Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand.

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/bcf046a6e5d41f58


The reality is, you know, you're standing in a parking lot on the side of the road, putting on your tie, putting on you know we we were like salesmen.
You know, going into a place in the pouring rain, you know, in the fall each day it got colder and wetter and rainier, and each day there were more nose.
And like what we found was
We s we didn't know the business.
And we needed to learn the business.
And it was tough.
Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.
they built.
Guy Roz and on the show today how two brothers ditched their day jobs to sell neckties.
and built an entire brand around beach culture.
And the good life.
Vineyard Vines
In the late nineteen nineties, neckties weren't exactly a growth industry. Offices were getting more casual.
Tech culture was on the rise.
Steve Jobs was already wearing his iconic black turtlenecks, and fewer and fewer people were suiting up every day.
But two brothers, Shep and Ian Murray, still believed there was an opportunity in ties.
Not necessarily the function of a tie, but rather
What a tie could say.
Because their ties would be different, especially if you got up close to them.
You'd see tiny whales or little sailboats, street signs from a small island off Cape Cod.
They were trying to capture a very particular version of New England.
Shepan In had spent their summers on Martha's Vineyard, a place that back in the 1970s was a little more rough around the edges.
And for the Murray brothers, the vineyard wasn't just a summer getaway. It was a feeling and a pace of life and a kind of freedom.
And so years later, stuck in jobs they didn't love, wearing ties they didn't even like, they decided to build a business around that New England summer feeling.
At first, it was just the two of them with a few thousand dollars on credit cards taking a chance on something that
Frankly, didn't make a lot of sense. A premium tie in a market that was shrinking.
But what Shepanian understood was that even as the world was getting more casual, people still wanted to express themselves.
And over time, that one small idea grew.
From ties to shirts to dresses to an entire lifestyle brand.
Today, Vineyard Vines does around half a billion dollars in annual sales, with more than a hundred stores and a presence in department stores like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's.
And remarkably, they built it all without outside investment.
And the brothers still own the company and they still run it day to day.
Shepany and Murray grew up in the nineteen seventies and eighties in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Their parents were travel writers, so in addition to going to Martha's Vineyard in the summer, the brothers got to see a lot of the world as kids.
When they finished college, they moved back in with their parents and both got jobs in Manhattan.
Shep eventually landed in advertising and Ian.
public relations.
I got a job offer to be an assistant account executive for thirty thousand dollars and
I remember my father saying to me before I took the job
Don't be in a rush to put on a suit and get on the train.
Because
Good, bad, or indifferent, it's totally possible you'll be doing that for the next forty years.
And remember sitting on a train
Reading the paper about various people who had quit their jobs and sort of chased their dreams and uh also getting to work.
And realizing no no fault to them, but I did not want to be my boss. I did not want their job. I did not want that life. It wasn't for me.
And so I didn't exactly know what was next for me, but I knew that what I was doing was not what I wanted to continue to do.
I I just want to point out something which is that we we i I hear that a lot, you know, and I remember my first job
actually was as a reporter and I certainly wanted to I certainly wanted the jobs that I saw other people doing.
But it's very normal f to be a twenty two year old kid.
working at a company and
and feeling like this sucks, I don't wanna do this, like especially if it's a grind.
You know, it it it
Make sense. You're just looking around, you're like, This is not really what I I'm gonna do with my life.
Like the the real I mean, I I started to think maybe do I want to teach or something,'cause the reality of not having a summer vacation
was like outrageous to me. Couldn't couldn't figure out how I was gonna get it.
Yeah, it's called being an adult.
I'm not there yet.
No more three months off. Yeah. Oh not for me.
But I I it didn't feel authentic to me.
And
I you know, one of the things that happens

For some entrepreneurs is everything you see.
You go out to lunch, you go out to dinner, you go anything.
You just see opportunities.
How could this be
Done differently.
How could we reimagine what's happening right here at this takeout window? You know, how the person greeted me, how they thanked me, anything like that. What does a packaging look like?
My mind always went to those places, and
And just sitting there writing press releases, it was it was not fulfilling for me.
You were daydreaming. Yeah.
And meanwhile, um Shep, while your brother Ian was working this PR job, uh, I guess you were doing something kind of similar, right? I mean you were working at a big ad firm, Young and Rubicam, uh in New York.
Yeah, it was really, really exciting being on the new business team.
Um and seeing how fast and dynamic
Those people were
It was amazing.
And then after that I gotta spun off to a just a regular product group.
And it wasn't as dynamic.
But
We got to a point where we went and presented work to the to the client.

And the client didn't like it.
And I didn't like it either.
So I actually went up to the executive floor and went to the chief creative officer.
Yeah, I'm making
Thirty thousand dollars a year.
Going up ratting on my team.
And saying hey
We're not gonna keep this account.
We delivered not great creative
To the
Customer.
And

What's worse is they didn't like it, and we have somebody great.
internally who did great work.
So I went and I
Set up a meeting with the with the creative that wasn't chosen.
To be presented to the account and
The CEO and Chief Creative Officer.
Loved it, brought it to the account which was Toblerone and Kraft and they ended up buying it and they loved it.
And so
After that, my account team was really, really angry with me.
And you know, I was told to think more inside the box. I just remember her saying, you know
Yeah, what you did is you made us look I said no
What I did.
was make
Why and R?
And the team looked great.
Because they like the
Work.
That we didn't present.
And so I went back to the the guy who did the winning campaign, the two guys
And I said,
They're asking me to think more inside the box, they're all mad at me.
Hm.
So it seems like like after that incident, uh kind of like Ian, I mean you weren't I imagine you weren't super happy at your job either. But either way, I mean both of you guys had these jobs in New York. Uh and by the way, were you guys commuting back and forth together, like at a certain point? Or were were you riding the train together?
We were both living at home. Our dad drove us to the train and picked us up.
And yeah, we both lived and then he worked on sixtieth Street.
I worked on Fourtieth. We met.
For lunch.
Every single day at this little place called the Prime Burger.
And
We both our meeting was this.
Yeah. How was your day? It sucked. How was your day? It sucked. Yeah.
When are you gonna quit? When are you gonna quit?
Yeah. All right. So you guys were I mean, you were sort of ripe to
to do something else and I imagine
you would think about what other job could I get, like what something else I could do.
Um, and that's a normal thing to do, to think about, right? Especially when you're not
happy or excited about what you're doing. But I guess it was y you guys were on a family trip.
In the Caribbean.
And the two of you are just what, like
kind of commiserating about

