Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to the Victory Show.
Hey victors. Welcome to this episode of the Victory Show. If this is your first time joining us, I'm Travis Cody, author of 16 books and creator bestseller By Design. I've had the privilege of helping hundreds of business consultants, founders and entrepreneurs write and publish their own best selling books as well. And along that journey discovered a really fascinating pattern. A lot of businesses hit a revenue plateau, usually around a million bucks, and they struggle to break through it. So on this show, we sit down with some of the world's most successful founders, CEOs, leaders and business owners to uncover the strategies they use to overcome those plateaus so they could scale their businesses to heights. And we want you to do the same thing. So get ready for some deep insights and actionable takeaways so that you can implement in your life and business starting now. My guest today is Tom Ruin. He's the founder and CEO of 1-800-T Shirts and Envision, which is an Inc. 5000 custom screen printing and embroidery company known for its innovation and impact. He's also the owner of Rune Capital, a private equity firm investing in commercial real estate and small to mid sized businesses, helping build long term value through smart strategic growth. Tom's work blends entrepreneurship, marketing and a deep passion for community, proving that business success and social impact don't have to be separate goals.
So, Tom, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Hey, glad to be on.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: All right, so I gotta say this is probably the most unique business that I've had conversations with so far. So I'm sure you get this question all the time, but where did the idea for 1,800t shirts, where did that start?
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it started actually in high school, so I was looking for something unique. So our high school basketball team was undefeated. They were going to the state playoffs.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: This was like just after the Chicago Bulls had like all their big, you know, success with championships, Michael Jordan and everything else. And the athletic director at our high school had ordered T shirts for the school, you know, to cheer the team on. And it was a white T shirt with just black ink and like a varsity font, like very basic type thing that just said like state basketball, basketball or something. And I'm like, we need to have a shirt like the Chicago Bulls that has like, you know, the mascot on it and players and all just really cool graphics on it and multiple colors and everything else. So I went to this T shirt company close by, gave the designer kind of my vision of, of what I had in mind. And he designed this amazing shirt. And so me and a bunch of friends just started selling them throughout the high school and all over the place. And we were selling literally thousands shirts all over the Munich because the design was just so amazing. And of course, everyone was wanting to back and show their support for the basketball team.
So that was our first. My first kind of T shirt project. And then the rest of my high school. And all throughout college, I was coming up with different designs, selling them in dorms, going tailgating at football games, and just other areas around the community anywhere. It was just one off designs. And that was, you know, paying for basically college at the time. So when I graduated, you know, I had an idea of this. I. I got to. I was bartending at the time. I got to know a lot of other bar and restaurant owners, a lot of business owners through bartending, and I was like, all right, well, I. I know how to design shirts now. I just have to learn how to print them. And I've already got, you know, some relationships built to, you know, have customers right off the start.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Wow. So it's interesting. It's this thing. You're like, this shirt's boring. Let me start a thing. And then suddenly you're like, oh, I just made a whole bunch of money doing this thing that I thought was just, like, showing school support. Was that. Was that kind of. Was that a little bit of a. Like, did that cause you to stop and go, how did. How did I just make a bunch of money with this little thing that was just kind of a silly thing? Or did you go, that was pretty cool?
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it was like, I've always kind of had that entrepreneur mindset, you know, as a. As a kid, whether it was lemonade stand, you know, typical, selling baseball cards. And then throughout grade school, I was. I hit the Beanie Baby craze, and I was selling Beanie Babies on online forums.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: All right, what was. I got to stop you right there. What was. What was your. What was your biggest ROI on a Beanie Baby?
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Oh, man. I think.
I think the highest one we sold might have been $750.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Do you remember which one it was?
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Basco the Bull.
So that was a big one. The bears. There was a peace bear.
There's a Princess Diana bear.
