Happy Monday! This is our fourth FREE GAME newsletter! In today’s edition, you will find highlights including creator founder brands, the Shoe Surgeon vs Nike, Supreme being sold (again), and more! Scroll to the bottom for the all the FREE GAME!

How The Bent Lee Brothers all Built Six-Figure Brands with YouTube

Creator Founders is the new marketing playbook for 2024. 

Quan, Caprice, and Trikko are all building Multi-Million Dollar empires from this method so what does being a “Creator Founder” mean?

In short, you’re building a personal brand to promote the company. This works because of one thing: People buy from People they Trust

3 brothers: Levi, Jet, and Kai Bent-Lee understood this rule and are now making over six figures with their clothing brands (Peep them @ Trinity the Label ✚, Mewt ✧ , Strawberry Brand 🍓)

So how did they do this? It was all through YouTube where they grew their total subscribers to over 714,000 all through individual channels on lifestyle and fashion. Read on for the free game….

This method works because of two reasons:

1. World Building: They built a digital world around the Bent Lee family allowing the fans to watch multiple characters and perspectives of their life (think Kai Cenat with AMP or KSI with the Sidemen)

2. Relationship Building: YouTube is how you build real businesses. Going viral on TikTok can make quick money but long-form video helps you build authentic relationships with your audience since they’re more invested in you as a person and the projects you work on.

$60M Nike Lawsuit vs. The Shoe Surgeon

Nike is suing Dominic Ciambrone aka. the Shoe Surgeon for $60 million dollars 💀

If you don’t know who he is, he’s basically the Willy Wonka of the custom sneaker game making one-of-ones for people like Lebron James, Luka Doncic, and Mark Cuban. 

So why the f*ck is he getting sued for so much damn money? He allegedly got greedy. 

$1,500 for some DUNKS and 15 bands for Jordan 1 samples is crazyyyy (the textured leather goes hard though)

Instead of sticking to one-off customs he tried to sell his shoes to the masses with names/looks that resembled Nike silhouettes like the Air Force 1’s  and Air Jordan’s (1, 3, and 4).

In a convo with Complex, Nike stressed that it became a real issue when he started a larger-scale production of sneakers “inspired” by Nike's:

“Nike is seeking compensation for the damages of "over 30 Nike trademarks, totaling over $60 million dollars, or the profits the defendant generated from counterfeiting, trebled, along with attorneys’ fees."

At the end of the day, Nike is trying to protect their brand but did they f*ck up with their approach? The Shoe Surgeon even gave a talk at Jordan Brand’s store back in 2017.

The Fall Off of Supreme: Losing $600Ms in 4 years 

When’s the last time you heard anyone say ANYTHING about  Supreme? After they went corporate & sold for 2.1 Billion in 2020 it feels like they went dead silent. 

Since then, they’ve actually been sold off (again) to EssilorLuxottica for a $600 million loss after 4 years.

The fall off of Supreme needed to be studied so our guys at Superline did exactly that. From what we saw it’s clear that it started when they decided to bring suits (investors) to the mix…

Supreme was always for the community. From the hundreds of people in line all night for drops to having the sickest skaters & personalities in their skate team (Tyshawn Jones, Mark Gonzales, Kader Sylla) everything about Supreme felt raw and real. 

This culture was built by doing everything that was anti-corporate like producing less products than the market demanded. But all of this changed when they brought on investors who only cared about the bottom-line a.k.a. more money in the bank.

Here’s where they may have went wrong:

1. Growing retail locations too fast (opening stores in Milan, Chicago, and Berlin) 

2. Supply Chain (pandemic ruined global supply chain making the weekly drop model impossible to execute, decreasing 33% in inventory)

3. Not doing what made Supreme, Supreme

   1. Focusing on the culture > profits is what grew Supreme’s brand equity to where it was. After the suits came in, everything became about expansion & going global. 

Brands Doing Content Right: How Derschutze grew to 383,000 followers 

How did this clothing brand Derschutze grow a following of 383,000 all through posting a couple of Reels?

This brand has been flooding everyone’s For You page so we want to give y’all practical advice on what to learn from their content…

Here are three of their top performing reels and our analysis on what they did right: 

This video got 1.5 Million Views:

The combination of the unique audio, visuals, and slow-mo automatically catches an audience’s attention. The caption “Introducing…” keeps you watching.

Derschutze took advantage of a Macro Trend which was the virality of the Netflix Series Money Heist which is the 2nd most watched Netflix show (>108M views) globally. 

This video got 1.4 Million Views:

Controversy Sells. The caption “cmon, don’t bring religion into streetwear” farms engagement since it’s a controversial topic in streetwear. This leads to tons of hate comments. 

For the Instagram algorithm the secret is that more comments (good or bad) = more views. Learn more here

This video got 619k Views:

These voiceovers are absolutely popping for other brands like Trikko. Derschutze created what’s called a “Signature Style” which makes their reels easily recognizable and Shocks the Audience since it’s unique. Derschutze focuses on providing comedic and entertainment value through their reels since more views equates to more potential sales.

If you’re interested, we’ll be at this Alibaba Event giving FREE GAME on how we incorporated social media to grow our business. For 50% off your attendance, use the code SUPERLINE