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From TikTok viral to Shark Tank: Justin Baer’s Entrepreneurial Leap with Collars and Co · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Today we sit down with Justin Baer, the visionary founder of Collars and Company.
• 0:06
  You might recognize this innovative apparel company that's been making waves, even landing a deal with Mark Cuban.
• 0:13
  On Shark Tank.
• 0:14
  Justin takes us back to the very beginning, revealing how a simple personal frustration, the discomfort of wearing dress shirts under sweaters, that classic midtown uniform dilemma sparked an ingenious idea.
• 0:28
  He'll share how his initial prototypes were a family affair crafted with the help of his daughter, and how a single viral TikTok video unexpectedly ignited a $40,000 first month in sales.
• 0:43
  But the road to success wasn't always smooth.
• 0:45
  Justin discusses the early hurdles, collars and co, the steep learning curve of managing rapid growth, and the critical lessons learned in the trenches of fulfillment and inventory management.
• 0:57
  We also delve into his Shark Tank experience, a true leap of faith that paid off in a major way.
• 1:04
  Justin emphasizes the power of taking fast, imperfect action and how launching with a minimum viable product was essential to his momentum.
• 1:13
  Get ready to hear about the enduring importance of brand building, navigating the shift from direct to consumer to physical retail, and fostering a company culture that built on problem solving.
• 1:25
  Justin even shares a heartwarming story about his father instilled in him the confidence to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams.
• 1:33
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:38
  All right, Justin Baer, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:41
  Hey, Dave, thanks for having me on.
• 1:44
  Absolutely.
• 1:44
  Appreciate you taking the time to be here.
• 1:47
  So let's get right into it, Justin.
• 1:51
  How did the initial spark of an idea for Collars and company actually ignite in your mind?
• 1:59
  You know, I've always been an entrepreneur since I'm a kid.
• 2:02
  I'll give you some different crazy business ideas I've had, but always coming up with different ideas and always being kind of able to notice problems that I've seen or felt and always try to relate my problems to some
• 2:14
  business idea.
• 2:14
  Even if you're driving down the street, I come up with something.
• 2:18
  And when I lived in New York for 12 years, I wore what's kind of known as like the midtown uniform.
• 2:23
  It's kind of like what I'm wearing right now, dress shirt underneath a sweater, or I'm actually wearing a polo now.
• 2:28
  But that look, right?
• 2:29
  We're wearing a dress shirt under sweater.
• 2:30
  I found it really annoying and uncomfortable, but I wanted that look because it's an elevated look.
• 2:34
  It kind of elevates just a regular sweater and.
• 2:38
  But the problem is you're pulling a sweater down, it's like the sleeves always get like, bunched up, it's uncomfortable, it doesn't feel as good in your body, you know, regular dress shirt.
• 2:46
  So I was like, you know what, I wish we could make like a shirt or a polo or I didn't know what it was at the time, but with like a firm collar that would give you the look
• 2:54
  of a dress shirt, but it's really just a comfortable polo and I could wear it under my sweaters and get away with it and no one would ever know and I'd be more comfortable.
• 3:01
  So I had the idea, honestly years before I even did anything about it.
• 3:07
  I just kind of sat on it and.
• 3:08
  And in the meantime, you know, I had software company come up with different, different stuff.
• 3:12
  And then it Covid hit and I was like, you know what?
• 3:15
  I was itching to do this idea and I was like, you know what, I'm going to just do it for fun.
• 3:19
  Just because it's like a hobby, just like a little side hustle.
• 3:21
  I'm like, you know, I spent about six months trying to come up with like a polo shirt and dealt with multiple factories and really just learned everything.
• 3:28
  I didn't know anything about the clothing industry at all and you know, got lucky speaking to a couple different factories and telling them kind of my idea and they'd send me back different prototypes and eventually I came up
• 3:39
  with this one.
• 3:40
  Polo.
• 3:41
  It's a polo shirt with like a really firm collar.
• 3:42
  As you can kind of see in the video.
• 3:45
  This doesn't look like I'm wearing a polo looks, I'm wearing a dress shirt.
• 3:49
  So I made 300 of them in white and created a Shopify site.
• 3:54
  You know anything About Shopify?