Remember, all the bears were like, you know, because we're buying these things for $2.50 each, and, you know, they're selling the popular ones. 75, 100, 150.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: You were doing Beanie Baby arbitrage.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, the margin was crazy. During that, you know, I think it was like a two year kind of craze about it. And, and that was pre ebay day. So, you know, we were. I was in online forms, I was probably like sixth grade. And I had to wait as I sold these, I had to wait for people to send a check or money order in the mail. And so I'd go to the mailbox, I'd have a whole stack of envelopes, have to go through, match their money order up with, you know, what we agreed upon on the forum, and then ship out. So like, my parents living room was our shipping, my shipping center. And then after the Beanie Baby craze got over, my mom owned a hair salon and ebay had just started. And so I started, I was like, all right, what's next? And you know, I saw she had this product and I was like, well, maybe I could sell shampoo on ebay. Which, looking back, seems like the craziest thing in the world. You know, back in this would. This would have been like 1996. It was like one of the very first ebay accounts. And I was selling shampoo to people in New York and California and all over the country.
And like, my mom couldn't figure it out. The wholesale place that we were getting shampoo from, because I was getting like, by the palette, they were like, they were confused as well. They're like, why?
How are you selling so much? And why are people buying it everywhere and buying it for more than retail price? A lot of cases.
And what we realized was like, you know, this was pre Amazon. It was the convenience factor. It was, you know, people were going on ebay and ordering this because it was shipped directly to their door. And they wanted that convenience instead of, you know, going to the salon or wherever else, you know, to get it.
So, you know, after that, continue to do that and then look for other items to arbitrage on ebay as well. I'd go to Walmart, basically take pictures of toys, you know, whatever the hot toys were for the season, I'd list them and then. And I won't buy the actual stuff until it's sold. So I would list it, sell it. After I sold, I'd go to Walmart, actually buy the item, and then ship it out. So that was all throughout kind of high school and college. So I always had this entrepreneur sense. So once, once I graduated college, like, I knew I always want to do business for myself. And it's like, well, ebay thing is probably like, you know, I'm outgrowing that at this point, need to start a real business. And so that's our T shirts was. Was the main one I stuck with then.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: So you're doing bartending and like, what was your angle for the T shirts as you're coming out of bartending? Did you start doing kind of like customized merch for stores or what did.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Like, it was mainly uniforms for. So, you know, other bars and restaurants I knew they needed either, you know, shirts to wear for their staff or shirts that they could, you know, shirts or hats they could hang up and sell to, you know, customers that are coming in. And so that was kind of the first one. And then other small businesses, whether it was like a grass cutting company or plumber or electrician or something like that. So a lot of different trades and stuff and then just friends and family and you know, it's birthday party T shirts and you name it. It was kind of bachelorette parties, bachelor parties, whatever people needed stuff on. And then we did a lot of sports stuff for high schools and colleges. So we're doing little league baseball teams, high school teams, college teams, all the clubs at the schools. And being just out of college, I was real familiar with that, you know, area. So I could, I could call up a fraternity or sorority or any of the clubs at a college and really be on the same playing field since I was 22. You know, it's different now that I'm in my 40s, me trying to call and like have a conversation with a kid in college. Like, we're not talking the same language right now.
My early 20s, it was real simple to pick up those types of accounts.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Well, and it sounds like you had an eye for design too, right? So you're coming in and you probably was at the time, the people trying to sell them were 40 year olds and you're the 22 year old. I'm like, no, no, no, we don'. A white T shirt with black font. Let me show you four color this and that. Oh my God. This is unlike anything people are showing us.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And so I, I understood, you know, what the style, right, like what's trendy, what's fashionable right now. And so we still have to adjust and do that now in our business, you know, it's where, you know, my kids right now, you know, they're, we're selling to the elementary school, you know, booster clubs and stuff like that. And it's like, okay, well what do my, what type of designs and colors and all the things that do my kids like to wear because what I think is cool is way different than what they think is cool. And so we kind of got to get that mix.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: At least you got a built in beta market so you kind of have some like ready made research.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's perfect for that. But then, you know, that's where we look at hiring like interns and different things right now. So we got that perspective of different, different ages and demographics and you know, it's not just, you know, me trying to.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: I can see sleepovers at your house where you're telling your kid, hey, invite 10 of your friends over. And they come over and you're like, hey, which shirt do you like? You like shirt A or shirt B? Which one do you like?
