Awful Cloth was founded by Chaz Zayed and Emmit Flynn while they were in college at Indiana University and Fordham. Awful Cloth blew up on TikTok after Charli D’Amelio was seen wearing it in several of her videos. Since then Awful Cloth has become an influencer and celebrity favorite and has been worn by Dave Portnoy (Barstool founder), DJ Dillon Francis, Avani Gregg, and Bryce Hall.
On this episode of DTC Pod, Blaine & Ramon chat with Chaz Zayed and Emmit Flynn about how they started Awful Cloth in their dorm room and grew it into a viral brand, collaborating with Barstool on a hoodie, why they’ve seen so much success with influencers (side note: they’ve never paid any influencer to wear their hoodie!), and their plans to grow the brand.
2:06 - 7:59 The Start of Awful Cloth
15:30 - 18:46 Entrepreneurial Mindset from Day 1
19:34 - 23:38 Going Viral
24:32 - 26:19 Influencer Marketing
27:15 - 30:22 Barstool Collab
31:19 - 36:16 Reaching out to Influencers
37:07 - 41:15 The Challenges of Entrepreneurship
42:19 - 46:39 Working on Awful Cloth’s Website
47:01 - 54:49 Future Collabs
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore:
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Emmit Flynn - Co-Founder of Awful Cloth
Chaz Zayed - Co-Founder of Awful Cloth
Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io
Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel