Happy eight year anniversary! Another year goes by running this brand full-time. I'm writing this years blog in our new house that was built off of the sales that SSSC has made us. Now, our family has enough room for both kids and a full-size workspace for me to store all the inventory. This year felt busier than usual, with all the work to sell our old house and build our new one. We had similar growth month over month, product variety, more significant collaborations, and 33 more shows stateside with our new full-timer Jared Arner. Even with the state of the economy, we found ways to grow around that and overcome new obstacles. So much has happened this year, so I'll have to break it up month by month again.
December - FW23 collection, Errors collaboration, Boxing Day sale
January - Necklaces, Ovrdue collaboration, brand ambassador program
February - Malice collaboration, Marco collaboration, Sun Peaks, Valentine's Day sale
March - Spokane, rugs, 420 sales, sell old house, Slammedenuff [Destin, FL]
April - Shorts, Jared full time, Riverside [Chattanooga, TN], Slammedenuff [Nashville, TN]
May - Summer drop, baseball jersey, Driven [Calgary, AB], Get Low [Greenville, SC], Freshenuff [Townsend, NJ]
June - New house build, Flawed collaboration, Malice collaboration, Driven [Edmonton, AB], Tuner Evo [Virginia Beach, VA]
July - SS/24 collection, floor mats, Motocompacto, Matsuri [Calgary, AB], Low N Clean [Scottsdale, AZ], Slammedenuff [Chicago, IL]
August - Grandpa passes away, The Kickback [McHenry, MD], Tunerspirit [Calgary, AB], Slammedenuff [New York, NY]
September - Gatlinburg prep, Steering wheel restock, Tunerbash [Calgary, AB]
October - FW24 collection, Slammedenuff [Gatlinburg, TN], Slammedenuff [Concord, NC]
November - BFCM sale, Chicago, Seattle
To start the business year in December, we worked on our new collection with Errors. With both of us being Canadian, we like collaborating every couple of months as a Canada-only collab. In January, we released 4 necklace designs, which had been in the works for a few months. I love trying out new products and they ended up selling great. We released a brand ambassador program to try and grow the marketing side of the brand, with more people becoming hands-on with where they are located. I took a quick ski trip to British Columbia to recharge in February. I always start to feel burnt out around this time of year due to being inside all of the time due to the cold weather and no local car shows. We boothed Destin, FL, and Chattanooga, TN, for our first two shows of 2024 and released a small summer collection. Cameo and I took a quick trip to Spokane, WA, to buy some stuff for the new house and for a mini vacation. In April, I hired a new full-timer named Jared to continue doing all the shows for us along the East Coast, with him being from Philadelphia. We got him a new booth set up and sent him off to as many shows as he could fit into his schedule. We got our old house ready to sell and had a weekend of it being a show home. It ended up selling for over asking in 2 days on the market. We boothed our first local show in May since the weather started to get nice out again. I bought a Honda Motocompacto to be a booth car for all of our shows; definitely a good investment. May and June are when the show season starts to pick up, so Jared and our USA staff were back up and running at full force.
On June 1st, we took possession of our new house. This was being built for 9 months since last August according to our custom specifications. It was surreal to see it come to life after designing the blueprints the year prior. After selling our first house, we moved over the profit to the new one and finally had the room for everything we wanted. 2,700 sqft, 4 bed, 3 bath, 3 story, and a full basement for me to work out of. Now Violet and Everly have their own bedrooms, and I didn't have to store merch in 5 different places in the house. It's crazy looking around right now and thinking back to when I started all of this in my parent's basement and then crammed everything into our townhouse for 6 years. This turned our summer busier outside of SSSC, as we were unpacking and buying new things for the house. In August, my grandpa passed away at the age of 89. It was a tough time for our family and me, but knowing that without him coming to Canada back in the day, I would not have the life I live today. I will forever be grateful for that. After taking a few weeks off for family, I started preparing for Gatlinburg to ensure everything would arrive on time and run smoothly. By the end of August, everything was ready for our biggest show of the year.
Being our fourth year attending Slammedenuff Gatlinburg, I had everything ready and done well in advance. We booked the 30-person cabin in Pigeon Forge, created the show exclusive design, and another collaboration design with Battlegang. We then packed 20 boxes with all the small goods and accessories to be sent down. 300 shirts and 150 hoodies were printed and sent down from our supplier for the show. We then took 4 check-in suitcases and brought in an extra 2000 stickers and some Canadian candy to sell at the booth. Our cabin had members from Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, New Jersey, and Canada. This was our first year doing a 20x10 booth and having eight tables for our merchandise. The show had cars from Ontario, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, California, and Ohio. We sold out of our Gatlinburg exclusive design in 4 hours as I was kicking myself for not making double the amount we brought. We brought 400 show-exclusive stickers and gave them all out in a few hours. We had 8 people running around at the booth talking to people, getting sizes, working the card machine, taking in cash, or grabbing an item from the back. It was nice talking to vendors and brands we've collaborated with over the years and seeing new and old friends from last year for a quick chat or photo. Our friend Nick filmed an after-movie for us the entire weekend, so we did a couple of interviews with him for the movie to finish it. I've always wanted a documentary-style video for the Gatlinburg weekend, so I'm finally excited to have one for this year. It was a lot to reflect on, thinking that in 2021, we only had 30 shirts for the show, and now we just sold out of 450 in 4 hours. We then finally returned home to Calgary after 8 hours of flying. The trip always feels like a fever dream, being long and short at the same time since we barely got any sleep all weekend.
After Gatlinburg, we returned home and had our friend's wedding, Violet and Everly's birthday parties, and our FW24 winter collection, making October fly by. Our USA staff finished off the year with Concord, SC. The Black Friday sale went crazy; I couldn't leave the house the entire weekend. 30% off site-wide for our biggest sale of the year, so you know people would take advantage. We then took 2 quick trips to Chicago and Vancouver/ Seattle in November. It was nice to get out and travel again now that the kids are older.
Overall, 2024 was another great year. I say this every year, but each year, you keep on growing and becoming a better version of who you once were. Bigger skill sets, more efficiency, and faster and better time management are a few things I've improved on this year. We watched Violet grow into her own little person; Everly grew a whole year older and moved into our dream house that we custom-designed from top to bottom. We had consistent online orders and purchase invoices for the 3 shopping mall locations. We met our new and old staff and closest supporters in Gatlinburg, again making sure to have the time of our lives together for a weekend. Various new and unique accessories were sold this year, including necklaces, sunglasses, and jerseys, to name a few of our favorites. Making new products that you would never think we would do is half the fun of being in this industry. 15,000 orders, 2 retail locations, 26 countries, 43 vendor booths, 35 tattoos, and countless friends worldwide. I have no idea what's in store for 2025, but I can't wait. The hard work over the past 8 years has finally paid off. It's crazy to think the brand went from a hobby to a full-time business to fully supporting the four of us and everything we do. Maybe we'll have an actual warehouse in the next few years, but who knows. Thank you for sticking along and supporting me these past 8 years. I started this as a kid with an idea, and now I'm an adult with two kids. Every one of you has made a difference in our lives; I would not be where I am without all of you and your continued support. Thank you for letting me live a movie of a life. From our family to yours, thank you. 2016- forever.
- Brandon Yuen
Anniversary - Eight Year