• 3:56
  My 7 year old daughter like took pictures of me against our black, you know, a plain white wall in my house.
• 4:01
  And next thing you know, I created the Shopify site.
• 4:06
  Did the best I could.
• 4:08
  I remember actually we had somebody that put up the wall coverings in my house and he was a bigger guy and we made a 3 XL size.
• 4:14
  I was like, do you mind modeling?
• 4:15
  Modeling for me?
• 4:16
  So he's like, yeah, sure.
• 4:17
  So he's like, put on the shirt and I took a picture of him.
• 4:20
  He was on the site for a while.
• 4:21
  But anyway, I did a TikTok video.
• 4:26
  So my 7 year old daughter was into dance.
• 4:28
  So if you remember like five years ago, everyone was using TikTok mostly like for dance stuff.
• 4:33
  So she's like, dad, you gotta do a TikTok video.
• 4:35
  I'm like, well I'm not doing a dance.
• 4:36
  But she's like no, no, just go in your closet, we'll take a picture and, you know, take a video of you talking about the shirt.
• 4:40
  So basically that's what I did.
• 4:41
  It's like one video in my closet.
• 4:43
  I'm like, guys, don't you wear dress shirts?
• 4:44
  They suck.
• 4:45
  They're hot, they're uncomfortable.
• 4:46
  Check out one of these dress collar polos and put it out there.
• 4:50
  And then that night, my wife and I were just sitting down to watch TV or something and the phone just started buzzing.
• 4:57
  You know, kaching with.
• 4:58
  When you're, when you have a Shopify app, it'll like make a kaching sound anytime you make a sale.
• 5:03
  And I was like, oh my God, I cannot believe people are buying this shirt.
• 5:06
  Like, I never did any research.
• 5:07
  I just, you know, maybe I asked a friend or two.
• 5:09
  I'm always weary about asking, you know, friends whether they like the idea or not.
• 5:14
  It's really like if someone's really going to buy it that you know you have something.
• 5:16
  And that month we did 40,000 in sales, first month we ever did it, and sold out of them pretty quickly and they were off to the races.
• 5:26
  And then, you know, four years later, here's where we are on Shark Tank twice.
• 5:31
  Crazy.
• 5:35
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• 5:37
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• 5:40
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• 5:42
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• 5:48
  Learn how to optimize your store, boost conversions and dominate your niche.
• 5:53
  Sign up with the link in the show notes and take your Shopify business to the next level.
• 5:59
  Wow.
• 6:00
  So classic entrepreneur story where you know, you know nothing about the apparel business, but you decide to start an apparel company because you notice a problem.
• 6:12
  Yeah, I'll figure it out type of mentality, right?
• 6:16
  Your seven year old daughter shows you how to use TikTok.
• 6:19
  I mean, what timing to write Pandemic.
• 6:22
  TikTok starting to take off.
• 6:24
  You know, we're just getting used to like that.
• 6:27
  The social shopping is just starting to become a thing.
• 6:31
  And then, you know, you start this business as a hobby side hustle and 40,000 in sales, first month with no experience and just, just kind of following your curiosity.
• 6:42
  I mean, well, when that happened, right?
• 6:45
  And you see this and start to take off in the sales and you realize you really got something.
• 6:51
  I mean, what was that moment like?
• 6:55
  I mean, for me as an entrepreneur, that's like the biggest thrill.
• 6:59
  It's like the biggest rush that you can get.
• 7:02
  And maybe that's why I'm kind of like a Serial entrepreneur is to kind of get that rush every time, that feeling of, oh, my God, this could be it.
• 7:12
  And, you know, to me, I love that feeling.
• 7:17
  It's such a great feeling.
• 7:18
  One of my ads hits, you know, you kind of get that dopamine hit.
• 7:22
  And, you know, with this business, everyone's like, oh, what's your next business?
• 7:27
  I'm sure you're thinking about something else, you know, because that's like my M.O.
• 7:30
  but with collars and company, you know, we're constantly coming up with new businesses inside our business.
• 7:35
  We're coming up with, we just made a performance dress shirt.
• 7:38
  That's unbelievable.
• 7:39
  We made a performance blazer where you can roll it up in a ball in a bag and you pull it out.
• 7:45
  It doesn't have wrinkles, and it's just stretchy.
