ones would you not use? Which ones would you, you know, throw my way? A lot of them would actually gatekeep it, which is, you know, which is understandable. But the I started out with Puka, which is w pretty big ha pretty big manufacturer. Now they're actually based out of Ohio. but I started with Puka, was using them. pretty much for the first two years of the of the business. and then I I was like, you know what, I I could probably get this cost down by just going straight to the to the factory and not using kind of Puka as the middleman. I also knew that I wanted to get into stores and start making wholesale deals. so that's when I started kind of searching Alibaba for a new manufacturer and I knew that the prices on there were a lot better to make it fully custom just like I always did, but also be able to get it to a to a price where I could start selling to stores.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Were you hiring designers or were you drawing these out on
Jake: no.
Steve Seger: your own?
Jake: No, I I was doing everything on my on my own. I ne I didn't have any graphic design experience at all. Like I didn't do anything college graphic design-wise.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: literally just down downloaded Canva, which I know Canva is really popular, but it's definitely like very beginner friendly and people who don't have a lot of experience with graphic design, it's very like it's pretty easy to use. so that's what I started on, like, and I still well that's still what I use for everything is Canva. but But yeah, man, I've never hired a designer because I've realized that like I've I'm pretty good at it and I know exactly what I want. So I've never hired a designer for anything.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Was there at any point like a very expensive mistake that you made that maybe now you could have avoided, but you learned, I guess, the hard way?
Jake: Yeah, and a lot of them the mistakes are actually just gambling on it was, you know, agencies, advertising agencies, email agencies. I remember there was one advertising agency that I was actually recommended to by a friend. I guess he he knew someone that was that started the company. not too like they didn't know the person too well, but so I I started using them and they were charging me twenty five hundred bucks a month, which at the time for me was a lot of money. and they literally so I was pay I paid them for probably three months and they gave me pretty much nothing. Like the my friend was starting to was like trying to sell me and be like, Look, man, you just gotta let them, you know, kind of build up the creatives, build up the strategy, all that kind of thing. But they were just giving me absolutely nothing. So that was definitely a big mistake. I mean, $2,500 a month is not like a a huge amount of money in the gram scheme of things, but that's definitely one that pops into mind. Also ordered a bunch of hats from one. Manufacturer that you know they're they came to me. I probably spent you know close to ten thousand dollars on inventory from this manufacturer, and a lot of the hats were just absolute pieces of shit to be to for lack of better description. I mean, just like pieces of embroidery hanging out of all of them, like you know, rips in the in the stitching, and they are packaged like they just tossed them into the to the box, so a lot of them are misshaped, all the brands. and stuff. So I was definitely, those are probably the two biggest ones that come to mind.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Where do you keep all your inventory today? Is it like are you do you not have it in hand? or is there
Jake: I do. I do actually. So I used to I mean I've got some that I keep here in hand in my I mean I just have a a a studio apartment here and I have some shelves that I keep a lot of it on but I started using a a a 3PL third party logistics company so
Steve Seger: Okay.
Jake: a lot of my inventory is at their warehouse.
Steve Seger: Yeah, I got it. Is that is that near you or is it somewhere else where you can't get to it as easily?
Jake: It's in it's in Abbeville, South Carolina, which is like middle of nowhere, South Carolina. It's probably about like two hours and forty-five minutes away. So I've driven there a few times. I mean it's not that bad of a drive. but it's definitely it's i you there's driving there, there's you're there's definitely a few moments where it's like, where the hell am I?
Steve Seger: Yeah. And I saw you started to look to hire on your website. Are you have you made a a first hire yet? Or is that?
Jake: Yeah, so I hired a f a social media manager last year. and he worked he was busting ass for me for for that year. I had to dial it back a little bit just because I was, you know, got myself in a little bit of a a cash flow crunch, which business owners listening to this listening to this could probably relate to. so I had to kinda it wasn't anything to do with him really. I just had to kind of tighten the budget a lot. So I s he started doing a lot less for me. He still does some stuff for me every once in a while.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: but he was my first hire. That was like my first time interviewing anybody, you know, putting out a job posting, any of that good stuff, which I now realize I don't really enjoy that type of thing, you know, the business, interviewing, posting jobs, all that good stuff, but obviously it's an extremely important part of it.
Steve Seger: Yeah, what was different? I mean, like, did you just grow to a point where you couldn't handle the social media side, or was like your least favorite part of the business?