[00:10:44] Speaker B: I like.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Sure. B. Here, you guys can have it. And you're like, all right, we'll go print some of those. So at what point did you realize that you're going to have to invest in, in equipment and a location? You know, because I'm assuming at this point in time you were kind of going through wholesalers and kind of putting pieces together, right?
[00:10:57] Speaker B: No, we never went through who sailors.
So we just started off right from the start in my parents basement. I got a heat press, I was ordering in heat transfers and that lasted about four months.
And then after that I was like, all right, I have to go learn how to screen print. So I went, I flew down to Arizona, took a three day class to learn how to screen print and we leased our first space, 2,000 square feet, ordered embroidery machines, screen printing equipment, everything, and just dove right in. So starting off with our equipment for funding, it was, I was 22 at the time, so no bank was going to, you know, lend, lend me money or anything else. So I brought on my mom as my business partner and she had, you know, past entre experiences as being a business owner, some different small businesses, a hair salon as I mentioned, and a few others. And so I brought her as my business partner. We took out a home equity line of credit on their house and then basically a credit card to fund the startup of the equipment, the inventory and all the supplies and stuff that we needed. And so at that point I was like, okay, well my parents house is on the line. I've got no choice but to like make.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: That's a little pressure.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And I knew it was gonna work. Like I just had this unshakable confidence from the start.
And you know, but the first, you know, three years it was like, all right, I'm gonna work basically six, seven days a week.
I don't know, some days, 18 hour days, whatever. Some all nighters were you do.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Were you the only one you were doing all the pressing?
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah, so me, my mom, I'd grab some other siblings, you know, whatever and whatever it took. So you know, we're, we're printing, designing and doing customer service stuff. During the day, we'd be printing, at night, we'd be pulling all nighters to meet deadlines. Like whatever it took to, to make it happen, to grind it out, to kind of build that foundation of the customers to start off.
And so the first couple years were definitely a grind, but learned a lot in that time. Learned some tenacity, some self discipline, everything else, you know, as a kid, right out of college. But to me, like, it didn't feel like work to me. It felt like a game and it felt like it was, you know, something fun I enjoyed doing.
So I didn't mind, you know, putting in the hours and everything else. Cause like I'm like, what else would I be doing right now? So I always thought of it as like I'm building the foundation for my future and the more work I put in now, like the better things are going to be farther down the road.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: So what was the first, like revenue wise, what was the first couple of years like? Was it, did you do okay or would you kind of stay afloat? Like what did that look like?
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Yeah, first year, I think we were at about 250,000 in revenue.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: That's not too shabby for the late 90s.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, and then we jumped up into, we jumped up to, let's see, we went to 250 to 400 to 800. And by the fourth year we hit a million in revenue.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Wow. So what, what did that year feel like when you broke the million dollar mark in revenue? Did you guys stop and celebrate? Were you able to, or were you so busy you weren't able to really kind of apprec there?
[00:14:17] Speaker B: No, we were so busy we didn't even like, we didn't even stop to appreciate it. I, I don't think it was until, until the year after when we hit like 1.3 that I was like, oh my gosh, we're like, we're over a million in revenue this year and last year too. And it's been like, take it all in. And so it was, it was just like a moment that we didn't really pause. We were just kind of to the grind and making it happen.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So this is a fantastic story. I love it because you Just start this thing. It's fun, you're good at it. You're. Now you're doing a million dollars. At what point in your journey did you, did your mindset start to shift about how you treated this business? Going from the operator doing the fun thing to. Was there a moment where you realized like, oh, wow, like, I need to hire people and I need to start being more of like a CEO instead of like, you know, there's sort of the shift of like, it's your baby, it's your business. But then when you're hitting a million three, like, suddenly, you know, you're getting way too busy for you to manage all of that on your own. So was there a moment where you kind of sat back and went, oh, this is actually a real business and we can do something really cool with this?
[00:15:24] Speaker B: No, there wasn't.
Because, like, so basically for, for 20 years in a row, we've. We've averaged like 20% growth single year.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: 20% year after year after year after year.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: We've constantly been in this growth mode where I've never just sat back and wore the owner hat. It was. I've been wearing multiple hats really, probably until the last couple years where we've been, you know, adding more people to the leadership team and things like that from a management level.