• 7:47
  It's awesome.
• 7:48
  So there's always like this new thing that I'm getting to launch that feel out if it's going to work.
• 7:56
  And so, yeah, I mean, it's a.
• 7:57
  It's a really cool feeling.
• 7:58
  I don't know if other people get that, like, high from it, but, you know, I always did.
• 8:04
  And maybe I'm kind of like chasing that feeling.
• 8:06
  But, you know, with business with me, we're always.
• 8:10
  It's gas on.
• 8:11
  We're always trying to grow.
• 8:13
  And, you know, it's like you get to a plateau and then you.
• 8:16
  You need to grow bigger to kind of get that hit again, which is kind of weird.
• 8:21
  But, yeah, it's been fun.
• 8:23
  I mean, I love it.
• 8:23
  I used to play a lot of golf.
• 8:26
  Now I don't.
• 8:27
  Because, honestly, I'd just rather be in the office kind of grinding out and working and come up with the next thing.
• 8:35
  Wow.
• 8:35
  Okay.
• 8:36
  And what was the.
• 8:38
  The single most unexpected hurdle you faced in those early days of.
• 8:42
  Of kind of, you know, launching and growing this company?
• 8:47
  You know, it's.
• 8:48
  It's probably fulfillment.
• 8:49
  You know, it's really hard to.
• 8:51
  Even if you get a mil.
• 8:53
  Tons of sales, you know, just selling out is really difficult to kind of even fulfill the orders, not just the physical fulfillment, but making sure you have the stock in hand.
• 9:03
  And I didn't understand anybody about inventory levels, you know, but this was all learning on the fly.
• 9:07
  But, you know, if you sell 40,000 one month, in the next month you're going to do 60.
• 9:13
  It's like, how do you even make that happen?
• 9:14
  I was doing it out of my house.
• 9:15
  Okay, well, I can't fulfill all these orders out of my house anymore.
• 9:19
  I've got to find a 3PL.
• 9:20
  You know, a warehouse somewhere close by.
• 9:23
  I'm in Bethesda, Maryland.
• 9:24
  You know what's around there?
• 9:26
  It's, you know, it was tough to kind of stand up a fulfillment center for us early on.
• 9:33
  Now we all do it in house.
• 9:35
  We've got our own warehouse.
• 9:36
  But you know, I guess that was like a first major hurdle, you know, getting the stuff in, flying it in.
• 9:42
  We couldn't even bring it on boats.
• 9:43
  We needed it, you know, we flew it in because we needed it quickly.
• 9:47
  But yeah, I would say fulfillment is probably on the first problems.
• 9:53
  Okay.
• 9:54
  All right.
• 9:55
  And so learning to manage all this on the fly.
• 9:58
  Right.
• 9:58
  Like you said you had, you start this as an idea, it takes off, you have this kind of, you know, almost viral type success where you sell out right away.
• 10:08
  You have this demand and now you got to learn about inventory and you got to get the stuff here quicker.
• 10:14
  So you're paying for air freight.
• 10:15
  You got to find a way to fulfill the orders and then.
• 10:19
  Right.
• 10:20
  I'm sure still continuing to market and promote the product.
• 10:24
  I mean, what did this ultimately become your full time business?
• 10:29
  Unexpectedly?
• 10:30
  Oh yeah, no, unexpectedly I have to find somebody to run my software business.
• 10:35
  This was quickly becoming, you know, you could just sense the velocity behind it and the demand kind of brewing and yeah, it's quickly become a, you know, more than full time job for sure.
• 10:48
  Okay.
• 10:48
  And so how did the, the Shark Tank thing happen?
• 10:53
  So the story goes, I, you know, when you have an idea like this, we've probably said it to other people, but everyone's like, oh, you, you should go on Shark Tank.
• 11:00
  I'm like, come on, I'm not going to get on Shark Tank.
• 11:02
  So I was like, well, maybe I can find somebody that I know that's a connection to.
• 11:06
  Maybe like the producers or somebody, they kind of get on somehow or know with somebody at Sony.
• 11:11
  And honestly I looked, but I didn't know anybody.
• 11:14
  So it was really, my kids were going to sleep and it was like 11:30 at night.