What the story is.
So here's what I remember. I remember going down to Anguilla with our parents, and Shep had mentioned the idea of
Creating a line of neckties of all things and
In talking about it, we really liked um that
print motif tie that you could get from Mermes and Ferragamo. We found that that was a price point over$100. We found that you could get novelty ties that sort of had the same sort of motifs, but they were like$25 to$30. And we saw an opportunity to do something right in the middle.
And at the time
That we started it was all about the casual workplace. Steve Jobs is wearing the black mock turtleneck.
And a lot of the other companies were making drab colors.
As a result.
And we saw an opportunity in the marketplace to make a tie

With colour.
You know, that represent at our favorite place, Martha's Vineyard.
And be able to bring the good life to work with you was a great idea.
Yeah, and of course Martha's Vineyard was a a place where both of you guys had spent time growing up during the summers.
Uh so I guess when you started talking about selling ties, you like you you somehow wanted to incorporate that
inured feel from your childhood.
Exactly. The things that we love to do are very much still rooted in what we did when we were kids.
We would drive our truck out on the beach with our father early in the morning, somebody would make you know breakfast out on the beach, we'd go fishing, we'd spend the day at the beach all day, um, and by the time the end of the day came around, we were all exhausted and we went to bed, you know, not long after the sun went down. Yeah.
I would also say that the vineyard was
A rock in life.
We would go for a week or a weekend or two weeks, whatever our parents could afford at the time.
And it was like we lived our whole lives, even since we were little
Kids.
Just being able to go spend time there.
And I think you know that's
You know, we all have kids now and it's their favorite thing to do as well.
It's it's home.
Yeah, yeah. But but it seems like you actually got inspired to pursue the idea of
Selling ties.
Uh when you were far away from the vineyard, you actually had a trip to Anguilla
With your parents.
Uh, and I mean they were travel writers, so I mean you I guess you have to travel with them to all these cool places that they that they would write about.
Um, but what was it what was it about that particular trip that motivated you to start
Mm making ties or thinking about it.
Yeah, I mean it was very interesting. We were, you know, uh traveling with our parents
And one thing that was interesting about being the guests of these properties is how much time we got to spend with the general managers.
and seeing how they did
Everything from helping to check people in and bring the luggage to their rooms to cle getting on their hands and knees and
fixing a carpet to
making sure the food and beverage was running properly. And I think we maybe didn't appreciate it at the time, but we learned how to
Um
really understand what customers expectations were or could be.
Particularly for affluent customers.
Yeah.
I think the d the defining
Moment.
As to why being an Anguilla was so important.
Was we were talking with a general manager.
About this idea.
And what happened was he pulled out a New York City phone book.
And he looked up Thai manufacturers.
And he just really showed us.
That this idea
Could be done.
And he encouraged us to go call those people the next day, and we did.
So you had this idea, but it was still just like a it could have just been another idea that would have come and gone. I think we were ready to take that leap. Right. You know, I think we were ready to
Fail now.
And have no regrets rather than
continue to be unfulfilled every single day.
All right, so you have this you've got a bunch of numbers and uh of like clothes m manufacturers in New York City
that uh make potentially make ties. And w so what do you what do you know about sewing or about uh cutting fabric or about designing like I Matt because you guys were still young guys without any you know, it's not like you'd been working in a
We had no fashion experience.
All we knew.
Where the people like the ties
That Ian and I were wearing prior.
You know, these sort of bright colorful ties.
W what did you do next? I mean, first of all, you guys are still
working your day job or or or were you or like let's quit and do this.
We were still working our day job.
Okay.
And you know, for lunch we would go
Meet these various people.
All of the different
components of making a necktie.
Whether it was a silk importer, a designer, a label maker, a stitcher.
You name it. How did you find them? Would one would one like meeting lead to the other. We used all of our contacts. Ian remember was it a fashion
You know, PR company.
He leveraged some of those.
But really it was all about curiosity.
Alright, Ian. Um
So you guys uh are
And what do you remember? You remember like
your brother it was his idea and he he was sort of taking the lead on it and and were you kinda supporting this idea? Yep.
The way I remember it
Is we had this idea of uh the street signs in Martha's Vineyard have a very distinct look to them. Uh you've probably seen them. And we went up to the vineyard. I remember going up there and taking a picture of the street signs of all the street signs. Sheb was working at Young and Rubicane on Madison Avenue. When I get out of my job at 530, I go down to see him at YR.
I'd bring a pizza, twelve pack of beer, I'd go into the creative studio. People would think I basically worked there. And we befriended a couple of graphics people. I said, Hey, can you guys do me a favor? Will you scan in these photos? Will you create an illustration similar to them?
Lay it out on a piece of paper, you know.
Um
And who did you ask? Who did you ask?
To do this? These were the employees at Y and R.
As you can really have. Okay.
In the in the creative studio. You just ask them to do a favor for you.
Exactly.
Well, these are people that I had worked with.
Okay. And the street science I know
There's like you know
the sign of entering a town, like you're entering oak bluffs. Like I know what those look like. It's got like it looks like a pages of a book. Is that that's what you're t focused on? That's what you're using as a model? Yep, we're using that. And then also the vineyard has a very distinct shape of the actual island. It's sort of like a triangle a little bit.
Yeah. We put Megatai uh set another print pattern that had that with whales um swimming between the little islands.
And those are the first very early patterns that we had. And then we would, like Shep said, I remember going to the New York Public Library and looking up clothing manufacturers and label manufacturers and various things.
And we'd make those cold calls, and we got to a point where
We had um assembled enough information that
We had met people that knew how to screen silk overseas.

