We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful John Alves. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with John below.
Hi John, thanks for joining us today. What’s something crazy or unexpected that’s happened to you or your business?
Our CRAZY story goes way back, but to this day we still look back and shake our head at how random it was…. Must have been late 2000 and we spent $125 on a banner (a lot for us) that just had our website on it... WWW.DIRTBAGCLOTHING.COM - yeah we used the WWW back in the day… haha. We had a million dollar view, and 10¢ flat in San Francisco right on the corner of Lombard and Broderick… so the main street into town went right by our place. We put the banner up on a Sunday and on Monday, my business partner Doug randomly emailed Nick Graham of Joe Boxer the LORD OF BALLS himself. We did that a lot back in the day- just guess email addresses and reach out.. Crazy thing is, Nick emailed back stating he was driving in to the city, looked up and saw our banner and was like “cool name"...He saw the email, set up some meetings, and gave us mentorship that we still cherish to this day. What really stood out to us was Nick's “DO IT YOUR OWN WAY” attitude and the issues we had he also had, so we knew we were not alone in this crazy apparel business and we knew we just had to do it OUR WAY.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
Dirtbag Clothing is a lifestyle brand that says to the world: "I march to the beat of my own drummer." It’s the spirit of never giving up; never surrendering your passion to anyone or anything. We WEAR IT ‘TIL IT STINKS and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
My favorite story that I never get tired of repeating... Dirtbag gained national distribution with Spencers Gifts and gave them one of the best product launches they ever had – so we were told… We went from launching in their 50 new concept stores to every store they had. We had National distribution, licensing deals and in less than a year we told them NO to stopping our affiliation. They wanted to change our brand- and keeping true to our DIRTBAG culture of doing it our way, we could not follow what they wanted to do to the Dirtbag brand. We did it our way to get the deal and then they wanted to change us, which we just couldn’t stand for. It was totally counter productive and would have been a short term play and that is not the Dirtbag way. SO WE SAID – NO!
Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?
Dirtbag Clothing has always been a lifestyle brand, handling our own production. We find and utilize our network to make everything in our line…. Early on we started to work with bands to promote Dirtbag and we spent years listening to their “issues” and seeing their trouble with making merch for themselves. To try and assist them, we decided to start offering merch services to the bands we already knew. Our next evolution was forming the Artist Endorsement Program, which is much more than a sponsorship - we think of it more as a mentorship, and merch production is only a small part of this program. We know the rigors of the road and what artists go through and offer them items based on those needs. It is another revenue stream for us but it’s more of a way to build brand loyalty. Ideally, they like what we offer and the products we deliver and they can then bring in others to join our family. It’s part of our motto, ‘WE ALL RISE UP TOGETHER”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dirtbag.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dirtbagclothing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dirtbagclothing1996/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DirtbagClothing
- Other: we have a cool spot on the dark side of the moon…. it’s a little hard to get to but the views are amazing….
Image Credits
all Dirtbag Clothing