• 11:17
  I'm like, you know what, I've got nothing to lose.
• 11:19
  I'm just going to go to abc.com just like 50,000 other people and fill out the form and we'll see what happens.
• 11:26
  And I make, I may, I remember doing it, I was doing really fast answers, you know, because I was like, you know, no one's going to read this.
• 11:32
  And next, you know, maybe three weeks later, they called and said, you know, you made it.
• 11:37
  Little did I know that's really, you don't really make it.
• 11:39
  When they make that first callback that they're, you're really on like 10 rounds of interviews to get on the show.
• 11:45
  And then even if you make it to filming, that doesn't mean that they even air the filming, which is really nerve wracking.
• 11:51
  But thank goodness in our I, we ended up filming, airing and making a deal with Mark Cuban and Peter Jones who's like a guest shark that day.
• 12:01
  So it worked out.
• 12:02
  It worked out really well.
• 12:03
  But it was a nerve wracking, crazy experience, you know, something I'll never forget.
• 12:11
  And how long after you started the company did that happen?
• 12:17
  We air, we, we shot the show about a year and a half after I started the company.
• 12:24
  Okay, so within 18 months you go from starting a company based on this crazy idea you had.
• 12:31
  Yeah.
• 12:31
  And to doing business with Mark Cuban, arguably one of the most notable and greatest entrepreneurs of our generation.
• 12:41
  It was pretty nuts.
• 12:43
  And everything was moving just so fast.
• 12:45
  It's still moving really fast.
• 12:47
  But you know, you gotta learn new things quickly.
• 12:50
  Like I was just thinking my first few months like, well, we have to need custom bags.
• 12:53
  Who are we going to reach out to?
• 12:54
  I'm like, I don't know, let's just Google custom bags, shipping bags.
• 12:57
  You know, it's just like all this learning so many new things quickly, which I find really fun and exciting to learn a new industry and a new business and you know, kind of obsessed with it.
• 13:10
  So it just all happened.
• 13:12
  I don't know, it's pretty crazy.
• 13:14
  And I'd love to get your thoughts on this because one of the.
• 13:18
  I interview a lot of different entrepreneurs and, and one of the things I noticed is the most successful ones have this bias towards action to where no matter what, they're willing to just take messy, imperfect action before they're
• 13:32
  ready.
• 13:33
  When they don't have the answers, you know, even if the failure seems certain, they still just go ahead and do it.
• 13:40
  I mean, how.
• 13:42
  It seems like you have the same mindset.
• 13:44
  How important would you say that that bias towards action has been to your success?
• 13:49
  That's great.
• 13:50
  I've never heard that, but it's 100% dead accurate for us.
• 13:54
  It's about minimal viable product.
• 13:56
  Like the, the polo that I had then is, the one we have now is like eight times better than the one we launched with.
• 14:02
  You know, everything about it is better.
• 14:04
  The stitching, the collar, the, you know, everything's better.
• 14:07
  I could have waited until now to make a kind of go to market, but I was like, you know what, it doesn't matter.
• 14:12
  Let me just see if this thing can sell.
• 14:13
  It was good enough to sell.
• 14:16
  And I see a lot of entrepreneurs are people that want to start businesses, kind of wait and wait just until the perfect product's totally perfect.
• 14:23
  And for me, I always say, like, it doesn't have to be totally perfect.
• 14:26
  Let's just see if it will sell.
• 14:27
  Is it good enough to sell?
• 14:29
  And.
• 14:30
  But yeah, I.
• 14:31
  We're definitely big on action around here, not big on arping on problems.
• 14:37
  And okay, what's the problem?
• 14:38
  And here's the.
• 14:39
  I should have done this.
• 14:40
  Like, okay, we got it.
• 14:41
  Let's just come up with a solution, take action, fix it.
• 14:45
  In fact, I always say, like, people bring problems.
• 14:47
  I'm like, good, I'm glad we're having a problem.
• 14:49
  Let's.
• 14:50
  That means we get to solve it.
• 14:51
  That means we get to make whatever is broken better.
• 14:55
  That means our process can be even better.
• 14:57
  So that's good.
• 14:58
  Problems are good.
• 14:59
  You know, kind of look at it from a different lens.
• 15:01
  But yeah, totally action oriented.