We had met people who knew how to
cut the silk into the various patterns to sew'em into ties.
Yeah.
What we needed to do is we needed to find a silk importer.
And this is what we were talking about. How
Complicated.
Making a simple product can be.
Yeah.
And so we found a silk importer, and all the silk comes from China.
Yeah,
Printed in Korea.
And then it gets
Cut and hand finished.
In New York.
So you know, I think I look at a necktie, I haven't worn a necktie, I can't remember the last time I wore a necktie, but
Uh it doesn't seem from the outside like a particularly complex
Piece of
of apparel. Like it's just uh you know, it's a shape and
Am I wrong about that? Is it a lot more complex than people realize?
It's not. I mean it's a pretty basic item, but the components really matter. One thing that uh
most guys will tell you is they like the way a tie ties or they don't.
And a lot of that has to do with what's inside it, the interfacing, which we cut apart all the ties that we had, what we liked, what we didn't like, and why.
The other thing that you people notice is um how the silk feels, you know, what the finish is on there. Uh is it gummy, is it not gummy?
And as you pull the tie tighter, a lot of people would like a little bit of a contour, like a little curve to the surface of it. And we discovered that that had to do with
the way in which you cut it and which way the the weave was going.
And we found that a lot of the ties that didn't tie well were all done one way, and the more expensive ones were done the other. So we emulated what we liked.
And walked away from what we didn't.
Yeah.
But I I think it's important, you know
We talk about what was going on in the world at the time and what was motivating us.
And back then in the late nineties
She the Shep had the idea of the tie and I I was sort of like
Well, l like your response, guy, like these guys are crazy. It's casual workplace, nobody's wearing ties. This this idea makes no sense. But what what really fueled us was not the end game, but the journey.
And at that time
Nantucket Nectars was a very popular brand. Yes. And you know, all I could think about was these two guys, Tom and Tom, who got to ride around their boat, meet cool people, and enjoy their summer and make a business out of it. And then on a larger scale, you had people like Howard Schultz
Revolutionizing getting a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
David Neilman uh
Jet Blue, um
Pikes Place Fish Market where they made, you know
Throwing fish fun. And we saw all this energy and excitement being put into products.
That were sort of overlooked.
Yeah. And that was
That was the fuel to propel us.
I mean the Nantucket Nectars thing

that was a big brand. And there liter was two guys from Nantucket who had like a fruit juice stand and turned it into a brilliant
brand. Right. And so I can see how that
would be inspiring. Yeah.
All right, so you guys have you you're starting to get your ducks in a row.
And you are going to
Produce your first
Order of ties and what was the plan? Like you were going to and they were gonna be made in New York, I think, right? You found a manufacturer in New York, is that right?
Yes.
And and what was the plan? You would order how many and where would you sell them?
We so we ordered enough silk to make eight hundred ties.
So we had uh four styles each in two colors. So that was eight hundred.
And the styles were to just briefly tell me what each style was.
Sure. So we had four styles or four prints. Uh one was the street signs.
Martha's Vineyard, yep.
Yep, number two was the shape of the island with whales between them.
Yep.
Number three was just a fish, a blue fish on it.
And number four was a blue fish with like a four by four Jeep, you know, like an oversand vehicle between them. And you couldn't and if you looked at it from a distance, it would just look like Paisley or some it you wouldn't know what it was, right? It just looked like a cool
Abstract design.
our prints have since gotten smaller, but they they were they were
Small enough that
They looked appropriate with a suit, particularly at the time. And by the way, were you still d doing your day jobs while you while you put the the order in for your first run?
Yeah.
I think the other thing that was
You know, we haven't talked about is how we were going to pay for this.
So we finance the business with credit card cash advanced checks that we wrote to ourselves.
So while we still had our incomes and
We signed up for we each signed up for like four or five different credit cards.
While we had credit.
And we
to credit card cash advances.
To pay for the silk.
And to get them made.
And hey, how much w I mean
Uh eight hundred ties, you said, roughly you were gonna make in that first run? Right. So we we screen this the silk overseas, we bring it into New York. I can remember driving out to the JFK commercial terminal and you know
and my flip flops along all these semis and I'm in the back of a of my Jeep or whatever I was driving at the time.
and grabbing the silk and driving it to the manufacturer. So we got enough to make 800 and I can tell you this that we didn't know this going into it, but ties have very good profit margins.
And it's and they have no sizing.
And they take up very little space in retailers. Yeah, it's it's a great product'cause you don't have to make large, medium, small. You just make one size and that's it. Yeah. So we probably I don't know, Shep, what do you think that first run cost us?
Probably eight or ten thousand bucks.
And once we got those, it was like a big secret. We were really scared somebody was gonna steal our idea. We knew that other people had you know, other companies had better resources than we did. And so we thought that uh
There wasn't any need to tell anybody much anything until we were ready to go to market.
So all right, so you guys have these designs, you f you get the get some cash from credit cards.
And you've got a place in was it in Manhattan, was it on Long Island, where did you find the original manufacturer?
In Long Island City, yeah.
And how did you do they require you to like pay it all in advance, or what?
So I think at the time we would
Pay by the dozen. I think that's still how it works. Um and
So the a lot of it was they were the cut and sew factory. They had people who could hand sew the ties, which is a real skill. It's not something that just anybody could do. So we would deliver all the paid components to them. The only thing that they were getting paid for was actually assembling and sewing the tie together.
Got it. Okay. And and so
How long roughly would d would would it have taken at that time to make eight hundred ties?
It's probably about
Four months.
And what we learned over time is that we figured out ways
To abbreviate that.
To cut it down.
Okay, so you get the first um
Order put in and
When they were ready.
Or you guys
still working your jobs or were you w were you had you quit at that point?
We we quit in May of ninety eight, uh you know, leading up to
We had very much decided by I would say
April that we are definitely going to quit our jobs. But again, it's it's very even a job that you don't like, it's very hard to quit. It's scary.
Totally scary, even at as a young guy.
And one of the we started to ramp up to sort of get ourselves excited for it. And we ramped up in sort of unusual ways. We
We were s very concerned about health insurance and not having health insurance. So we actually got our wisdom teeth pulled on the same day, even though they didn't need to come out because we were covered.
So we got all these things together.
And we quit, uh I think we both gave notice on the same day towards the end of May.
Um
I remember Shep called me, he said, I quit. I said, Bullshit.
Did you he's like No, I did
Really? He's like no, I quit.
Said, okay, give me five minutes. And I went and I talked to my boss.
And I quit too, and we joke about this, but we literally met on the bar car, had a couple of drinks, and
And went home kinda buzzed and had dinner.
With our parents who were like oh and by the way, we both quit our jobs today. Yeah.
And to be honest with you, I don't think we've
ever been as happy as we were on that ride.
Because we finally did it.
And we went home and our parents were
Pretty upset with us.
They were upset because you had stable jobs.
Yeah, my my girlfriend at the time who's now my wife.
You know, all she wanna do is get married.
And I just quit my good job.
Let me come back in just a moment.
Chapanian start to sell their ties on the vineyard and grab a moment of guerrilla marketing.
in the middle of a presidential scandal.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the summer of 1998, and Shepanian have received their first order of ties.
Eight hundred of them.
Printed with little whales and jeeps and street signs of Martha's Vineyard.
So once we had the ties, I remember
I was up on Martha's Vineyard.
And I went to a couple of local stores.
And I showed them our product. Shep was still in New York because I had a few samples and he was waiting for the last batch of ties to be completed.
And
We didn't have any idea that like
stores bought things in advance. You know, I thought I could sell'em to'em on Friday and deliver'em on Saturday.
Like you'd walk into a store. So the the plan was to go to boutiques on Martha's Vineyard and sell them that way initially?
I
Brode my bike.
I put on a pair of khaki shorts and a white shirt in one of our Vineyard Vines ties, a red tie with street signs on it.
And I went to a local mom and pop shop called The Fleers.
And I walked in there and I said, This is what we're doing. Um, what do you think?
It was a store that we had been customers at our whole life. So you knew them, you knew the manager?
I knew her a little bit.
And uh I was a kid and she said, You know
Why not?
And and we had made like a little stand that that could go on the counter, so we had thought of that in advance.
Say, leave you a stand, I could sell you some, fully anticipating that we would leave'em on consignment.
We wanted them to go out.
to retail at sixty five dollars and we're gonna wholesale them to stores at thirty dollars.
We had a little one page sort of order for
And she looked at me and she said, um
I'll take a hundred and eighty.
Wow.
Right, am I getting this right? She at least a hundred and something.
Well it was eighteen hundred dollars. I just remember it was eighteen hundred dollars. So everybody
That was sixty ties.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
It was
a crazy amount of money to us at the time. Uh and still, and so I remember going across the street in San Diego Shep.
Uh
Mrs. Flieger just bought, you know.
couple thousand dollars worth of ties, we're not gonna have to work anymore. Like literally like that. It was like I made more money in five minutes walking in that store. Yeah.
And did you have success with the rest of the inventory or or or not?
Yeah, so we we also went to another couple stores and
Um, and unbeknownst to us, there's a store called Murray's on the vineyard, which is no relationship, even though our last name is Murray.
Yeah.
And they bought some ties.
But they did something that we didn't anticipate.
They also had a store in Nantucket.
And going to the vineyard your whole life, you don't necessarily ever really go to Nantucket or vice versa.
Within the first couple weeks.
They had taken half their inventory, particularly just the ones with the fish on'em.
And put'em on their store in Nantucket.
And what we found like almost immediately is
is that Nantucket was selling like
Two X what we were selling on Martha's Vineyard.
I think I think the unlock
For us after selling ties.
To Marie's
Of the vineyard.
And then having them take that one blue fish tie and putting it over
To Nantucket.
Was he was he said, Well why don't you make
Ties.
With a Nantucket Street size.
And with the shape of the Nantucket Island.
And so we did that and it did very, very well.
As well.
And
Yeah, so th then we said, Oh boy, we've got a idea
That's bigger than just Martha's Vineyard.
Tell me about
Uh
aesthetic'cause it's just a tie business at this point. You're not thinking beyond ties, right? Is that fair to say?
Yeah.
What we found early on and
The whole height of the casual workplace wor
Towards our advantage, because people were no longer buying ties because they had to, because they had to wear them every day. They were we buying a tie because they were going to a wedding or a graduation.
Yeah.
And so they were more thoughtful in their purchase.
And what we found very early on is that
Our ties
sort of said something about the person before they even opened their mouth. So whatever the motif was, our first ones were Martha's Vineyard, it said right away, I go to Martha's Vineyard, you know, before you even said anything. And we found uh early on that
With our products, people who wore our ties.
Or part of a like a in the no.
Group.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um so I I read a story and I while I was like sort of researching about you know about you guys uh that
You were also in the vineyard during a
very uh kind of a wild time because there's all that uh Bill Clinton scandal, right? Uh uh that you know, the Monica Lewinsky story and
And he was on Martha's Vineyard.
That summer he'd go there.
Lot of Democrats presidents would go there.
Uh and you guys kinda pulled a stunt that summer. Tell me what you did.
So that that summer, in addition to selling ties
At the local stores, we always would keep our backpack with us in case we met somebody and we could just sort of tell them our story about what we were doing, and we were selling ties pretty much everywhere.
And I can remember Shep called me, he was actually in New York.
He called me, said look.
I don't know what's going on, but Clinton is all over the news right now. There's something going on with him
Testifying today and apparently
Uh, the paper broke the story that he's wearing a necktie that Monica Lewinsky gave him while he's testifying.

And there was a picture of that.
tie in the New York Times.
It wasn't a Vineyard Vines tie, had nothing to do with us.
But
We did know that the press headquarters was the Edgartown Elementary School, which is just, you know, a mile from where we were.
And that every major network was there and they were covering the Clintons on vacation in the middle of the scandal.
But there was very little news.
So Shep's like, I don't exactly know what's going on, but just go over to the Eagertown School.
So here I am, I'm twenty three years old, ride my bike over there. I throw a whole bunch of ties around my neck.
And I just start walking around the parking lot.
Saying I've got Martha's Vineyard Ties. I'm starting a business called Vineyard Vines. Who's interested in buying a tie? Who wants to see our ties?
And
The people started to interview me'cause they had nothing else to do. There was nobody there.
Yeah.
And they said to me, and I was a total wise ass, they said, you know, what what are you doing?
I said, Well, my name's Ian and I started a
company just recently with my brother. It's called Vineyard Vines.
And I heard that the president is wearing ties that young people give him.
I wonder if he'd like one of ours.
And that night
That little clip was on every major news network on the six thirty news nationwide. I bet.
I bet, yeah. I mean,
So right then and there we saw wow.
Um, there's a there is a way to amplify what we're doing and to do that for free if you're clever.
And do you guys remember that summer, right? Um
I don't know, were you I mean, d w w did the ties, just like the cash from the ties enable you guys to
Eat and live and and do what you need to do.
On Martha's Vineyard?
I think what we did is we've always since day one reinvested it.
But what we did do was, you know, we did have this shitty old boat.
And we put our logo on that.
We put the logo on our Jeeps.
And then we uh played guitar.
And saying
Uh at night in the bars there.
Wearing our ties.
So every single thing that we could do to be
walking vehicles of the brand. We did. Yeah and when someone you know we're out on our boat one day and someone says I just bought two ties we're like thank you for the gas for our boat. Yeah.
There's a a photograph of the two of you guys in a Jeep Wrangler, very young, in short, so it's gotta be the summer, wearing a button down shirt and ties. And so that was your look, like you guys would
We went shorts. Everywhere we went. Shorts, a button down, white shirt, and your ties.
Yep. Always. And did people think you were like I mean did it look out of place? Did d or was it just like a preppy look? I mean It the answer is yes to all the above. Yeah.
But it was great because it would immediately start with, why are you wearing that?
Why do you wear a tie it's a summer? Yeah. I'm s I'm so glad you asked. Let me tell you about what we're doing. And then next thing you know, they're rooting for us and they're a customer.
All right, so you guys get through that first summer and you've tested I mean it the it it proves out, right? You're you're seeing some traction.
And so you clearly are deciding, you realize now or you know that you can you can go outside of
Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and go outside the islands. Um and so what what was the plan? What the plan was to go
to other boutiques and uh to go to New York City. What w what did you think was the next lily pad you were gonna jump on?
So after the summer
We had already seen with the success of the Nantucket
Test, if you will.
That we would go make
More ties and see if we could bring them off of the island.
And so we made about a dozen new designs.
And we got in our Jeep and we hit.
We drove all up and down the eastern seaboard. Mm-hmm.
We were going to drive to different boutiques
Throughout
The North East
And
See if we could get some of these
Stores.
Boutiques and men's stores to buy
Our ties.
Would you call ahead or would you just um pop in?
We would do both.
Well you would do it.
Anyone who wouldn't take our call?
Well you would stop by.
And say hey.
And
You know.
We always liked the no.
Even though the yes
Was always great.
We like to know because we knew.
That at some point
We could get them to say yes.
And how did you identify which stores you wanted to go to? Like
This is the nineteen ninety eight like
sort of internet search not quite there yet.
Do you remember how you you said, Okay, in Boston wanna go here, in Philadelphia we wanna go here and
You know, in in uh Washington D C we want to go here.
That was a hard thing to do.
To to be totally
Honest.
There are two ways we found out about good accounts. One was most of the customers we had on Martha's Vineyard didn't live there. They were visiting. So they would go back to wherever they lived, and any customer that we had met or knew somebody in different places, we'd ask them, Do you know of a good outlet for us in your town? The other thing we would do is we would find
sort of similar brands and we'd get their catalogs or whatever collateral we could find and we would check, you know, where are their products available,'cause people would often list their wholesale accounts of their catalog. So we would sort of retrace the steps of somewhat similar brands.
And you know, in terms of reaching out to him in advance
We did a lot of gifting of our product. It was a very easy thing to do. So we would just pop a couple of ties and a little, you know
color Xerox catalog that we put together in an order form and just send it to people. Just cold call. That was very uncomfortable calling people trying to be a salesperson when you're really not.
Did you get people saying it on that road trip?
You know, ties are just not selling right now. It's just not
It's just w we're seeing this as a declining
Market.
There there were two great
Moments on one trip.
One we walked into his store and he had all brown ties. Mm-hmm. And he said, Ties are not selling.
I said, Okay, well we have all these grey colorful ties.
It and it didn't it didn't take.
The next one was a
great store in Boston called Zera. And it was run by one guy
And he carried beautiful clothes.
And he sort of laughed at us.
When we came in with our ties and our little plastic sleeves.
And he had a back gammon board in his in his store.
So I'll tell you what.
We play a game.
If I win, you take some ties on consignment.
If I lose, you'll never have to hear from me again.
Okay.
And so we played and
And I beat him.
And that was the beginning of a very, very nice
relationship.
So
I I'm curious. I mean nineteen ninety eight on that trip.
Where do you remember, aside from that boutique, I mean you must have had
Some success of some people saying, Yeah, we'll carry these like
Or was it just
I don't know, did you d was it discouraging?
You know, I think
It was um
Yeah.
It it was both. You know, it it was a total luck of the draw what we were gonna find. Um
But you know, it's hard to like I think we look back on it.
Uh like is the most fun we never want to have again type of thing where you know
It the reality is, you know, you're standing in a parking lot on the side of the road, putting on your tie, putting on you know, we we were like salesmen, you know, going into a place in the pouring rain.
you know, in the fall, each day it got colder and wetter and rainier, and each day there were more no's. And like I think we look back and I say, you know, the no's motivated us and they did for sure, but they were hard, you know, because it was a very uncertain time
We
I I think we always knew we could get another job if we needed to, but we didn't want to, you know? And so
What we found was
We s we didn't know the business.
And we needed to learn the business. And so
Th those people who would say no or who were like maybe on it.
We just started to hang around their stores.
A lot.
Yeah.
Yeah, because I mean a uh apparel, especially specialty apparel.
There's a very knowledgeable group of people who are in that business. Sometimes it's multi-generational.
And I imagine like two young guys in their twenties
Going into some of these stores and you come across an you know an older guy who's been in the business for fifty years and he's like
He's
Maybe
not impolite, but he's probably looking at you guys and thinking, what do they know about this business? And and he might even have an a an opinion about w about the designs, and he might even say
You know, th this isn't really not these are things that just aren't gonna sell. Like is did you do you remember coming cr across anyone like that?
W we did for sure. We had one guy who said, you know, we were very pedestrian
We have one w a lot of people say, you know, we're just not selling ties.
And you're totally right. We had no experience in this industry and
You know, a lot of brands
were started by people who were in the industry, you know, and had an idea and they they acted on it. So for us
What we had to do was to show them that we were eager to learn.

And by spend time in their stores.
like stocking their shelves, helping sell on the floor just by hanging out and learning through osmosis. We earned their respect, and with with that respect came their willingness to give us a sh a chance.
But it's interesting because that fall.
After we were done having a lot of doors slammed in our face.
We started signing up for
Like all of the holiday fairs.
Mm.
You know, the church boutiques, the school boutiques, the
Women's luncheons, whatever it was. In in Connecticut around women.
Everywhere, anywhere they would take us. And these were not uh trade shows, these were like
Yes.
These were in high school gymnasiums and churches. Yeah.
And
Like
All of us, that's what we did.
We used to joke we were on the show circuit.
And so we would hire our friends.
It was, you know, our our parents, whoever could do it. We would sometimes have three or four at a time.
And that was a great way.
Because all of the stores said no around us.
All of the people.
would come in who bought the ties from us at those shows would say
You gotta buy vineyard vines.
And so it really was like small time word of mouth.
in in those first few years, did you guys try to get any media coverage? Did you try to pitch
magazine,'cause at the time magazines mattered, men's magazines and did you did you make any attempts to get uh uh to get into some of those places?
So
So what Ian and I did
Is we
Use to send our ties.
To a lot of the
People on the news.
Oh, you know the anchor people. Yep.
And
We would get handwritten notes back by people.
And then those anchor people
would call their producers and say, Hey, listen, this is an American dream story.
And so we ended up getting segments about our story.
And all the major networks. Such a smart move. Yeah.
I mean
At that time, I mean two thousand two thousand one, right?'Cause I

What
I read well I'll I'll get to this question in a sec, but I read that
Within three years you guys are doing
A million dollars in sales, which is kind of cr
Crazy.
Um before we before I ask you about how you got there, just can you just give me the breakdown, like roughly?
of what the margins were, I mean, what did it cost you guys to make a tie?
So the ties.
I mean just the cost of the tie itself, the physical tie of the components was probably somewhere around twelve, thirteen dollars, something like that.
And
We didn't realize it at the time.
But it was a very high profit margin.
Product.
It also had quite a long runway in terms of apparel. It was less seasonal.
Like we could make the same print.
fact we still make the same print, some of the same prints we did.
20 years ago. So they the pro the inventory lasted longer than typically for apparel.
And it also took up a very small amount of retail space. You could hang, you know, a bunch of ties on a wall and it didn't take up much space.
Yeah, and there's also no sizing.
Yeah. So all those things were great and I wish we could say we went into it thinking this is a great uh industry to be in, but we just
We just got lucky.
Yeah.
But one of the things we learned very early on when we had this success.
was to stay focused.
Which is not easy for an entrepreneur to do. No.
And what did that mean, stay focused? It just meant making more ties and so for for us.
At the time it meant
It's working with the ties.
Keep making ties, keep selling ties, don't take on more than you can do.

One of our mentors, his name was Iron Niemark.
Who was the guy who really put
Bergdorf Goodman on
On the map?
Oh wow.
You guys knew him from F like just a family connection?
Yeah, we know from a
A customer.
Introduce us.
And we got some great advice early on. Um
He said uh you know, guys, I really think you need to set a
goal that you want to achieve.
In terms of how many
Annual sales and neckties you're gonna do.
Before you add another product category.
Yeah.
And it was sort of hard to hear as an entrepreneur because we started to see lots of opportunity for our prints for other things.
He said I th I think it was five million dollars. I think he said, you know, get your tie sales to five million dollars if you can do that. If you can do that, layer on one more product.

And so
Like five million dollars, well, you know, that's gonna what is that ever gonna happen? Um but it did. And
That's how we went.
Because
Losing focus
Is easy to do.
When you are an abstract thinker.
And you you're an entrepreneur.
Yeah.
But you guys had this goal.
to hit five million dollars in sales before you would even
Think about
Expanding. Were you already do you remember
already in two thousand one thinking, okay, we gotta move beyond ties, or did you think of it as a tie business?
Yeah, I I think
We were
listening to our customers. And one thing that we're hearing a lot of was what
the and a lot of her customers were women.
buying gifts for their husbands and they really wanted something for themselves. They had fallen in love with our aesthetic and our look.

And they really wanted something.
And so we came up with the idea of doing a tote bag and
lining the the edge of the bag with our print.
And that was another great product. Like you said earlier, accessories are great because there's not much sizing and that type of thing. And somebody suggested to us, um, somebody who was making some of the
silk or something for us, said you know, really think that you guys would do well with your prints on men's boxers.
And we said nope.
We don't want to do it. That's really not something that's interests us. They said, Okay, that's fine.
And then he showed back up at our place like a month later, and he had just taken it upon himself to make some samples for us.
And he put'em in front of us.

Of boxers.
And we're like
Oh, those look great. I bet we could sell a ton of those. You know, so next thing you knew, we were we were making men's boxers in our prints. With like prints of little fish and whales or what? Yeah, they look just like the ties, but they're the same exact kinds of prints as our ties.
And that
Being pitched an opportunity of what
That other people
With experience saw potential in our brand.
um has propelled a lot of different opportunities for us over the years. Things that we didn't think of or we didn't know were possible, or we simply just didn't know how to do
A lot of what we've done
is being open to opportunity as they as they come our way.
So do you remember okay, so you have the boxers, right? You've got this um
Yeah.
This idea and you guys love them and
W how do you remember
getting into other
Apparel.
you would soon get into shirts and sweaters and jackets and other things.
How did that happen?
That happened.
Because Ian and I were looking at the hang tag one day.
And we s and it said we invite you to take
The
Good life to work with you.
Whenever a tie is necessary.
And we said, Well why the hell shouldn't we
Help people dress.
For this lifestyle that we're conveying in a tie.
I said
Let's try and make
Some clothes.
Part of it too was
We were pretty confident that we could figure things out. We we we were good at that. You know, things we didn't know how to do, we knew we could figure out a way to do them.
And so
What we found was we were wearing, you know, polo shirts.
Khaki shorts.
Flip flops, belts.
Why why are we buying these products from other people?
Why don't we figure out a way to make'em ourselves?
When we come back in just a moment, Shepanian expand their inventory, but when the financial crisis hits, they have to learn.
How to get rid of it.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2005, and Vineyard Vines has started to add clothing to its lineup.
And it's also opened its very first store on Martha's Vineyard.
But in those early days.
Things are a little rough.
What we learned very quickly was what we did not know about operating retail.
So we thought you know
To open a store, well we need we need a store. We need a location.
So we actually bought the building.
Uh I I I I don't even know why we did it or why we thought we shouldn't rent a space, but we actually bought a building, a very small building in sort of an undesirable location. Um we also thought it would be smart to put a bunch of, you know, our very junior I mean we were pretty junior at the time, obviously, people who with no retail experience to operate the store.
They were great. People loved them. It was super fun. And then like the next year we decided we were going to open
A kids store.
Right behind that.
So we bought the building next door.
And so we were doing like
I don't know, a couple of million bucks and we were losing a million bucks.
In the process.