But I mean, I'm still, up until probably last year, you know, I'm still, I still get out on a press and I'd be printing T shirts. So even though we got, you know, 30 some employees, I'd be, you know, whatever it takes, kind of all hands on deck mentality of if I've got to do some graphic design, I'll jump on and do some design. If I've got to go back and catch some shirts or print some T shirts, I'll do that. Like, so, yeah, there was never kind of this moment of like switching from in the grind working to the CEO, CEO role. It's always been a, like, do whatever it takes to, you know, make it happen. Because at all the different points, from a million to 2 million to 3 to 4 to 5, every little step in there, we've always hit different kind of bottlenecks or inflection points in the business where we just had to fill those gaps and adjust as needed. And it was always a different area. So it might have been the graphic design department. It might have been somewhere in fulfillment or in production or purchasing or marketing or somewhere else. There was like always different areas that during that growth, whether it was because of, you know, Hiring or you know, a lot of times as a small business, you hire somebody, the position isn't big enough. So let's just say accounting and hr. The company's not big enough for a full time person for both positions. So you hire kind of a someone that can handle both and they're wearing both of those hats at once. You know, I like to say it's like, you know, 50, 50 on that. But then as you grow, one of them needs full time attention and the other one still might be a part time type thing. And that's kind of throughout the business, especially in the production and manufacturing side of stuff. So with printing the shirts, you know, prepping the screens, fulfilling the orders, all that sort of thing. So we've always had people where they're wearing multiple hats in the building and then once we realize like the, the demand is exceeding what they're able to do and it's like, no, you now I have to take off a hat and just focus on one hat. You know, right now that's kind of been that constant thing. And, and so when those things happen throughout the business, that's where I'm able to step in or someone else and you know, wear part of a hat for a little bit until we find somebody to fill that role.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: So you said something that's really important that I've heard multiple times, which is, you know, a lot of people are going, I want to get to a million dollars, I want to get to a million dollars. And you can get there.
But what got you to a million isn't going to be what gets you to five.
And then, and you know, or even to three. And then what, what got you to three isn't what getting you to five. And so I think it's interesting that you said as you went along the way, like the bottlenecks that came up, but it was never the same bottleneck, it was always in a different thing where you're like, oh, we.
And they're like, oh, this thing over here is. Now you're like, oh, now I gotta go get this thing over here. And then you're like, yeah, we got it optimized. And it's like, oh no, now this one over here.
Right. And it's all based on the revenue because of the different, the demands on the business.
So you started at a 2,000 square foot shop, like what's your footprint now?
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Now we're at 35,000 square feet.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Started with a handful of employees and now you've got 35 years.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah, now we're at 38. 38.
So yeah, it's, it's. So we were in the 2,000 square feet for six years, and we bumped up to 7,000 square feet. We were there for six years, and then we went from 7,000 to 35,000.
And now we've been there for six years.
And, you know, we are, we are getting pretty full in there, but we've got the option to expand right now.
And yeah, it's, it's like we just keep hitting those levels and, and, and keep stepping it up every.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: So when you went from 7 to 35, were you going in there going, like, what are we ever going to do with all this space?
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, basically we thought, like, we thought that we were gonna have to lease out part of the building, but once we got in there, you know, we really, we quickly realized, like, with the extra space, we're able to make the workflow a lot more efficient.
We're able to expand our sales, you know, to keep up with the capacity that we had. So, you know, it's kind of like the fishbowl effect. You can only grow as big as, you know, the, the surroundings that you're in. So I think by doing that big of a jump, instead of going from like 7 up to 12 or 15,000, going to 35,000 really just gave us that kind of confidence and that expansion of like, all right, we got the capacity, we got the room, now let's start, you know, filling it. And after that, that's when we hit the Inc. 5000 for fastest growing companies in the US three years in a row.
That's 20. 2018, 2019. 2020.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Wow. So at what point did your mom retire and stop being your business partner? Or is she still your business partner?
