Insight with Chris Van Vliet - How Pro Wrestling Tees became a multi-million dollar merch company with owner Ryan Barkan

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

The owner of Pro Wrestling Tees, Ryan Barkan chats with Chris Van Vliet from the Pro Wrestling Tees store in Chicago, IL. He talks about how the company was founded as One Hour Tees, how Colt Cabana walking into the store sparked Pro Wrestling Tees, the partnership they have with AEW and ShopAEW, the website they set up that now helps more than 1500 wrestler sell their merch, how he was able to get Stone Cold Steve Austin to sign on, the fact that they have paid more than $5 million in royalties to wrestlers since they started, how they continue to grow every year, the lessons he has learned as an entrepreneur and much more!   Support the show by supporting our sponsors:BOSLEY- Get a free info kit and a $250 off gift card by texting CVV to 203-203 or visit https://www.bosley.com/lp/chrisvanvliet/INDEED- Get a $75 credit to boost your job post by going to http://indeed.com/BlueWire BETONLINE- Get a new sign-up bonus by using the promo code BLUEWIRE at http://betonline.ag Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is the Chris Van Vleet Show Chris Van Vleet Show Ladies and gentlemen Chris All right welcome back again to the Chris Van Vleet Show and thanks for being with us on another insightful audio adventure This episode is brought to you by Bosley

Indeed and Bet Online And if you're a wrestling fan There's a good chance you've made At least one purchase from pro wrestling T's.com. And if somehow you haven't, well, then you're definitely aware of what pro wrestling teas is and what pro wrestling T's is all about and how pro wrestling T's has completely changed the industry.

It was just so fascinating being able to pick the brain of Ryan Barkin who started the now multi-million dollar company. He is the merch mogul. I just made that up right now, but it's so fitting. He is the merch mogul. Take a screenshot, share this on social media so we can say hi. I'm at Chris Van Vleet and they are at Pro Wrestling T's on Instagram or at PWT's on Twitter. And if it's your first time here, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes.

And if you're listening on your iPhone, it'd be so appreciated if you could leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. You can make the review as short or as silly as you'd like it to be. big or small, we will take them all. And we're getting so much closer to that goal of 2,000 reviews, so much closer than we were at this point last week. It's because of reviews like this one from Chichester for Life, Chi Chichester for Life. He titles this awesome podcast. Chris W.V. is a legend. His interviews are first class and has a great knowledge of wrestling. It's clear in the interviews that he loves wrestling. I always watch the YouTube videos, but the podcast has made the work day so much more enjoyable. Keep it up, mate. Well, thank you so,

thank you so much. Thank you kindly. It always makes me laugh thinking that people are listening to this while they're working. I like that. I like that I'm part of your work day. And I hope that it makes your work day maybe that much more productive. Well, after listening to this, I think you might be really, you might have like a fire under you to be even more productive than you were before. Because pro wrestling teas is an absolute juggernaut now in the wrestling world. They're home to more than

1,500 wrestlers who sell their merch on the site and they're the official retailer for AEW, running shopAEW.com. But this wasn't always the case. Ryan Barkin started out with a small t-shirt shop in Chicago called One Hour T's, and they were

printing T-shirts for schools and local sports teams, which is something they still do. but it all changed when Colt Cabana came in to have a t-shirt printed for CM Punk to wear on TV. Now it's grown into several different companies. They've paid over $5 million in royalties to the wrestlers who sell their t-shirts on their website. But I'm going to let Ryan tell the whole story for you because it is such an interesting story. And it's the true definition of hard work and how far that will get you in life.

So ladies and gentlemen, the owner of the owner of... of pro wrestling tease, Ryan Barkin. There he is, Ryan Barkin. Thank you so much for joining me for this. Thanks for having me. What kind of shirt do you have on here? This looks like a pro wrestling tease original, maybe. It's my favorite shirt ever.

It's a Back to the Future reference. Two McFlys with the same gun. Man, that is so good. Yeah, it's my favorite movie of all time, by the way. Same. Oh, we could talk for an hour about just back to the future. It's so good. I know. I agree. Congratulations to you on everything that you've built.

I don't think there's a single wrestling fan on this planet that doesn't know what pro wrestling t's.com is. I'm sure there's some fans that have no clue who we are. Maybe a lot of them do. If there's a fan, if they call themselves a wrestling fan, they don't know what pro wrestling tis.com is. I question if they're actually a wrestling fan then. you know, we don't make any shirts for WW and there's WWE fans who don't watch any other wrestling, they may have no clue that we exist.

I suppose that's possible, but either way, congratulations. You are the merch mogul. That's what I'm going to call you. Great. Thanks. So this all began 2008, right? This began with one hour teas. Yeah, so, yeah, one hour tea started in 2008.

and it's a custom t-shirt shop where we do, you know, schools and businesses and parties and all those, you know, just custom orders. And then we got into the wrestling business, maybe two or three years later. We're still just doing independent wrestling orders for different wrestlers and such. So when this started out, was it just an online business and people could just make orders like they wanted shirts for their softball league? they came to you for this?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it started a very small store with my mom and my brother, my sister. We just kind of opened a little, it's a little store. It's not, it's close to where we're at now. Maybe like 600 square feet. And we just did, you know, we started, I started with schools. My mom originally worked at a school. And she said, you know, if you can get me some t-shirts, then,

you know, I'll get orders for you. So, so I started with schools and I'm thinking, like, maybe we could do more schools. So I went online and I, I scrubbed every school website. They probably don't even have email addresses of every teacher in the school anymore on website, but back then they did. So I had a database of like 300,000 teachers. And I would email them saying, hey, you need T-shirts, you need T-shirts. So we had 600 schools just in Illinois. That's kind of how I started. Wow. Okay. So, So I think for a lot of people, they could go, that's good enough. You can make a great living off of just doing that.

And then a chance encounter with Colt Cabana completely changed everything for you. Yeah, exactly. Do you want the story? I don't know if everyone's listening knows the story. I'm sure they don't, no. Yeah, so Colt emailed me because CM Punk needed a shirt to wear on Smackdown that said, I broke Big Show's hand. He needed it like next day.

and he knew of me through another friend. So they came in. At the time I had my t-shirt printers. They didn't even have white ink in them. And he, of course, wanted a black shirt. So I had to go out and find iron on lettering. Because you could tell it's just iron on letters. Like I had to place each letter and iron it on and I got him a shirt, whatever.

And I started talking with Colts about, you know, I didn't know anything about independent wrestling. He was with Ring of Honor at the time. I had watched WWE a little bit when I was, I mean, I kind of stopped watching. You were like an attitude-era fan? Yeah. But then I knew of CM Punk because he's from Chicago, but I just never watched regularly. So, you know, they came in and I did the shirt and Colts asked if I could do bulk orders for him for his independent wrestling, you know, business. And I said no problem.

And he said he would get all of his wrestling buddies to sign up. and I didn't know any of them, but they all started emailing me. And that's just how we started. But I'm guessing still at this point, you're like, yeah, I can make a handful of t-shirts for a handful of wrestlers, but I'll keep doing what I'm doing here with the main business. I mean, I consider that, I consider those orders part of our main business. We do orders, we did orders for athletes before, you know, Chicago Bears players, and we would do, you know, they do summer camps.

Like, we do, it was just another t-shirt order to me. I didn't really think it was going to be, I was going to be making shirts for every wrestler in the world, but it worked out. So when and how did it morph into what it is now? So maybe two years after I met Colt, there really wasn't a way for wrestlers to sell shirts online. Like they didn't, like Colt, I think had his own merch store,

but no other wrestlers had it. And I'm like, what if we could create a, a marketplace where every wrestler could have their own store and we'll take care of everything. We'll print and ship. I really didn't do anything like that at the time. It was new for us. I never wanted to get it into the fulfillment business, which is where you know, you get one order and you ship it.

It was always just a headache to me. So I never did it. But we gave it a shot and we created this website and we started with 10 wrestlers. And that's and it just took off. I mean, you completely changed the business. business model here because the model for merch used to be. Wrestlers would go out and buy three smalls and five mediums and 10 large and 10 extra large and then they would carry and they still do.

A lot of guys still do. They carry that briefcase with them to indie shows. But they'd also have that sitting in their bedroom or their garage. And then when people bought stuff from them, they would have to ship it out. You've made like this for wrestlers. You've made like, this is like drop shipping basically. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I mean, anyone, there's tons of companies that do it.

I just had the right connection and I met the right people and the wrestlers trusted me early on. And it just started building up. It wasn't really like we were just doing independent wrestlers. They were all mostly with Ring of Honor. And then some were just really small independent, like the Young Bucks. They weren't with Ring of Honor yet. They were just wrestling in California, like independents and stuff. But then I met Diamond Dallas Page at a like a comicon.

Yeah. And he asked where I got. I made him a shirt to sign, which is still hanging up in the front of the story. He asked where I got and I told him I made it and that I was starting a website with Colt Cabana. And we could make him old shirt, like remake his old WCW shirts or make new shirts. And he was looking for a guy to help. So it took like three months, I think. He's finally signed up.

And once he was on there, it just kind of gave me even more credibility with the legends. And then like we just started getting everybody to sign up. Yeah, now it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. By the way, does one hour T's still exist? One hour T's, yeah, big time. So how many? It's about it's like 35% of our business is still one hour T's. Wow.

So how many businesses in total is it that you own? So Creative Ventures is one business. And then under Creative Ventures, you've got one-hour teas, pro- Wrestling teas, pro- Wrestling T's, Pro Wrestling Crate, which is our subscription box service. You've got below the collar. Under below the collar, I've got maybe 10 of my own clothing lines where, you know, like swearwear, it's just a bunch of swear words on shirts. Like Riggly T's like Cubs Parity shirts.

So I got those. And then, like, within pro wrestling teas, we've got our, like, sub product lines, like super kicks, micro-brawlers, which are little figures, wrestling pins.com. I don't know. I'm missing some. There's tons. Just keep going. This is mind-blowing because for most people, one of those things is how they would make a great

living. You basically, this is the thing I love about you, Ryan, is you want more. You just want more all the time. You think big with everything that you do. I think I just get bored with what I'm doing. And I'm like, let's do something else. And now, and then it takes stuff. And now I'm like, oh, great.

Now I have to manage like 10 companies in one. But I hire good people to help. I have different managers for every company, different departments. We've got 40 employees full time here. Now, six years ago, we were probably at 10 employees. Wow. So it grew fast. And then we got a lot of part-time help that comes in.