shopping in the wintertime, I mean there's a small population that's there year round.
So I'm wondering just
that like wouldn't it have made more sense to open it in Boston.
You know, uh rather than on Martha's Vineyard, even though
It's called when you're divines.
answer is one hundred percent yes. Yes. Okay we we felt like, you know, it was the namesake and where we wanted to be
So that's why we did it.
And
Yes, so incredibly busy for a very short period of time, and like any seasonal business, uh
It's very challenging to go from zero to a hundred back down to zero all within like a hundred days, which is basically what the season is up there.
And were you I mean, how was your overall cash situation? I mean, it you know, we just started with the two of you
Now you've got a store on Martha's Vineyard, you've got a whole line of clothing.
So w w how were you financing all of these hires? Was it just
Cash flow from the business.
Exactly.
We had no like line of credit or anything like that. It was all just cash flow.
Well. And roughly do you remember how many people
You guys had working for you by that time?
That was two thousand and five.
We probably had
Anything sixty?
And that includes retail sales reps like f on the floor.
Yeah.
All right, so you've got the store on Martha's Vineyard.
And
the strategy is to
presumably to open more stores, right? And I guess you guys met uh a family uh called the Mitchell family. They had their own boutiques and you formed a partnership with them. Tell me about
Who they were and and and why you formed a partnership with them.
So there's a local store here in our town in Connecticut called Richards, which sold
Still in business, sells fantastic brands.
uh men's and women's clothing store. And we had
done a nice business with them. They sold a ton of our ties and they were selling our other products as well.
And remember calling them one day saying, Look
We think that we should have our own store here in Connecticut.
And they said, um
Okay. And we said, you know, we realized
We do quite a bit of business with you. We don't want to take the business from you. That that was always an issue, you know, in all these places where we open stores.
and said, look, what what do you think we should do? And they said, you know, we agree. You guys have a great brand and you've got a lot of opportunity and we think you should open stores and we appreciate you reaching out to us. We know quite a bit about how to run stores and how to run them very well.
What what do you say we work together and we open the store together and if it works out we'll open some more stores together?
And so they were um
very helpful. Um they helped us identify real estate. They also knew that
We had a vision as to what we wanted the store experience to be like.
what we wanted the product assortment to be like. And it was very different from their aesthetic and their store, which is more of a luxury, like high end luxury.
uh specialty store. And so we opened a store in Greenwich, which we're still in that same location today.
And
There was a lot of excitement around it. People, you know, lined up overnight to sort of get in and be the first one in there.
And then we we opened I think four or five additional doors with them.
And then um
A few years into
working together, um, started to see the the beginnings of a recession.
And they were spending a a disproportionate amount of time helping us.
versus what they needed to focus on, which was their core.
And so we came to agreement where we uh we sort of
bought back, you know.
part of the business from them so that we owned the stores outright.
But you know, we we have a lot of gratitude towards the Mitchell family because they helped us set up a foundation
uh to grow from.
And we're still um close to this day.
Um
And all of these stores were basically just financed through cash flow.
Yes.
All of them.
I mean it's yeah, it's amazing. I mean y you really struck
You struck on something, right? You hit on something that was appealing.
to a certain audience.
Um, I think at this point probably were you doing
You were doing women's clothing as well.
But who how would you describe your
Like the typical customer. Was it
It was it.
young people, was it students? Was it sort of uh, you know
W how would you describe who is who is buying and wearing your clothing?
So seventy percent.
Of the people that were walking through our door.
was a woman thirty five to fifty five years old.
And seventy percent.

Was for men.
And then we decided to make women's stuff so that she could find something for herself.
What we've tried to do is
Figure out how to make her happy when she's in the store.
How do we make the shopping experience?
Better for her.
Okay, so you guys um
You hit two thousand eight in a financial crisis.
And
This is actually
Going to be a
Not he could period.
For many businesses, but particularly for you guys, tell me
What
What was going on? What happened to to the business during that time?
Two thousand eight was interesting, A, because the recession was starting to hit and things were were getting tough. Two, internally in our business.
There is a lot of like uh
Shifting going on.
our parents passed away, um, just a few years earlier. We had some
You know, some people on our team, the chef and I didn't always uh agree with or agree on. So that was a you know
Presented some issues.
And the world was very uncertain.
And we sort of were faced with okay, what do we do here type of situation. Um I think our business are probably about
Around that time, I mean I guess around fifty, sixty million dollars in sales.
Oh oh eight we were a hundred million
So we're a hundred million. And um
At that point in time.
We really could sort of hunker down.
Or we could really, you know.
Go for it.
'Cause we saw a lot of opportunity. We saw a lot we saw real estate was sort of depressed.
Um we saw that the workforce
There was you know, getting a job was not as easy. So from our standpoint, that meant there was a lot of great talent available.

And so we sort of revamped our management team at the time. Yeah, I say management loosely, but we sort of really put together our first sort of seasoned management team to compliment the people who've been with us.
You know, it wasn't to replace them, but really to go alongside and and mentor. Uh and and we signed a whole bunch of leases. We just like went for it with the stores and we started to scale.
The other thing that we did in O eight when
The crisis was coming.
Was we really were aggressive.
With our inventory.
Someone once told us inventory um
is like fruit. It doesn't get better with age. And so we liquidated a lot of our
Inventory to like the TJ Maxxes and Philines.
Mm-hmm. And that actually was I think the thing that saved us.
During that time.
When you say saved you.
I mean because everybody, you know, was losing their job. I mean, you remember that time, it was a very, very tough time and
And people weren't buying
Cashmere sweaters. They were shopping in their closets instead of in a store.
And so we got ahead of that a at the time we had a uh
We did have a line of credit with a bank.
And we drew that down and and we just held on tight.
And I mean
Just just I mean I it doesn't seem to have affected your
your brand value at all, but was there any concern internally like ooh, you know, if people see Vineyard Vines at logo
at these discount retailers it you know could change how people think about us.
Ye th there was definitely uh
That concern. Um

