052: How Al Roker helped this Lawyer kickstart his “Fashion” Company (Chris White of Shinesty)

Background on Chris White of Shinesty:

Chris White is the Chief Executive Officer of Shinesty. At age 18, Chris was forced to become financially independent, plus pay for his tuition at DePauw University. He started working multiple commission-based sales jobs and it set his life on a different course. After graduating, with majors in Religious Studies and Communications, Chris moved to Colorado to pursue a JD/MBA at CU Boulder and became hooked on the Colorado Startup life. While in graduate school, Chris learned about the apparel business by selling screen printed clothing to students and became very aware of what college students thought was funny. From there, Chris set off to build a totally ridiculous, sarcastic, and irreverent brand that helped people look awesome and find unique, outlandish products. Shinesty now has 25+ employees; a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 400% over the last two years; nationally known customers, such as the Chicago Cubs; and recently filmed a docu-comedy series for MTV.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[1:00] Chris is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shinesty, an online retail company that sells unique and outlandish apparel and accessories for all occasions.
[2:18] Chris went to Law School but eventually realized that he doesn’t want to be a lawyer anymore.
[4:37] Shinesty is a fast growing company that operates for almost 3 years and currently has 35 employees.
[4:53] They filmed a reality television show for MTV and the episode is currently airing Thursday night @ 8pm Eastern Time and 10pm Central Time.
[5:51] After high school, Chris learned how to be financially independent by selling different things.
[8:08] “I got a piece of advice…If you really want to be successful, instead of just solving a problem that really doesn’t mean anything to you, do something where what you’re really good at…”
[11:14] A lot of people were dissing his business saying it’s just a tiny market.
[13:35] Chris doesn’t want to sell in Ebay because what’s important for him is to build his own brand.
[13:48] “It’s not about the product that we sell, it’s about the overall experience.”
[15:16] The reason why they succeeded, Chris believed, was that they piqued people’s interest on their wacky products.
[17:46] Shinesty used good looking models and high end photography with outrageous products.
[26:18] On their 1st year, their biggest problem was running out of inventory.
[28:26] Chris had worked in a company where he learned a lot, had a great boss and coworkers but decided to leave all of it because the product wasn’t exciting enough for him.
[31:48] “You just do what you have to do because at the end of the day what you really care about is seeing your business succeed.”