But you've hit in on an interesting thing here because I think one of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur is giving away some of the control that you have because nobody's going to do it the same way that you do it. And when you hand away a little bit of your control, maybe they'll do it 80% as good as you'll do it. I'm still 100% in control of everything. Nobody does anything without like all day in my out like, is this so good? So I'm still in control of everything. I just, they more manage the employees under. them. So we've got like our printing department. We got a guy that manages the printers and our shipping department. We got a guy that manages the shipping and then customer service and design and then web. But I'm kind of in charge of it all. I still do everything. I still handle it and take care of everything. Did you ever imagine that when you and Colt Cabana, you know,

thought about this website idea that this could ever turn into what it's become right now? No, not at all. Not even close. Because I, I said this in our, We did a little documentary, and it's on YouTube. But like I said, when I first started, I'm like, if each wrestler just sold, like, one shirt a day and I got 30 wrestlers to sign up, that's, I don't know. It was very small amount, but I was like, that's a lot more shirts than we're selling right now. Like, One Hour T's wasn't like a huge company at the time. I mean, we were small, but I was like, if we could sell like 900 wrestling shirts in a month, that'd be crazy. and then like now we're doing like 40,000 in a month,

but we're not just doing shirts, we're doing pins and shoes and towels and bags and hats and really everything. So it's not just pro wrestling teas anymore. It's grossing. Basically, if you can merchandise it, you will stick a logo on it. Yeah, but I like to do everything myself.

So I only really do stuff that I can make myself. I don't, there's some things like microbrellers. I can't make myself. They're little figures like these right here. These I can't make myself. But really like we're doing hats and beanie and bags on demand. We do towels and mugs and flags and scarves on demand. So I don't like to stock any inventory.

I'd rather use my space for machines. So we don't stock anything. So when the order comes in, we order it the next day, like a blank, a blank scarf. And it comes in and we print it and we ship it out. So everything is on demand. And which is why it, we can't. get stuff out as fast as customers are used to. Wrestling fans are used to getting stuff next day,

like Amazon's next day. We can't do that because we're making everything in-house, but we don't start making it until we get the order. Yeah, I haven't had the privilege of having a tour there, although next time I'm in Chicago, whether you invite me or not, I'm going to take a tour. But I picture your warehouse just having boxes and boxes of unprinted shirts, but you're saying that's not the case at all. You actually bring them in from your vendors as the orders come in. Yeah, so everything that comes in is pretty much gone within the next three to four days. So, like, one hour tease is, I mean, it's a one, it's one hour tease. People want their shirts now.

So, yeah. One hour tease, it's usually customer orders. We order it next day. We print it. It's gone. So we don't really have, we do have a new warehouse in a new building behind our building that we do stock, like, a lot of stuff that we pre-order for crates. our subscription box, we stock micro-brawlers and autographed 8x10s and pins.

But merch-wise, like T-shirts, there's nothing stocked here. It's all machines and people. But think of the trickle-down effect here. You guys are growing at this incredible rate, which means now your vendors get to grow at a great rate as well. Right. Yeah. And the wrestlers grow. I mean, we kind of grew with them, like all the wrestlers that we started with.

You got like Young Bucks, like Christopher Daniels, who else was right at the beginning. Like Jimmy Jacobs was in the beginning. Adam Pierce was in the beginning. Joey Ryan was in the beginning. Like all these guys, I mean, they grew with, like, we grew with them. As they got bigger, we got bigger. Do you ever think of what your business would look like? if you and Colt's paths never crossed?

Yeah, I think about it all the time. I don't know. I mean, I assume one hour T's still be in that same little store, and there'd probably be six of us. We had two machines, and it was, I mean, one hour T's does well, and if I lost every wrestling thing today, I'd still be okay, but it's great to have additional, like, you know, different businesses. Like, if this one fails, I got this one. If this one doesn't work, I still got this one.

So that helps too. How much has the business shifted for you in the last, I guess it'd be 18-ish months with the partnership you have with AEW? Well, I mean, when we, like, New Japan and Bullet Club was always our huge sellers. When the Young Bucks and Kenny and the, those guys left Bullet Club. Like our business kind of just shifted from all that over to, you know, AEW. So, but it's obviously grown huge.

Now we've got national coverage on TV and they promote merchandise every day. We run shop AED. And so, yeah, it's grown. I mean, our business has doubled in the last 18 months for sure. Wow. in a time when so many businesses are being affected by COVID. Right. I feel like you guys are kind of COVID proof here.

No, I mean, I wouldn't say we're COVID-proof. Like one-hour T's our main, you know, schools, businesses, arena shows, birthday parties, none of that's happening. So the last six months, one-hour T's has been like dead. It's not, I mean, we are getting orders, but it's nothing like it used to be. Our pro wrestling T's retail store, that's another like air. So we've got our pro scinties retail store. And we always banked on wrestlers coming in to do autograph signings. None of that's happening.

So the store is taking a hit. But the e-commerce business has like boomed and everyone's at home. And they just, I mean, I don't know. They just wanted to buy wrestling shirts. So it made up for the lost business from one hour teas. So, I mean, it's, I feel like, obviously we could be doing better if we had, you know, AEW was doing shows every week and then we, and then they stopped. So all those orders, we know, we're not doing them anymore.

So we definitely took a little bit of a hit there. But overall, we're doing okay. You were supplying the merch when people would buy them at an AEW event. Yeah. Yeah, we print everything. So we've got a, we've got a warehouse here. So AEW would pre-order everything. and then they need 100 shirts for this week.

I'd have to ship it to that location, you know, hats for this. And so every week we were shipping to a new spot or doing, you know, we come out with new designs every, literally every single day. So, you know, when we, we do a shirt and it would, and we'd do a Kenny shirt, and then two weeks later we'd have another Kenny shirt, we'd have to ship out the new Kenny shirt. So the merch is moving so fast. So what's the capacity that you could?

How many shirts could you ship in a day if you guys went, you know, as much as you want to? What's the absolute capacity? I mean, we print, so we print digitally. It's different than screen printing. Screen printing, you can output so much more, it's so much faster. So digital printing, our machines can only do maybe 20 shirts an hour. My guys work like eight-hour shifts. So you're at like 160 per machine.

