Why I Would Never Launch a Brand Today

When people ask me what advice I’d give for starting a brand, I almost always say “Don’t”. Not to be some pessimistic cynic, but if I’m being totally honest, it’s a fucking brutal industry and it’s 100 times harder today than it was when I started Sporty & Rich over 10 years ago. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I started it when I did, because I’m not so sure we’d have the same success if we launched today. Don't get me wrong, if having a brand is something you whole-heartedly want to do, this isn’t meant to deter you from chasing your dreams. Surely it’s not impossible to start one, and there are new brands popping up everyday. But when I reflect on the past decade of S&R, I’m disheartened by how different things are now, and how the industry in general isn’t built to foster creatives and how the algorithm has made it next to impossible to succeed unless you have a strong financial backing and even then, it isn’t always enough. I also think that people are starting brands for the wrong reasons, and it shows.

When I first launched S&R, it was never my intention to become rich off of it or to secure some sort of “clout”. I started it because I loved researching references and world building. I loved the imagery aspect of brands and thought why not make products that fit into those images. I loved learning Adobe Illustrator, and doing tech packs, meeting with buyers, researching references, directing the campaigns, studying color combinations and old graphics, etc. And because of that, it never felt like work. Now, it feels that for some people, starting a brand is a means to an end. That shit is so lame.

Half of the time when I see who the founders are of some of these brands I’m like SORRY WHAT??? A random tech bro or two who saw something that worked and decided they’d hop on to the trend for nothing other than turning a profit. Trust fund babies who never had an original thought in their entire lives and a resume of multiple failed companies. What really kills me though is when they try and copy everything we do. Since I don’t have unlimited ressources and money to dump into our growth, these loser copy cats are actually able to steal our market share and take business directly away from us because they’re able to dump a lot more money into everything they do. Makes it impossible for us to compete and what irks me most is that they’re not just copying a product or an idea, surely we’re not the first ones who thought of slapping a logo onto a sweatshirt. But when they copy our overall identity, our casting, our styling, our photographers, locations, references etc- it starts to feel weird. Yes I’m talking about Adanola, the lamest fucking brand on the planet. I could throw up just thinking about that “brand”. When I realize it’s these types of brands we’re competing with I wanna just quit and be done with the industry forever.

Ok ok I digress.

Something else I really miss about those days is that there was an element of discovery when people were looking for new brands. You found things organically— you either saw someone wearing it and thought it looked cool or saw it somewhere on the internet but not because of an ad or sponsored post or Get Ready With me TikTok. I cringe at the thought of all the sponsored content out there in the world, but also have to accept the fact that it’s a necessary evil in this business. I can’t hate on it, because now our brand relies on it in someways. We’ve never paid anyone to wear the brand but we do run ads— it’s truly impossible not to in 2026 if you wanna make a dime. But for the first seven or eight years, paid ads never even crossed our mind, because people were coming to us. Now, it’s all we see. And good luck getting anyone to see your product unless you’re paying for them to. This is also why it’s so much more expensive to launch a brand now. I started S&R with I don’t know, like… $2000? I paid to get a few samples made, paid a model and photographer and that was pretty much it. I built the website myself and handled the rest. Now? Good fucking luck getting anything done for less than $20k. And what young, creative person has that kind of money just laying around to throw at an idea?

In 2014 when I first came up with S&R, it was well past the tumblr and blog era, but Instagram was at its peak. I transitioned from tumblr to Instagram and called the page Sporty & Rich, never thinking I’d end up turning it into a brand someday. It was a place to archive and document things I saw and liked. I loved doing image research for fun, and spending hours scouring the internet for old photos and buying magazines off eBay was my hobby. Now, every other page is a “mood board” and images like the ones I’d spent hours discovering are reposted every other second. I think about all the effort and energy that goes into finding references and doing research, and I think it’s a lost art form. I started my blog and the mood board page because I thoroughly enjoyed the tedious work of sifting through hundreds of images only to find a few that could be useful. Now, everything is quick and no one wants to put that kind of time or effort into anything (I’m speaking generally here so calm down if that’s not you). I sometimes wonder, do people really love doing this as much as I do? Or do they just love the result? If I’ve learned anything about happiness, it’s that the journey is really the only thing that matters. Because once you reach your end goal, the high is over and you’re left with the fleeting feelings of success.

A decade ago, you didn’t need notoriety to start a brand. In fact, the coolest brands were historically founded by anonymous, mysterious creatives who loathed the spotlight and wouldn’t post a photo of themselves if their life depended on it. Now, unless you have a large following or are a celebrity yourself, launching a brand is that much harder. How could it not be when you’re competing with someone who has hundreds of millions of followers? When I launched S&R, I had a sizable following, maybe 30-40K on my personal at most? It wasn’t nothing and it definitely helped fuel Sporty & Rich, but I do believe that the identity and concept of the brand was strong enough to stand alone and would’ve succeeded with or without my following at the time. Now, the S&R Instagram account has far surpassed my personal in terms of follower count and I’m sure that 80% of the people who buy the brand have no idea who I am. And I love that so much. Today, it’s almost like you have to launch a brand if you’re famous and have a following. Not because you’re passionate about a product, but because you want to capitalize off of yourself while you can.

And quite possibly the biggest change of all is the algorithm. We’re being fed content based on who pays to get it in front of you or whoever posts the most. I can’t stress enough how much this has altered the concept of why Instagram was created in the first place. What was started as a way for like-minded people to share personal photos with their community has turned into a machine ruled by an algorithm that favors paid content above anything else. Now, I don’t see things I want to see. And instead of finding inspiration, I’m being sold stuff I don’t need from people I don’t care about.

I probably sound like a disillusioned, jaded hater, but fuck it. I miss how it was and always will. I still love what I do, but the golden era of brands is over.