Jake: It was it's it was that yeah, it was definitely a mixture of it. I didn't really enjoy doing it. I knew that I wasn't the most social media savvy person either. So it's like if you
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: can't do the job well, hire somebody else that'll do it it do it better for you. So that's definitely where my head was at and I was like my business was doing doing well, so I you know, had some money that where I was like, I think I can hire somebody to do this for me. But in my s into getting myself into a little bit of a pickle that I'm actually out of I'm out of it now but I had to you know kinda dial it back a little bit with with his services.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. One thing that I think would be cool to understand, and you probably have such like a deep knowledge of the kind of hats that you want to to buy.
Jake: Thank you.
Steve Seger: and I feel like a listener that is relatively interested in hats might be interested in understanding like, what do you look for? Like if you could give like a like a two-minute masterclass on Jake's process for finding a hat that he loves, like what are like Two to three things that you're like, gotta have this, gotta have this.
Jake: You're are you talking like of like buying from a manufacturer or f or finding them on eBay? Okay.
Steve Seger: Finding them on eBay probably just for like the more layman hat shopper, I guess.
Jake: Yeah, well obviously a lot of the ones on eBay are really dirty. So like that's something I always pay attention to. definitely the the brim or the the crown shape is something that I also really pay attention to. A lot of the vintage hats you find now can be really actually like shallow and small. So I try to, you know, find hats that have the taller front part of the hat. And obviously a lot of the the hats now they have a lot of the brims are misshaped or cracked. So I mean those are pretty much stuff right off the bat that I think a lot of people probably already know.
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: the main thing that I am picky about it is the design. You know, not only the quality of the of the embroidery, but I don't buy hats that where they just throw logo on there and that's it. Like I like I buy the stuff that is has the has the pizzazz, you know, either whether it's just like a cool script writing of saying, you know, South Carolina on it or a mixture of having having the logo and some really cool, you know, like designs, lines, kind of other elements to the hat that make it look like it's actually vintage, which it is. But there are also a lot
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: of, you know, vintage vintage hats you can find where they're they're just, you know, regular logo hats.
Steve Seger: Yeah, I gotcha. And
Jake: And then another part too that I forgot is is the the company. Like the manufacturers are very important. I'll give a few that are the best ones. The game, the game hats are one that comes to mind. Number one apparel is also one. Logo 7, sports specialties. Young Ann, Young On Hat Company. What else? Yeah, there's a lot of them out there, but those are like the top five. And those, you know, when I'm going to search for a vintage hat, a lot of times I just I'll just search by company and kind of go through what they have on eBay.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. Man, you're giving away the playbook too, right there.
Jake: Yeah, but hey in I'm I'm confident in my abilities, you know. Nobody can do it better than me in my mind.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What does day to day look like for you now? I mean, I'm sure it's changed a lot since you started
Jake: Yeah, I mean it's it's actually it's kinda the same. Usually in the morning it's actually a lot of backend kind of admin stuff. You know, I still run all my own books, I still do my all my own advertising, obviously the design and all that kind of stuff. So it kind of differs a day to day, obviously, but usually in the morning I'll I'll go through all my my emails, which is a lot of it is you know just eBay notifications. So I'll do my
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: quick, you know, eBay notification search to start out the day. And then I usually it's followed by you know, going on QuickBooks and categor categorizing all my transactions from the previous day and then after that I usually ship ship some hats obviously like I use my 3PL for a lot of that but I still have to ship some stuff so print out the labels ship some hats hit the post office that usually takes me about an hour so it's not like a huge chunk out of my day and then the afternoon I is kind of when my creative juices are are flowing in the afternoon so the afternoon is usually kind of more of you know Designing stuff, creating ads, kind of doing the back-end ad setup. Maybe kind of I also do my own email marketing. So designing emails is another big part of it. I like to spend the second half of the day kind of doing the more design stuff because the morning is more like, you know, is I want I want to knock out all the boring stuff before I can get to all the stuff that I actually enjoy.
Steve Seger: Yeah. What platform do you use for the the email marketing and keeping track of your whole list?
Jake: Yeah, so I I use a platform called Redo, which I know the big one's Clavio. I used to use Clavio, but
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: their their cost just was kind of was not making sense for my business. So stopped using Clavio and started using Redo, which is a great tool. I would suggest that it's like half the price of Clavio and and you know, pretty much all the features that that Clavio offers. So if you're like if you're listening to this, you're somebody that is you know, you're like you're like I was and you think you're paying way too much for clavia, which you probably are, then I would check out redo.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. And you've had some pretty big celebrities wearing your hats. Like I when I was looking at your website and your pages, like there's some pretty big names that are on there. Have you gotten to meet anyone through the business or has anything happened where someone like really big has reached out to you directly?