We've got about 20 machines. So I don't know, I don't know, man, like 2,500 shirts, which isn't a lot. Now with the volume that you're doing. Yeah. So, I mean, I wish, I mean, obviously we would, we can screen print faster, but our digital stuff, like if you need something next day, we have to print it digitally on our machine. There's not enough time to, you know, get screens burned and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I mean, we can, we can maybe do 2,500 digital shirts in the day.

So this shirt that I'm wearing here right now, it's a pro wrestling t-shirt, pro wrestling t-shirt. This was digitally printed? Yeah, digital. So it feels like screen printing. Yeah, our new machines are a lot better than they used to be. It's still, it lays like a white ink, under base down, and then prints full color on top of it. And the way we heat it, it's got like a screen print feel to it. So, yeah, I mean, it looks, I mean, it should.

should hold up and look good. Yeah, it does. So for someone who might not be aware of, like, how this model works, if I'm a wrestler, if I'm in any wrestler, I can go to pro wrestling teas.com, fill out a form, and I can set up my own shop on pro wrestling teas. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't cost anything. Anyone can sign up.

We used to have limits. You know, you need to have a certain amount of social media followers because we'd have guys sign up with 100 followers and they'd put up 10 shirts. They'd sell nothing. And our site's a little different than other sites. We physically go in and create the stores ourselves and, and, you know, create the mockups for every shirt and all that kind of stuff. So, but now any wrestler, we've automated it a little bit. So any wrestler can go on.

As long as you've had one match, we do, we do, like, look it up and make sure you're a real wrestler. You can sign up and get shirts made and we'll start selling for you. Well, beyond that, it's not just wrestlers. You could, podcasters, YouTubers, basically anybody who's involved within the wrestling world, myself included. You can even be like a social media influencer who posts wrestling memes. And if you want a store, sure, we'll give you a store. But this is, where did the shift happen where you were, you know,

I know you had the limits that you talked about there. Where did the shift happen where you're like, yeah, the more stores, the better? Really it was maybe, I think a year ago, it's more of automating our system to be able to automatically create a store, automatically send the contracts, automatically put up a product. Now it's all automated where we're just kind of like clicking and approving. When before we would have to take the design, put it on the shirt, crop the shirt to a square so it looks right. and we wanted it to be centered. Now we finally have everything automated to where it doesn't take as much time for us

and our team to do it. So we kind of let everyone go on now. I think I'm most blown away by how quickly you're able to turn these designs around. And I think a perfect example of that is Chris Jericho's A Little Bit of the Bubly. Within hours, you had this shirt that ended up becoming a mega seller for you.

But walk me through the process of how all that comes together. it's really just like Jericho texting me and saying yo we need a shirt I'm like all right what do you want it to look like he's like maybe me and then it'll say you know holding the bottle

say a little bit of lovely and then I'll go to one of our artists and say Chris needs a shirt we need to do it now so you know because it was so hot like they went viral so fast so we made a design I think we made one he didn't like it I'm like all right I'll go back so we created a new one

he's like all right that's it it's not the best designed shirt ever, but it definitely one of the top selling shirts ever. And it just blew up. So it's like that. Like wrestlers, something happens or they know something that's going to happen. We're going to be a shirt for this.

And then I've got like my artist in the store, Dave. He's like my head designer. He kind of, he can turn stuff around really fast. And then Kyle and I've got four designers. I got Kyle. I got two Dave's and Adam. And then I've got two new ones, Vinny and Julio.

These guys are all just like my design team. We'll put together anything. And they know the kind of business we're in. They know we need it fast. Things like just happen so quickly. And the faster you get it out, the more shirts you're going to sell. And, you know, for people that maybe aren't following you on Instagram at Pro Wrestling T's, you guys are hiring like frequently.

And I think it's so amazing because a lot of people that are watching this or listening to this right now, want to work in the wrestling business. And you post job postings a lot. So I'm basically saying, if you want to work in this industry, follow Ryan, follow pro wrestling T's, and there's all kinds of jobs.

If you either live in the Chicago area or you're open to relocating there. Yeah. I mean, so during COVID, we were able to keep everyone employed and we hired five new employees. That's how much like pro wrestling T's was like, I think wrestling fans wanted to support the wrestlers

who weren't able to wrestle. So they were buying their merchandise, and that just kind of, it just blew up. So we hired a couple more shippers. We bought four new printing machines. We bought two new embroidery machines to do ads. We really, like, increased our production. Hopefully, we still need all those machines when, you know, next year.

You're going to need more machines is what I'm thinking. Well, I don't have any more room, so hopefully. You might have to move, locations eventually. I can't. I can't. I can't. It's too much stuff to do.

I can just buy more locations and put machines in there, but it's hard. You've got to keep everything together. It's a lot harder when you've got, you got to walk two doors down. And we do have, we do, I have two, I have a huge 13,000 square foot warehouse. Like, it's down the alley where we do all of our crates and shipping and packaging and stuff. We've got our, we got a wrestling ring in there, freelance wrestling. If you want to be a wrestler, you can sign up and train to be a wrestler inside our warehouse. And then we're building two more stories within the next six months.

We're going to build, you know, just we need more space. Guys, if you're suffering from hair loss, then I've got the answer for you. Go to Bosley. For everyone listening to this podcast, Bosley is giving away a free info kit and $250 off gift card when you text my name. CVV to 203-203. Bosley offers the latest technology and the only permanent solution to hair loss. People all over the country trust Bosley and Bosley is considered America's number one hair restoration practice. Bosley offers both surgical and non-surgical solutions and the sooner you take action, the more options you'll have to keep your hair or put hair where you need it most. Two out of three men will experience some degree of hair loss by age 35.