• 15:03
  We don't wait around.
• 15:04
  We've got an idea.
• 15:05
  We leave the meeting, like, go make 10 calls.
• 15:07
  Let's figure it out.
• 15:08
  Call 10 customers, see if it's something they're interested in.
• 15:11
  So absolutely action driven.
• 15:15
  Okay.
• 15:15
  And you know, I heard on another show, you know, you told this story about a conversation with your dad and entrepreneurship that really impacted you.
• 15:25
  I mean, do you mind sharing that story?
• 15:27
  Yeah.
• 15:28
  So like I was saying when I was a kid, always coming up with ideas and I was lucky to be in a house where that was kind of cultivated, where it wasn't like, oh, that's a stupid idea.
• 15:39
  You know, you have to go become a doctor or a lawyer or, you know, it was encouraging entrepreneurship.
• 15:45
  I always get laugh like most kids got like Sports Illustrated for Kids.
• 15:48
  I got the Wall Street Journal.
• 15:51
  You know, like, kids got birthday presents.
• 15:54
  I got like one share of, you know, Toys R Us stock.
• 15:59
  But something I try and do with my kids, my dad's now passed away.
• 16:03
  My, both my mom and my dad both passed away when I was a little bit younger.
• 16:07
  And one story that kind of set me off, that I didn't know until about 20 years after this actually happened.
• 16:14
  But when I was about 14, 15, had this idea, it was about for car dealers.
• 16:19
  It was like a job site for car dealers.
• 16:21
  It wasn't a great idea.
• 16:22
  So my dad's like, okay, well, why don't you create a media kit and then you'll open the yellow pages and you'll call the car dealers in our area and say, hey, I've got this idea, can I come in
• 16:30
  and pitch it?
• 16:32
  So fine.
• 16:32
  I made this media kit great.
• 16:33
  It's like here's the yellow pages.
• 16:35
  Call down the list.
• 16:35
  And I called and got mostly voicemail.
• 16:37
  Voicemail, voicemail.
• 16:38
  Finally, it's like Koons.
• 16:40
  Ford in Maryland called me back and said, hey, I want, you know, that sounds like an interesting idea.
• 16:44
  Why don't you come in?
• 16:44
  I hung up the phone like, dad, you're not gonna believe this.
• 16:47
  Kuns Ford wants to hear my idea.
• 16:48
  He's like, great, come on, we'll go in and pitch it.
• 16:50
  So we go in, we pitch it.
• 16:51
  And the sales manager sat me down the office and I gave him the, my like clipart folder with the idea in there.
• 16:57
  And he's like, okay, you know, it's a great idea, whatever.
• 17:00
  Anyway, I left that meeting.
• 17:01
  It's not like he bought it, but he, he gave me the encouragement, okay, you know, this is something, you have something here.
• 17:06
  And I left her thinking, you know what, we had this idea, we made a media kit, we called and someone was interested.
• 17:14
  So it turns out, and this was like 20 years later, that my dad called Kunsford ahead of time and said, my son's going in this list and he's going to be calling you.
• 17:23
  I want you to take this meeting because it could give them the encouragement to know that, you know, you can.
• 17:30
  You're going to hear no's, but then you're going to wait, wait, wait, and all of a sudden you're going to get a yes and someone's going to bring you in and listen to your idea.
• 17:36
  And so, you know, I try and do that with my kids.
• 17:39
  I try and get them to overcome the fear of, well, no.
• 17:44
  But then just getting them to do stuff on their own and maybe they're not making cold calls, but you know, we're at a restaurant, they drop their fork.
• 17:51
  You know, most parents would be like, have the waiter, oh, can I get a, can you get a fork for, you know, Skyler?
• 17:56
  Or now as I tell Skyler, get up, go to the host stand and say, hey, I dropped my fork.
• 18:00
  Can I have another one please?
• 18:01
  And it's like getting to be active, getting them to talk to strangers.
• 18:05
  So I think that made an impression on me and you know, I was lucky to have parents that kind of cultivated this entrepreneurship, you know, it's okay to fail mantra.
• 18:17
  And I think that that's stuck with me and I hope I push it onto my two little kids.
• 18:23
  We'll see.
• 18:23
  What happens?
• 18:25
  Yeah, love that, love that.
• 18:27
  And you know, especially like you said, fail, like failure is, is not.
• 18:32
  Failure is part of success.
• 18:34
  Right.
• 18:34
  And you know, that that needs to be kind of amplified I think, within society, especially now, to where maybe you see a lot of messages to the contrary.
• 18:45
  So, yeah, you learn when you lose.
• 18:48
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:51
  All right, so with collars and company, I mean, why do you think like building a strong brand identity has been so, so important to that company's growth?
• 19:04
  Yeah, I mean, look, I think we've got a unique product, but at the end of the day that's only going to get us so far.
• 19:09
  It's that people, you have to really know your customer, really know who you're talking to.
• 19:15
  And kind of building this brand and this lifestyle around things that we think they think are going to be cool or aspirational.
• 19:23
  And that's what really has led us, you know, I think less than 50% of our sales now is on Polos, which is our core hero product, and moved on to our other, our other items like our knitwear and
• 19:34
  our blazers and our pants and we have shoes now.
• 19:37
  And so, you know, I think brand is what's going to take you the long distance.
• 19:43
  You know, brand is like your long distance runner and your hero product is really your short distance sprinter toolkit.
• 19:50
  But look, there's a lot of companies out there that do quite well on just one product and that's not a bad thing.
• 19:56
  Not every idea has, you know, has to have this like overarching lifestyle brand.
• 20:03
  You know, in our case, I think we, we are, we are, you know, we are creating that.
• 20:09
  But yeah, that's the power of the brand is if people are willing to, to buy your other 9 core category products if they bought into your value proposition.
• 20:18
  Right.
• 20:19
  And especially with an apparel brand where you, you know, the company took off right away and you, you really started rolling and then you have the, the Mark Cuban partnership.
• 20:32
  Why have you continued to focus primarily on the.
• 20:38
  So we're definitely, we're Omnichannel now, started direct to consumer for sure.
• 20:42
  But we actually have three retail stores right now of our own.
• 20:44
  Three corporate stores in Chicago, Boca Raton and King of Prussia.
• 20:49
  We also are in Greengrass.
• 20:51
  So we're in select country clubs and golf clubs around the country.
• 20:54
  So we're definitely trying to diversify from just being D2C online.
• 21:00
  You know, our customers possibly a little bit older or, you know, there's a little bit older than your 18 to 23 year old.
• 21:06
  And so we've got to Meet our customers where they want to shop.
• 21:09
  And a lot of times that's not online.
• 21:11
  But so, yeah, we're Omnichannel, we're calling it.
• 21:17
  All right.
• 21:18
  And so with being an entrepreneur, you know, I'm sure you have your ups and your downs on various days.
• 21:26
  What keeps you.
• 21:27
  Keeps you going and motivating on those tough days with the inevitable challenges that come along.
• 21:35
  It's a good question.
• 21:36
  You know, I'm so tied into this thing that, yeah, having bad days really just stinks.
• 21:43
  I'd like to be able to say, like, oh, it doesn't.
• 21:46
  But, you know, I only let myself look at the numbers, you know, like a few times during the day at certain hours, just so I don't drive myself insane.
• 21:54
  But it's hard.
• 21:57
  I mean, what.
• 21:58
  What drives me.
• 21:58
  I feel like we've got a really good product.
• 22:00
  We've got amazing group of customers that love us and write in all the time and give us ideas and stick with us.
• 22:08
  That I can always kind of sit back onto that a bit.
• 22:11
  But, yeah, you know, out there, we're out there chasing the next.
• 22:15
  The next hero product and trying to always do better and improve the product and help our customers more, drive better customer service and.
• 22:26
  But challenging days, you know, honestly, just stink.
• 22:29
  But like I said before, we look at challenges like good things, and if someone comes up with a problem or there's a challenge, that means something can be fixed and improved.
• 22:38
  And I think that's the way to look at it.
• 22:40
  Okay.
• 22:41
  All right.
• 22:42
  And so we talked earlier about the importance of taking action.
• 22:46
  And your story is such an inspiration to so many in terms of turning a great idea into something tangible.
• 22:53
  What one piece of advice would you give to entrepreneurs who are maybe sitting on what they consider a brilliant idea, but they just don't know how to.