Jake: I've messaged a few people, that's about it. I haven't met anybody in person, but it's pretty cool. I've messaged like C J Stroud, Danzby Swanson, Jackson Dart, Garrett Wilson, you know, a few different people on Instagram. So that was pretty cool to like, you know, message them on Instagram directly. But I've never met any of them in person. I played football with Braxton Berrios in high school for a year. So like I know Braxton. obviously I've met him before. but other than that, not not yet, not yet. Hopefully, hopefully at some point I'll meet, you know, somebody that I've thrown a hat to. But I'm guessing you're probably curious, you know, how do I get these hats to all these famous people. I'm assuming you're probably wondering.
Steve Seger: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jake: Yeah, yeah. So like it's funny 'cause everybody always asks me, like, how are you getting all these famous people to wear your hats?
Steve Seger: Yeah.
Jake: and I'm like it's it's honestly a super simple process. I just I kind of once it's it's actually, you know, once I get a new design in for like say, you know, like a Chicago, my Chicago Cubs theme design,
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: or you know, whatever else, I will just take you know five or six of the big name players on the teams and just directly address them and send the hats to the the training facility with a little note inside the hat being like I don't really ask them for two. Much because obviously they're celebrities, they probably get a lot of free stuff, have other brand deals, all that good stuff. So I just send them a note, say, like, hey, thought you would like this hat, you know, appreciate it if you would just wear it in exchange. And I'll usually say, like, love to watch you play, you know, respect what you're doing, all that kind of stuff. But I usually just keep it simple, send it to a training facility or stadium, and and try to get lucky with it. Yeah.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Man. So that and that's worked pretty well. Like you've seen people just wearing them and there we go right there.
Jake: Yeah, 'cause I mean usually it just like, you know, if they get mail, I think it usually just shows up at their locker. and a lot of times I see like a lot of them have worn it in a postgame interviews and stuff, which has been really cool to see.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: but also like a bunch of walk ins, you know, how they people are the like the the media teams of teams are always doing Taking pictures of the athletes when they walk in, kind of like an outfit check and all that kind of stuff. So that's where that's a lot I I see a lot of my hats in the in the walk-in pictures as well.
Steve Seger: That's cool. Where do you want to grow the business to? Like do you have an endpoint in mind or is it just you're loving
Jake: Heh heh.
Steve Seger: what you're doing and it's just gonna keep rolling for now?
Jake: Yeah, I mean Endpoint, obviously I don't really I haven't thought that far in advance. I really
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: am been just been trying to build out the product lines as much as I as I can because I'm still missing a lot of you know cities and states that people obviously would like to to have a design for. So my main my main goal right now is just building out those product lines to where I'm at a point where people are going to a website and they can find something for their state, for their city, for their team. I want to get to a point where Where I'm not missing anything for people.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm.
Jake: I also want to go into more of the obviously I do have some lifestyle designs, but I'm a big golfer. I'm really passionate about golf. So I'd like to, you know, design some more retro style golf stuff. I do have a couple retro style designs for golf. My my 19th hole hats are a big seller. but definitely kind of build out the more lifestyle product line as well with the golf, like I mentioned, but also, you know, other stuff like I have like a happy hour design that I haven't released yet. I've got, you know, stuff for skiing and snowboarding that I haven't released yet. So I
Steve Seger: Ooh, cool.
Jake: kind of right I'm focused on building out the product lines and also doing some more wholesale stuff with stores. But right now I think that's my main focus. I also want to get more into the custom, custom stuff. But yeah, it's kind of on the back burner a little bit right now until I until I'm build out my product lines a little more.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Can you see like do you have data on what geo like geographic reason or regions are buying the most amount of hats? Like does that exist?
Jake: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean Obviously North Carolina and South Carolina, just because I have a lot of designs from there and that's where you know where I'm from. That's where the I'm based in Charlotte, so that's where the company is. But also some other big states are, you know, the foot funny enough, it's like the big football states. Ohio, Texas, Florida are three huge ones. California, a big one. Colorado's a big one. but Tennessee is also a big one. I've you know, my Nashville and my Tennessee volunteers. hats sell really well. So Tennessee is another big one. But basically a lot of you know places in the Southeast. Georgia of course Atlanta stuff and my Georgia store my Georgia stuff sells well. so it's you know obviously me have being in the southeast and having a lot of designs that are you know southeast focused. I need to build out my western coast stuff a little more. Like I have some California stuff, but I'm definitely lacking on that end. So I I I need to I need to get on my my West Coast designs.
Steve Seger: Mm. Do you I mean, do a lot of your friends wear your hats out and stuff too? I'm assuming. Yeah.
Jake: Yeah, of course. I mean my friends are very supportive of what I do, so I I like I appreciate them for being as supportive as they are. A lot of them are are like, you know, some of aren't the they don't like to wear the the retro style stuff, which I completely respect. But a lot of them do. So it's kind of just a mixture.
Steve Seger: Yeah. I mean I'd imagine a lot of people like kind of what we were talking about earlier is like you see one person with a hat and you're like, Where'd you get that at? And then it just kind of organically spreads from there.
Jake: Yeah, yeah. It's kinda crazy 'cause a lot of my friends if I haven't seen like some of my friends for a while, they're like, dude, I see your hats all over the place Which is really cool to hear 'cause like, you know me I go out every once in a while but I'm not you know, in all places at once where I can see people wearing So it's cool because to hear people, you know, s say that they see my hats everywhere. Cause a lot of times me just, you know, sitting in my apartment doing all the back end stuff, I don't get to see the the stuff come to fruition with with people wearing out in the wild. So I love to hear that.
Steve Seger: Yeah. And we were talking about earlier how there was like a pop in Oxford. Could you actually see that data like back when that was happening? Or was it just Ohio that you can see the data on? Oxford, Ohio was where I went to school.
Jake: You said you Yeah, no, with you with you, like are you talking about the like when you were s putting all your friends onto my hats? Because yes, no, I could. I could see it. I was like and my
Steve Seger: Yeah, I'm just curious. no way.
Jake: Shopify, I remember when that was going on and it still kind of is. Like there's some there's some random places that I get in my Shopify that I'm like, that is just like why are so many people visiting my website from this small town in in Ohio and there's another one in Illinois. It's called like I can't think of the name off the top of my head, but it's another small town in Illinois. But when that was going
Steve Seger: hold on.
Jake: on I was like, Yeah, like Oxford, Ohio, like what in the world is going on here? Like why are so many people buying hats and and visiting my website from Oxford, Ohio?
Steve Seger: That's so funny. They I mean, literally everyone was wearing when when I was there. That was that was kinda cool.
Jake: Hey, props to you for that, man. You're the you're the one that was spreading the word.
Steve Seger: I don't wanna take credit for it. I'm sure there was other people that were sending them around, but it's still cool though. Kinda sweet. Yeah.
Jake: It is man, it is. It's crazy. Like it's crazy to to also see people just like out in the wild that that recognize me because I'm like I didn't I don't really I mean I'm not famous obviously, but it's like I've never had people just randomly recognize me before in public. So that's just like a really weird thing for me sometimes.
Steve Seger: No way. Are you wearing your like Shell's hat when you're out and they run up to you and
Jake: Well, I mean yeah, well it's not only that, but it's like I've I have some some videos that I posted of me doing, you know, back end stuff before and I do that for the sole reason because people just like love to see that kind of stuff. You know, I'm
Steve Seger: Uh-huh.
Jake: the last person in the world that wants to become recognizable and famous, but I know people like to see the back end side of things. So that's why I put my face out there for people.
Steve Seger: Yeah. Well hopefully that this this is another resource for people to learn more about ya. for the listener here, where can they go to find all of your different platforms and everything? And buy hats.
Jake: Of course, yeah. I mean Instagram's obviously the big one. Shells Vintage on Instagram. www.shellsvintage dot com is the website. Those are pretty much my two main platforms, man. Like TikTok I'm not too active on or or Twitter. So definitely hit up the Instagram or the website or the Facebook page too.
Steve Seger: Mm-hmm. I'll link everything too in the description. So anyone that's wanting to go shopping, you'll have all of the shells vintage links available to you and
Jake: Could I could I get a could I give out a discount code for the listeners? Yeah, use
Steve Seger: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Jake: a use shout out shells21, all caps, if you want 15% off your first order.
Steve Seger: There we go. A little bit of value there for the listener. I love that, Jake.
Jake: Yeah, shout out shells, no caps, no hyphens, anything. Shout out shells twenty-one.
Steve Seger: I will put that also in the description too. Jake, this was great. Thank you, man, for the time. I appreciate it.
Jake: Absolutely. Thanks, Steve. I'd have me on again if you if you need somebody else because I would I'd love to have an overc another conversation. I love doing this.
Steve Seger: we'll absolutely do it. Yeah.
Jake: Thanks, Steve.