But with today's technology, you don't have to live with hair loss. Get started today with a free info kit and $250 off gift card. Just text CVV to 203-203. It's that easy. Text CVV to 203-203. So if I'm a wrestler, I set up this store on your, on pro wrestling teas.com, And then it's a 50-50 profit split. Is that how it works?

Pretty close. I mean, so after cost of goods, which on average is 35%, then that leaves like a 50-50 split between us and the wrestler. It's different for everything. Like every product's different. But yeah, I mean, you're going to make a lot more than like some other sites that you can sign up with. Yeah, you're up.

Yeah. And we can also print, like a lot of the wrestlers. order from us for indie shows. So they'll order 25 shirts and they'll sell them on their own. You'll make more money that way because they cost less when we print them in bulk. But we get a lot of bulk orders that way too. But this is also a much bigger piece of the pie than if I had T-shirts with WWE. This is a much bigger piece of the pie than what they're giving the royalties to those wrestlers.

Yeah, I guess because my site's not really like a licensing royalty type website. I'm not really, it's more of a partnership. And I started the company to help wrestlers who might have only been getting, you know, 90 cents a shirt. And now they're getting $9 a shirt. So it's really a more of a partnership. And it's your merchandise. You're just, we're just ones printing it.

You're selling it. You're promoting it. It's your, you know, it's your stuff. So that's why you're making more money. So with that said, you probably get a lot of cease and desist letters. I used to. I don't anymore. Oh, really? Not really.

I've gotten a good amount. McDonald's, Lego, Jack Daniels, vans, just random stuff. But I don't even sometimes, like before we didn't even know what people were putting on the website. You could put up and they'll call it like, I don't know,

like Jack Daniel's logo. But then if you type in Jack Daniels logo on Google, Jack Daniels is going to see that. Yeah, their lawyer is probably going to find that. Yeah, so we used to get them. Now we kind of, you know, we look through every design and make sure we don't put up anything that might get us in trouble.

But yeah, I haven't gotten any in a long time. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. So what's been the best selling pro wrestling tea of all time? The original Bullet Club shirt. It's still that one. Wow. Actually not the original Bull Club shirt.

It's the Second Bullet Club shirt. It's the Bone Soldier with the skull. probably my favorite wrestling shirt of all time. Yeah, that's like this era's Austin 316 shirt. Yeah. I mean, we probably sold 150,000 just of that shirt specifically. That's incredible. Okay, what's been the best seller of 2020?

I'm on my computer right here. This is great. We can get the up-to-date numbers here. Yeah, I've got like full, like you could tell, you could search. You can search this on the site. It tells you by year. So the number one seller of the year is Orange Cassidy.

It's the orange shirt that just has a circle. It's got his thumb that says for us to be. That's the number one seller for the year. He's also got the number two seller of the year, which is just his photo. So, yeah, those are the two. He's a good seller. Congrats to Orange. Sorry, what's the rest of the top five then?

So you've got Owen Hart shirt. we signed a deal with Dark Side of the Ring and Owen Hart's wife Martha came out with his shirt was his first shirt in 20-something years and so that's number three and then two Chris Jericho inner circle shirts there's the stadium stampede loser's shirt which says champions but they're really the losers

and then there's a like a Guns and Roses parody shirt so that's those are the Chris Jericho is the top-selling wrestler of the year by far. Like, no one's going to ever beat him, but Orange Cassidy holds the top-selling shirt in the year. Wow. So do you think it's because Jericho comes out with these new designs so frequently? Is that why he's your top-seller? I mean, anything he says, we pretty much turn into a T-Jure.

So, yeah, I mean, the more shirts you come out with, like the Young Bucks have been in the top three, top five, ever since they started because they have the most shirt. They had like 100 something shirts. We took off a bunch, but they like have the most products out of anyone. So they sell tons of like they might not sell a lot of, they might not have a top selling shirt, but they're top selling wrestlers because they have so many,

so many things, so many products. So when someone like Chris Jericho says some sort of catchphrase and gets turned into a shirt, is that a conversation that begins with Chris texting you? Or is that you going, hey, I think this might be a good one, man. it's usually like fans saying this needs to be a shirt and then it's both like sometimes chrystal

text me or i'll be like yo these guys want a shirt um like pumpkin-headed dipshit was a big thing but we didn't i'm like let's save that one everyone's like we need that shirt i'm like let's save it for Halloween so we we saved it for Halloween we just released it last month um so it's like really like anything that creates buzz we're going to turn into a a T-shirt. And there's also, there's like, there's really no fear here that like if you come up with a design and it doesn't sell, well, then you just don't print those shirts. Yeah, that's why on-demand printing. It doesn't matter. Yeah, this is, this is so brilliant. Were you worried when you started this that another wrestling company might come around and copy your business model and

start to do the same thing? I pitched my idea to WWE for NXT because it had just started. I'm like, hey, I'm starting this website. I could do a shirt for every NXT wrestler, and we could do it on demand. And I had this whole conversation with them, and I said, no, they're not interested. I said, okay, did it myself for wrestling T's. So, I mean, I had the idea originally for NXT. Like, that was how I was going to do it. I was like, we could do this for NXT.

Because, you know, when I talked to Colt, we only had maybe like eight wrestlers interested. or so. I'm like, well, maybe we could do it for WWE. So Colt had hooked me up with someone in WWE that he knew. And it just, I mean, they just, they didn't think it was a good idea. Now they do the same, now they do the same thing that. Now they do that. They have their own site and they do custom on-demand printing as well. And you even sent them like test prints.

Like it was like you were going along like this might have been a thing. That's so crazy. The machines I had back then were like shit. Like the prints I sent were probably horrible and they probably looked at them and they're like, this is gross. Because like we used to have, I mean, we were on our fourth generation of the machines. They're way better now than they were, you know, eight or ten years ago. So they, I mean, maybe they were just bad quality and they're like, we're not paying for this.

The thing about those WWE shirts and I own many, many, many of them is they're printed on that like really thick, like super ultra-sweety Gilden shirts. Yeah, I think they've changed. I think they used to only be that. Like Anvil, I even have some, like old Anvil shirts that have lasted forever. They're great. But they don't make shirts like that anymore. And then they, but yeah, they're, I think they've, they've upgraded maybe.

I don't know. I haven't bought a WW shirt in 10 years. I don't know. I've heard they've upgraded. So you don't need to. You can make your own shirts. Yes. Yeah.

You must have like 17 closets filled with T-shirts. Yeah, but they're all pro wrestling T's logo shirts. I don't really wear. I don't wear wrestling shirts. Like the only wrestling shirt I ever wore was Bullet Club shirt. I love the Bullock shirt. I wore ice star colts for a while. And then that's it.

I've never worn any other wrestling shirts. It's all pro wrestling T's logo shirts. I got my kids in pro wrestling T's gear. My wife, anywhere we go, pro-Rosting T's hats. Just like to the rep. I think you've touched on something interesting here because I think a lot of entrepreneurs find it tough to balance their work life and their home life. And you have three kids. Is that right? Four kids. Four kids. Wow. And a wife. And this mega successful business. So how are you

able to balance everything and still be a great father? My kids are very young. They're all under five years old. My wife. Wow, you must be so busy with that. My wife is very busy. She's great. I don't, I mean, I wake up. I make them breakfast. I get them ready for online school. And then I'm out. And then I come back at five dinner. You know, we play with play with them for two hours and then they go to sleep. But yeah, I mean, it's not most of my work is on my phone. Like I could do. most of my work on my phone, emails, texting. It's more, I'm more of the idea, guys. So I don't have to be in the office all the time.

So it's not as hard as it seems running this company and then having kids and all that. I don't know. I think you make it look easy. But do you have a set amount of hours that you're going to be in the office and no more than that? So you can spend time with the family? Yeah. I mean, I'm usually here from, you know, 930 to 530. and but I think I spend plenty of time with them.

I think they would agree. I don't think they want to see me anymore. Maybe. But yeah, I mean, I'm always in the office every day from like 930 to 5.30. If we're busy, I'm usually here. Like if a printer calls in sick and we need a print shirt, I'm the guy printing. I'm helping shipping. I can do everything in the whole store.

So I actually do a lot more than just. sit behind a computer if I have to. But you're also the guy that knows how to do everything. Like you could step in and you could do literally any job that pro wrestling teas might have. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't know. Not every single thing, but a good amount of stuff. I mean, I started doing this.

I started the business myself. So I know how to, like I started printing myself. So I know how to do it. I hate doing it, but I'll do it if I have to. So I know how to do everything. But that's the difference between you as a CEO, entrepreneur, whatever you want to call yourself, and a lot. And you see this all the time on shows like undercover boss, where the person actually goes into the trenches and works with the employees and has no idea how the business even runs.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I know how everything runs, how it should run. I'm like, if I walk down, I'll walk down the line and see all the shirts printed, I can pick out like a misprone. printed shirt faster than anyone in the store. I know what a good quality print looks like, or if someone's machine is missing a nozzle or like a printhead, I can tell, I'm like, this is no good, this is no good. They hate when I go out there. So I kind of stay away. I think it's safe to say a lot of things have changed in 2020, including how we work. Businesses across the globe now are challenged to be their most efficient, which means every hire is critical. Indeed is here to help. is the number one job site in the world with more visits than any other job site. Indeed helps you

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since you started this in 2008? I don't think I made any mistakes. Maybe, I mean, I bought a lot of... I bought a lot of equipment that I shouldn't have bought. I bought a screen printing, press that was manual and it was gone in three months i couldn't do it anymore i i created a a truck called one hour t's on wheels where we would print and go to festivals didn't think of how hot it was

going to be in the truck it was like 95 degrees sold the truck i mean there's just i i mean no real big mistakes just you know you learn just be careful what you know spend your money on and buy the right equipment. But that's an interesting take. And I think that's why you've been so successful as you're saying, yeah, maybe I've made some mistakes, but I've learned from them. And that's why we're so much better as a company now.

Yeah, I've done. I mean, nothing I can really think. I once, I have billboards all over Chicago. And I needed one billboard, but I actually typed one twice. And I ordered 11 billboards. And they're like, $2,000 a piece. And they're like, where are we putting all these billboards?

And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, you ordered 11 billboards. I'm like, and I got screwed. I'm like, I guess just shipped me the billboards. I had these, it was a way. Like, so I've done stupid things. Like, always check your work. Make sure you're typing the right numbers.

And don't buy, don't buy things you don't need. When you drive into Chicago, there's two billboards that you see. You see Brian Erlacker, who now magically has hair. And you see Colquipana one hour tease. Yes. And I think they have way more than I do. Yeah, we used to be my wife on the billboards. And then when I met Colt, I put Colts on the billboards.