[00:21:06] Speaker B: She's still there. She's still. Yeah, she's still my business partner.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: So your parents are like, that was an investment that turned out okay.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it's. And it's great. You know, like I said, all throughout the journey, you know, especially in the early years, the other siblings and stuff coming in, helping out at different times. And now it's nieces and nephews and, and stuff coming in and being part of it.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: That's fantastic. So I want to talk about something I think is really important, because some businesses go through this and you learn firsthand how kind of hard this is to pivot. But you started as envision and had some challenges with that. And then eventually you're like, this isn't working. We need to be something else. And so you came up with the idea of 1-800-T shirts. And so let's talk a little bit about the challenges you faced of once you acquired 1,800t shirts, of having to go from what, at that point in time you were a 15, 16 year old company with an established name and what it took for you to kind of pivot into something that was going to allow you to be, you know, the, the, the, the bigger growth that you guys have envisioned for yourself.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, so we established the, the name Envision from the start. And when we started, it was Envision Sports Designs. You know, we did a lot of sports teams and stuff like that.
And then as we kind of started growing, I was like, well, we're more than just sports teams. And so we evolved from Envision Sports Designs to Envision Screen Printing and embroidery.
And then that was too long.
So then we were, we went from Envision Screen printing embroidery to Envision tees.
So there was this evolution of Envision, you know, throughout kind of, you know, the time of our growth and everything else.
And then we always had this, this thing with trying to spell it out on the phone.
People didn't know if Envision started with an E or with an I.
And so every time we told someone we had to spell it out, people would email the wrong, you know, address.
And so we'd get email kickbacks and people calling, asking about that. It's just really hard even for our customers to refer us to other people and for them to remember the name. And so I'd read this book and it was, he was talking about, you know, I think it was 1, 800 limos or something like that.
And I was like, you know What? I need 1,800t shirts. Because it's super easy to spell. It's very easy to remember. And, you know, it's got like a bigger brand presence than envisioned as well. So I reached out, we acquired the business that had the phone number and domain and everything else and rebranded from, you know, envision to 1-800-T shirts. And it was a hard thing to do because, like, mentally, emotionally, you think like, oh, this is like the business that you started and here's the name.
But the more I looked at it and thought about it, like, I would look at, you know, basically Fortune 500 companies that have rebranded their name, and I'm like, well, if giant billion dollar companies can rebrand their name, like, we're a pretty small business, we can rebrand and it's going to be okay. You know, we've got, you know, only a couple thousand clients and it's like, all right, as long as those couple thousand know what our name is and who we are and they have a relationship with me and our sales reps and stuff like that. Not the name necessarily. It's not really that hard to, you know, rebrand from there. I think most time when people talk about rebranding, it's probably just the junk stuck in their head that is harder to overcome than the actual perception from the customer standpoint or a marketing or sales standpoint from the public. So that rebrand went great. We still have local customers, our longtime friends and family stuff still refer to us as Envision, which is fine. But from a national perspective, it's 1-800-T shirts. Having the 1-800-T shirts brand also lends a lot of credibility and authority. Calling clients our prospects. You know, it's instantly like, well, it's not Joe's, you know, print shop working out of a garage.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Yeah, you went from a, from a very local to. Yeah, because you've got 1, 800 flowers, 100 chocolates. Right.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: So just immediately you've got to be legit, right?
[00:25:33] Speaker A: Yeah, well, because of the fact that like 1, 800 flowers and 1, 800 chocolates and all those have spent tens of millions of dollars branding that there is the XYZ now is a. And especially when you've got the domain that does now say, oh, this is a big national company.
So from, from where I know you guys are trying to go with your company, you know, long term, that made a lot of sense for what you guys are going to be able to do for growth. But, but, you know, like you said, you've got 2,000 clients and your SEO and all your websites and all that, you know, all that stuff that has to sort of slowly move over to it. But yeah, it's a great brand. So, so where does the, your capital and your private equity firm. What, what. When did that start to kind of percolate into your brain and when did that sort of come online?
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah, so that started about 10 years ago when we were looking. When we were expanding and looking to buy, you know, basically buy the real estate instead of in rent, you know, from ourselves instead of somebody else. Because I knew long term, you know, I want to have some real estate work in the background to build passive income. I also want to, you know, look for things that as we continue to grow the business, we'd have some, some things that we could use for, you know, writing off tax for taxes and Things like that.