But
We also learned that is is that better than you know getting stuck with this stuff and potentially having a slippery slope.
So
You use that tool, you don't lean on that tool.
But it it's there when needed.
Alright, so you guys get through that period.
And
You continue

you know, I think by tw twenty eleven you had th of thirteen stores
also mainly or all I think entirely on the east coast.
of the US.
What do you remember about
I don't know, wanting to be a national of a national brand.
One of the things we were
reminded of by our customers is that people liked
That it we're from New England.
That were authentic.
And that going to our store felt like you were going to a yacht club, or or you know, going to something that you might not have in your local community.
So when we opened in Memphis or we opened in Dallas or we opened in New Orleans.
We didn't try to put like in Memphis, you know.
guitars and Cadillacs like Elvis, you know, we we built a store that felt like you were in New England at a yacht club.
And I think what we found is that there were like minded people all over the place, you know, Denver, Colorado and Saint Louis and Chicago and you know, everywhere.
Tell me about financing. I mean, you guys had not
brought in any I I I guess maybe you had some friends and family who who put a little bit of money in, but from what I gather you didn't know. It was all self funded.
It's all self funded and we have a
Line of credit with a syndicate of banks. And you never thought, Hey, let's go find


like blitz scale this thing. Did you ever
Start to have those conversations, the two of you?
We did and we ran a process
And we ultimately decided not to do anything.
And I think the reason was is because
It was gonna change.
the dynamic of what's worked very, very well.
We've just kept it a family owned and operated brand since nineteen ninety eight.
You know, one of the things about taking on investors
Th there's two things. One
If you give an entrepreneur money
They're gonna spend it.
There's no doubt if somebody gave us a bunch of money, we'd find a way to spend it.
But when you don't give'em any and they're hungry, you've you figure out a way to make it.
And and that has been really at the key the root of how we operate.

And
Ar best years
Have always been the years
Where we are chasing our tails to keep up with demand.
I mean that makes sense, right? To to always
The one thing you can't really buy is customers wanting your product.
Right. The rest of the stuff you can always catch up.
And the years that have been uh the harder years are when we have too much inventory.
You know, we've sort of overshot the mark.
So
You know, in a lot of ways the disciplines that are required to operate a business self funded
really set you up for success.
So
We just
really don't take anything for granted. And I think that
Some of that may fall by the wayside once you get fat.
You know, but taking on some capital.
I think one thing that you were asking, which was I think interesting
Is you were talking about private equity.
And one of the things
That we face as a brand.
What we've seen time and time again is these private equity

That spend too much at the beginning, left leave the owners.
With a lot of very, very big expenses.
After they've exited.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I mean basically there we we I'm sure many people know a brand like this and then they all of a sudden you just see their
them everywhere, all across the country, just opening up like like game busters. And uh
And it's really it's not a reflection of the success of the brand. It's a reflection of the the money that's going into doing that, with the hope that people will see them everywhere and assume that, oh, this is a great brand and let's go shop there. But that doesn't always happen.
And in fact, it sometimes the reverse happens. It r it destroys the brand.
Totally. And you know That is that's exactly what I was saying.
Yeah.
Right now, we definitely believe we've got opportunity for more stores.
you know, in the States and beyond.
But we also think, you know, in the short term, we've got a lot of opportunity within what we already have. Um, and when you have more things, it's hard to make sure that all of them, you know, if everyone is singing the same song at the same time on the same day. And so getting everybody to make the most of what they have is is something that we focus on a lot.
You know, I I know that in twenty twenty two the two of you stepped back.
And brought on a CEO and you guys became sort of
Step into more creative roles, which
It makes sense you've been working on this thing for twenty five years.
Um but that didn't last long. You you did return as
Co CEOs, what did you learn from that?
You know, it's
In any organization it's very hard to have somebody come from the outside to lead and be successful. The success rate is not
Yeah. Hi.
But I think w there was a
Disconnect.
We're not a fashion brand.
We're we're a brand brand.

And so there's a big difference between
Fashion culture.
and brand culture.

I think was a disconnect was how important customers are.

And how lucky we are to have customers.
That it's a total privilege.
You know, there's lots of choices.
And the minute and and I and I think we did this, I I think we
We lost sight of just how important customers were. We spent a lot of time.
with tons and tons of internal meetings and planning and stuff for each other and
A lot of theater that
Really didn't
end up being customer facing.
And I think the customer
You know, let us know.
Yeah.
And and you know, we didn't touch on it too much, but
Our logo is a smiling pink whale.
You know, our our brand is fun.
It makes people lives better. They come to us for the best moments in their life.
And to be a part of that, um
is something that, you know, I I don't think we can put a value on that.
Uh it's a question I I ask.
our guess at the end, which is if you think about all the journey you took and, you know, starting these ties and this little tie business and
selling on Martha's Vineyard and where you are today, you know, a hundred and forty stores and and uh well known brand. How much of of where you got to do you attribute to the hard work you put in and how much do you think had to do with
Getting lucky.
Uh Shep, first to you.
There is no doubt.
That we've worked our asses off.
And
There's no doubt that
That hard work.
Has presented opportunities.
And along with that
Some luck.
Yeah.
You know, I would say
being a part of a team, which is sort of what I would put the brand at.
gave me the courage in a lot of instances to do things I wouldn't do on my own.
You know, to go up to somebody and make a sales pitch, to go introduce myself to somebody, to put myself out there. The the brand has given me the courage to do that.
And as a result of that
It's created a lot of opportunity.
Mm.
And
One of the things that is we we talk about the future and we we started this talking about
Traveling with our mom and dad.
And the experiences that they afforded us.
It's hard not to think about what it might be like
To be one of my kids or one of Shep's kids.
And to know that basically any time you get in the car to go somewhere, any time you go on vacation,
Well, dad's gonna be taking pictures of just about every story he sees.
He's gonna make us go to his store, he's gonna talk to his team, he's gonna do all this stuff
And it's funny, my kids are younger.
But like yeah, you know, and my wife the same thing.
They're learning. They don't even realize it, but like they know so much and they they've been patient and supportive, you know. I think just like you know, hopefully we were to our parents through the process. And I think that's another one of the things that we don't necessarily realize how impactful.
that is on us personally and the brand and truly being a family brand. So you know, we value our team, we value our family, um and and our friends and we
We wouldn't be here without them.
That's Ian and Shep Murray.
Co founders and co CEOs.
Uh vineyard vines.
By the way, Vineyard Vines is still very much a family business, with the next generation of Murray's starting to get into the act.
Four of Shep and Ian's adult children now work at the company, and some of the younger kids even came up with a new design for the brand.
Neon colored ties, which
Apparently sold pretty well.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my newsletter at gyros.com or on Substack.
This episode was produced by Carrie Thomson with music composed by Ramtina Rablui.
It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Casey Herman.
Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Catherine Cypher, Chris Massini, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Ramel Wood, Nora Gill, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raj, and you've been listening.