And he's been on ever since. You talked about the T-shirts that have been the best sellers. What do you think's been the most surprising seller for you? I mean, like Young Buck stuff when they did, like the WWE told them they couldn't do too sweet. So we made a, so we had a shirt of them doing it. So we just put censored over it and wrote cease and desist and that sold like a thousand pieces in a day. Like stuff like that like surprises me. I don't know. You never know what's going to sell. And I'm happy. I'm happy if one shirt sells. You know, one shirt sells. You know, I'm happy. Well, you can't build a

business anymore off just one shirt selling. Right. But we, so we, I don't know, I think we have 16,000 designs on the site, and my guess is 5,000 of those have never sold a shirt. Wow. There's a lot of people who upload shirts and they're still never sold. But it's, I mean, it happens. But this is the thing that's so brilliant about this business model is you could have 100,000 designs on your website that don't sell, and it doesn't really matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Wow. I just think that it's so incredible what you've, built here. And I think the crazy thing is you said you doubled your business in the last two years. It's probably going to double again after this. I maybe. I don't know. My goal is to make one dollar more than I did the year before. That's how low my goal is. And I've done it every year. So this year, I didn't think I was going to do it. But somehow we did. And I hope next year we make one more dollar. And have you already beat your top line from last year here in November, or are you on pace to beat it?

Oh, no, we passed it a while ago. That's... That's amazing. In a year like this, that's just incredible. I mean, most e-commerce businesses are booming right now. And, like, shirts, I mean, people say t-shirts are recession-proof. Like, everyone needs t-shirts. They always buy them.

And, like, when we started our company during the recession in 2000, 2008. And I put up a billboard and I put up a small billboard, not like we have now, but just as a test. And I had, you know, the first week, I had people coming in the store. So I knew I was on to something. So, I mean, T-shirts, everyone needs T-shirts or something, I guess. I think what's even more surprising from that story is that billboards actually work. Yeah, for some people. I don't know. I mean, I always think maybe I could get rid of all the billboards, and I'd still do the same about a business. But I like having the billboards.

People say, hey, that's the billboard guy. Who is the biggest name or biggest legend that you brought on, that you were completely surprised that they want to be part of this? Don't Colts de Boss. By far. Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, I mean, he didn't want to be a part of it. These are when my machines were not great.

I sent him a batch of shirts because he wanted to test it out. Jim Ross hooked us up together. And I sent him shirts. And I didn't hear from him for a long time, like months. And I'm like, hey, just check in if you got the shirts. And he's like, yeah, I didn't really like the quality of them. And I'm like, all right. So I'm like, fuck, that sucks.

But I'm like, let me try. Let me give you, let me do it. Give me another chance. So I printed him new shirts. it's higher quality garments. I figured out a way to bump up my ink and I sent it to him and then he finally loved it. And we, and so, yeah, from there, like, once you get Steve Austin, then you're good. I think the other one that really surprised me was macho man.

Yeah, macho man was a licensing deal. But now I'm, I talk to his wife, Lynn, all the time. and we have a great relationship. We release stuff all the time. But yeah, I mean, I always wondered, and I asked her, I'm like, I wonder if Randy was alive today, would he be, would he work with me? I don't, you know, you never know. She said yes, but she's just being nice.

Who knows? I don't know. She knows him better than anybody, I think. I guess, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, he's probably my favorite wrestler growing up. He's on a lot of my packaging. and he's on the front of the store, like a huge painted mural of him.

So yeah, he was definitely my favorite wrestler growing up. You've also had some really epic Halloween costumes. This year was Vader, but I mean, list off, for people that might not have seen these, list off some of the amazing costumes you've had. I've done eight. I've done eight. I did Gold Dust, Macho Man, Papashango,

Razor Ramon, Bam Bam Bigelow, Vader, Road Warrior Animal and I don't know, I'm missing one, but they're on my

Instagram at the wrestling. But yeah, but now I'm like, I'm running out of ideas. No, there is an endless amount of wrestlers. Yeah, but like some are so easy.

Yeah. And I don't want to be. Like, oh, Hogan's easy. Like, oh, Hogan's easy. Like, Rick Flair's easy. like I don't want I don't want to be I don't want to do any easy one like I want to do like hard like I want to I want to do repo man like full duster like you can't like nobody's nobody's ever repo man so I try to do these costumes that people aren't usually for

Halloween so how did this go from pro wrestling teas.com to then being in every hot topic everywhere So Joe is the buyer at Hot Topic. He's a big wrestling fan. And he, I think, I mean, he said he was at WrestleMania and he saw Bullet Club shirts all over the place. So he figured out that I was the one that was making the Bull Club shirts, contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested in going in Hot Topic. And I went to New Japan and I said, hey, you guys want to do a deal? And they said, yeah. So that's kind of how it came together.

and I think like within, so Bullet Club was the number one selling shirt in 2017 at Hot Topic, which is crazy. But out of all shirts, they have big Disney and marble and cartoons like everything. So Bullet Club was number one for 2017 of all T-shirts. And yeah, it blew up. So New Japan was big and then now we're,

now we got AEW. in Hot Topic and we've got new, like, legends, shirts coming out for Black Friday, online and in some test stores. So, you know, it's a good partnership. I think what's so crazy about this entire story is wrestling is so hyper niche. And, like, look, the people that love wrestling, love wrestling. But wrestling takes up this tiny little piece of this giant merchandising or, you know, royalty, whatever you want to call us.

Yeah. But the fact that it's the number one shirt and Hot Topic is, that's incredible. Yeah. I don't, I mean, I can't explain it. I don't know. I mean, and it's not even a W, and it wasn't a WWE shirt. There was a Japanese wrestling shirt that maybe people saw it and said, whoa, that's cool.

There's skulls and guns and that looks cool. So maybe they bought it. but I think most people were fans of Bullet Club. Yeah. And went out and bought it. So when someone buys a Bullet Club shirt, how many ways is that royalty split? Like the original Bullet Club shirt split in no ways.