And so that's when we started kind of the real estate side of, of the business.
And, you know, that was our first commercial property. And what I wanted was real estate that was very hands off so I could focus on the T shirt business as much as possible. So we discovered triple net lease, commercial real estate, which typically a lot of people don't know about because you never see these properties listed with a sign in the front yard, essentially, or they're not listed with a local real estate agent or anything like that. And these types of properties are commercial properties. It could be big warehouses, it could be fast food restaurants, centers, things like that. So, like, some of our tenants are Starbucks, Arby's, Applebee's, Midas, Muffler, Staples, you know, all big brand names.
And what triple net, you know, when I say triple net lease, what triple net means is those tenants take care of the property taxes, the insurance and all the maintenance. So for most of those properties, we don't even have keys to the building.
We don't have to go there, we don't have to fix anything. Those tenants are paying us rent, you know, every month on the first of the month, and then we're paying the bank, you know, what the mortgage is, and then taking the profit, you know, in between that so very passive form of investing in real estate and growing, like I said, that kind of net worth and that nest egg in the background while operating, you know, the main company.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: That's something I would have never thought of with the, with the real estate is when you're going with franchisees, like the franchises themselves are responsible for the maintenance of the building.
What a, what an amazing, like, headache to eliminate as a property owner where you. Yeah.
And did you, did you just kind of stumble into that or were you already aware of that type of, of lease?
[00:28:51] Speaker B: No, I was not aware of it. There's another investor in town who kind of made me aware. He was doing a lot of Dollar General and, you know, some other properties like that. And then a banker was telling me about it and that was really, you know, we started off with a fourplex and I understood really quickly, like that was not what I wanted to do, dealing with tenants that were trashing the place and not paying rent and just all the other headaches that come with owning apartments. And it really just didn't fit our lifestyle or, you know, being able to run and grow the business. So that's where we end up with that passive side with round capital.
And then in 2021, you know, I Was like, I've got to let other business owners know about this as well. So then we started bringing on investors and partnering with other business owners basically to keep growing that portfolio and doing the same thing to be able to give them some passive income, be able to help them offset some taxes and, you know, grow some wealth in the background while they're still operating their businesses.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Wow, that's fantastic.
All right, well, we've been on here quite, quite a bit, so I want to respect your time. But as a business owner, what advice would you have to other business owners? Maybe like, the ones that are coming to me that are like, you know, kind of stuck in the half a million to a million dollar revenue phase. What advice would you give somebody in that kind of level of revenue?
[00:30:10] Speaker B: I think, you know, where I'm at now and, you know, with kids and everything else and doing this for 20 years, I think it's optimizing that business for, you know, understanding, like, what is the end goal in mind? Are you optimizing for lifestyle business that you want to be able to, you know, pay yourself, take the. Take the proceeds and stuff with it from every year and use it to.
To basically fuel your lifestyle, whether that's traveling or whatever you're passionate about and going that way, or are you creating something that you want to scale up and exit and sell at a bigger multiple? Because there's two different ways to operate that. Whether you build a lifestyle business that's just you don't want to work for someone else, you want to work for yourself and you enjoy and you're passionate about what you're doing versus if you're trying to scale something up for an exit and, you know, have this big liquidity event at some point in time. So understanding both, both of those things about the business and then how that fits with, you know, where your lifestyle is, like, how much time do you want to spend in it?
What do you want to do in it as well? Like, do you want to be the operator? Do you want to, you know, be the visionary part of it? So I think understanding that and starting with the end in mind and then just kind of building it backwards from there.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great advice. Final two questions. The first one is, what's your most popular shirt?
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Most popular shirt is it's a triblend T shirt, super soft. So, you know, there's a couple different brands that have the tri blend style, but if you just think of your favorite T shirt that's like super soft, it feels like it's been washed a hundred times. That is my favorite style. I just like that real soft, kind of older, well worn feel to it. It's definitely the way to go.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: So if somebody wants their own T shirt, their T shirts dot com.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we can. We do T shirts for a lot of different things, whether it's an event, a nonprofit, businesses, teams. We got that covered.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
Awesome. Tom, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: All right. Thanks, Travis.
