In Photo, Clockwise from Top Right: Gabe Connor, Hector Salas, Jason Hallock and Malachi Pearson
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Valley Life Magazine
March / April 2008
Good Humor
CLASSIC START-UP TALES HAPPEN IN THE VALLEY EVERY DAY, BUT IT'S NOT OFTEN THAT YOU HEAR OF ONE AS STORYBOOK AS THIS.
by: LaTanya Rene Spann
"If it can't make someone laugh, what's the point?" asks Gabe Connor, founder of Goodie Two Sleeves, the cheeky T-shirt company that started five years ago in a 77-square-foot office in San Luis Obispo. For the past year, it has operated out of Chatsworth.
The sign on the door says "Whatever! Co." and the dream is simple: to create a lighthearted, positive apparel line for the whole family. "Since the very beginning, we wanted to do something clever and fun," Connor said. "A lot of what was out there was really crass and low-brow. You won't find any racy, Andrew Dice Clay-type material here."
"More Bob Saget from Full House," laughs Malachi Pearson, the company's co-owner, as the guys relax at the four-chair table in an office strewn with infant tees and hoodie designs.
Despite this being a very successful company, its office in the Valley's industrial zone are modest. Two desks fit in the front room, two in the next room and then a warehouse packed with custom-made cotton tees and accessories. The television is connected to a game console - Wii fanatics they are - and errant movie posters adorn the walls. The cozy atmosphere lends to their small-business feel with roots solid in the "shower stall" of an office in which they began.
"It happened too fast," Pearson says a bit wistfully. "I still feel like it's the first year of the company. I think we all do. It just seems like everything snowballed."
One day, Connor appeared in front of Pearson's just-opened clothing store in Arroyo Grande (population 20,000), selling shirts from the trunk of his car. With a well-placed phone call, Pearson jump-started the company with a sale of 50,000 shirts to retail giant Hot Topic. Immediately thereafter, Urban Outfitters took to the brand followed by Journeyz and then Delia's, the online favorite. "Basically, the company went from zero to here in a month," Pearson said.
What set them apart from the competition, and intrigued such high-profile clients, was the 100% original artwork. "A lot of the big boys in the industry are just tapping into companies like Junk Food which license cereal brands, old cartoons and the Little Miss line. We don't do that. All of the artwork is completely original. It's weird that we're in a position to compete with these huge companies and we're just creating everything all on our own," said Connor, who has designed more than 580 graphics for his company.
Within three years, Goodie Two Sleeves had made $2 million. However, neither Connor nor Pearson had a real grasp on the company's business end. Their youth, 19 and 22 at the company's outset, and inexperience would begin to show. Pearson, a child actor since age 4, never attended a formal school. Connor graduated high school but "nerded out" and taught himself Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Illustrator. Neither really understood price gouging, of which they became victims, and slowly began to lose sight of the company's future.
"We had to learn the hard way. We had people working for us that stole from the company. People charged us too much because they saw us coming from a mile away. All that money went out the door. We were just going to cut our losses, split the money, pay off our debts and call it quits," recalls Connor.
It was at this point that Jason Hallock and Hector Salas of Whatever! Co. got involved. They had worked with Goodie Two Sleeves putting together their catalogs. When Connor contacted the two to see if they knew of anyone who would be interested in buying out Goodie Two Sleeves, they got more than a surprise.
Hallock asked, "What if you stayed on and we became business partners with you? Because what's a company without the artist?" Less than two days later, Goodie Two Sleeves and Whatever! Co. joined forces.
It was fortuitous matchmaking. According to Connor, "Jason is the brain who handles all the business and management. Malachi is the mouth, our account manager who heads up sales and interacts with our clients. I'm the hands, the designer who does all the artwork. Hector is the feet because he's just a genius at production and gets it done."
Goodie Two Sleeves officially relocated to the Valley last January. Pearson, who hails from Redondo Beach, agrees with the move: "It's just been a blessing all around."
Connor agrees: "We're all stoked. This is totally a dream come true. We started as a T-shirt company and now we're developing ourselves into a clothing brand. It's so much different than what it used to be."
The emphasis is on fun. Eat Your Vegetables onesies will soon be on the shelves, alongside Ninja hoodies. Free time is spent indulging in Mario Galaxy on the Wii, Adult Swim on Cartoon Network or yukking it up over sushi at Kyoto in Northridge.
Goodie Two Sleeves is well, a bit of a goody two-shoes. Good-natured, full of life and with a singular focus on making each other laugh, it's impossible to find anything not to love about this company. Except maybe their lack of publicity. Their few ads are amusing and the diversions on their website practically require a secret codebook to get through. They're still surprised when they see a stranger wearing one of their shirts and have to resist the urge to take a picture.
Henry Ward Beecher said, "A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road." No wonder, then, that for these guys, it's been a smooth, smooth ride.