It goes to New Japan. Okay. But then we got like Bullet Club parody shirts. You got the Young Bucks Bullet Club, the Kenny Bullet Club. So that's like a 50. 50 split. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, and they were really hesitant at first to do like parodies of the

original Bullet Club, but I don't remember which one was first. Maybe, maybe it was Kenny. I don't remember. Like, AJ Stiles had, like everyone, everyone has had one. And they still do it today. But those, like, they always sell well, no matter what. What's one, like, big piece of it? advice you'd give to someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, someone who's looking to start a

business right now, and wants to grow this into something the size of what you've built? I mean, so this is how I feel, this is how I think. Like, I always expect the worst of everything, because then you're, you're never going to be disappointed. It's terrible advice, but that's how, like, I don't expect anything, like, ever. Like, if it doesn't happen, okay, great. So, like, if you have, very low expectation. Don't, you know, then you're not going to get disappointed, but work hard, work as much as you can. Don't stop working. I mean, I never really stop working.

If I'm not at the store, I'm still on my phone talking to wrestlers or answering emails or coming up with ideas. So I'm just, I'm always working. I haven't had a day off. Even when I go on vacation, I'm still working. So, I mean, maybe that's why we've, been successful because I never stopped working or or I have great ideas. I don't know. I mean, I think it's a combination of all that, but I think the best you could take a risk, right?

I mean, so I started this business. I went to the bank and I got a loan for $10,000. I had the worst business plan. I still have it. It's not anything that if you looked at, I would be like, oh, yeah, I'm going to invest in it. So it was, hey, I went to the bank. I said, I want to start this business. Can I get a $10,000? loan. They said, sure. I was 22 years old at the time, or 23. And so I started the business with $10,000 and use that to buy equipment and grow from there. So that's all it takes. I mean, I'm not saying it's easy to get $10,000, but if you can, that's all it takes. Well, it's not that you've got $10,000. You got a $10,000 loan that you had to pay back. Yeah, I wasn't, no, someone

didn't throw $10,000 to me and said, good luck. Yeah, I had to pay it back. But yeah, I mean, you don't need a lot of money to start a business. You don't need, like, I didn't, I graduated college with a two-year degree. I don't have a four-year business degree. I don't know anything. I mean, I know a lot about business now, but I didn't go to business school. I just liked, you know, designing.

creating products and here we are. Well, now you've gone to the college of real life. You've gone to like real life business school and figured out how, what works and what doesn't work. Yeah, exactly. And also in this world now with websites like Shopify, it's so much easier. Like the fishing brand that I own is based off of Shopify. Yeah.

Basically, after you put the photos in the description and the price in there, it's pretty easy to open up an online store. Yeah. I mean, it's easy. I mean, pro wrestling T's is successful because the wrestlers are the ones that are promoting their stores, right? So I don't pay anything. I don't have any advertising dollars. I don't spend any money on advertising for pro wrestling T's T's.

The wrestlers promote their stuff. Every single wrestler has a social media following. It's got to be like a billion followers total. So these guys are pushing their stuff. So the more you promote, the more you're going to sell. Yeah. Well, I'd like to think that pro wrestling tees is such a big success because you're the brains behind this. You are the merch mogul. Maybe, maybe. I like to end every interview by, I always say, be great, be grateful. It's actually a shirt that I have at pro wrestlingtees.com slash Chris Van Vlead. But I end every interview by asking you, what are three things that you're grateful for right now? that I'm grateful for, my family, my employees and staff here at the store and the wrestlers that have

trusted me to create their merchandise and sell it all over the world. Well, thank you for trusting me with this interview. You don't do many interviews at all. So thank you. I appreciate you taking the time out of your crazy, busy day. It's my second interview ever, I think. Wow, it's Jericho and me? Yeah, that's it.

Well, I appreciate it. We were planning to do this a long time ago in person. That's obviously not possible right now, but I look forward to seeing you in person again, whenever that might be. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me. No, and this was so amazing getting this insight into not just pro wrestling teas, but into you and how you build this thing. I mean, if anybody's watching wants to see a little more about the store, pwtmovie.com.

We put together like a 30-minute documentary about how we started in the store and the staff and the wrestlers. It's cool to watch. Yeah, I've seen it. It's amazing. I highly recommend it. Ryan Barkin. Thank you again, my friend. Thank you. Talk to you soon. What an incredible story of just taking the germ of an idea and turning it

into an empire. And, you know, the amazing thing about pro wrestling tease is they just keep getting bigger and bigger every single year. And, you know, this time that we're living in right now, it's so possible to build a massive company using just this amazing tool that we have called the internet. And the amazing thing is anyone can do it. Ryan is no different than the rest of us. It's just he went after it. He had a dream and he went after it. Take a screenshot. Share this with someone who you know will love this. Tag us both. I'm at Chris Fiv. Am Vliet and Pro Wrestling Tees is at Pro Wrestling T's on Instagram

and at PWT's on Twitter. The late Steve Jobs famously said your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life. It's so true and I think Ryan is a shining example

of that. Also how interesting was it hearing what the most popular t-shirts were of the year? Orange Cassidy at number one and two and then Christian Jericho, Ryan said, is just like untouchable. He's the best-selling wrestler by far on the website. I thought that was so interesting as we dove into a little bit, a little bit of that stuff.

Hope you enjoyed this conversation. I hope that it makes you view pro wrestling teas in just maybe a little bit of a different way. I hope it makes you appreciate everything that they've done and everything that they've built. Be great. Be great for my friends. Have a great week. And we will see you on the next one. Jim Rome takes on sports.

Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it. Get up in here.

The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.