• 23:06
  Get it started, right?
• 23:08
  Well, it's a couple things.
• 23:09
  One, it's take action.
• 23:12
  It's give it a try.
• 23:14
  I think sometimes you got to look deep down and say, why am I not doing this?
• 23:18
  And I think one of the silliest reasons why someone doesn't do something is because they're worried what other people are going to think.
• 23:24
  And I think you have to be willing to just look stupid.
• 23:28
  Do TikTok videos?
• 23:30
  Do Instagram videos?
• 23:31
  Put your face on the video, Be okay with failure.
• 23:36
  You know, you don't have to tell your friends you're doing this.
• 23:39
  You know what I mean?
• 23:39
  If you're worried about that, don't tell your mom you're running, you're doing this.
• 23:43
  A business idea, they don't need to know.
• 23:45
  You know what I mean?
• 23:46
  If it works, great, you'll tell them.
• 23:47
  If it doesn't, they don't need to know too much.
• 23:49
  We could be like someone's.
• 23:51
  If someone asks you, you'd be like, yeah, and I'm just fiddling with this idea.
• 23:54
  It's no big deal.
• 23:55
  That way if it doesn't work out, they don't have to be like, oh, look at Jim.
• 23:59
  Yeah, he tried that business and it failed.
• 24:00
  You know, but at the end of the day, you kind of have to be okay with that.
• 24:06
  It's like, you know what you're trying something that 99% of the people would never even dare to try.
• 24:10
  Everyone's had ideas, they've never tried it.
• 24:12
  And I don't know what you have to lose really.
• 24:15
  I mean, depending on if it's a lot of money of a capital investment.
• 24:19
  But with the Internet, with Instagram and TikTok and AI, you can do a lot of business ideas with low capital or a little bit amount of capital to test things, but.
• 24:34
  So, you know, it's cliche to say, but it's like, you know, just do it.
• 24:38
  You don't have that much to lose.
• 24:40
  And you know what, you're going to learn so much even if you doesn't work out, that you'll take those learnings and bring it to your next idea.
• 24:48
  This is not your last idea.
• 24:50
  That's the other thing.
• 24:51
  This is not the last idea you're going to have.
• 24:52
  You're going to try it, see what happens.
• 24:54
  You make a minimal viable product.
• 24:56
  Don't hang on it too long, test it fast.
• 24:58
  If it doesn't work, okay, great.
• 25:00
  Well, I'll come up with something else.
• 25:02
  If it does work amazing, you'll cultivate it and put lighter fluid on it.
• 25:07
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:08
  And like you said, the ideas don't stop.
• 25:13
  All right, and so with everything you've accomplished in the past five years with Collars and Company, what's next for you?
• 25:21
  Like I said before, people ask me, what's my next idea?
• 25:24
  But I really think we've got the tiger by a tail here with Collars and Company, I think we're seeing some really strong velocity behind it and momentum.
• 25:35
  I think we have a good chance to be the next great American brand.
• 25:42
  You know, not just American, but global.
• 25:43
  I mean, we're just seeing some internal stuff that we think can work.
• 25:47
  So for us, it's head down, we're bullish on the business.
• 25:50
  I plan on being here for a long time and growing it to that next level.
• 25:56
  And Justin, if people want to reach out to you, learn more about, you know, collars and company and your business and just, just reach out to you for any reason, what's the best way people can do that?
• 26:08
  Yeah, check us out onlinecollars and co.com also we're on Instagram, all the socials.
• 26:12
  It's collars and co clothing colors and co clothing.
• 26:16
  But yeah, check us out.
• 26:17
  We've got all kinds of stuff great for Father's Day coming up.
• 26:20
  Polos, dress shirts, performance dress shirts, performance blazers that stretch, don't wrinkle.
• 26:25
  All kinds of really neat things.
• 26:27
  Check out.
• 26:28
  All right.
• 26:29
  And we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 26:31
  Awesome.
• 26:32
  All right.
• 26:32
  Well, Justin, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 26:37
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 26:39
  Thanks, Dave.
• 26:40
  Thanks for having me.
• 26:41
  Appreciate it.
• 26:41
  That's all the time we have for now.
• 26:43
  We will see you next time.