We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicole Tatum a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Nicole, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I was on the journey of becoming a barber in 2016-2017. My clients knew me as Cole The Barber! In 2018, I designed my first T-shirt: “Hustle Hard, Stay Humble.”
At this moment, I didn’t have a brand name but the launch was successful with the support of friends and family. After that, I decided to kick-start a brand with no blueprint.
Fashion has always been a passion so I was willing to do whatever it took to learn the ins and out of this industry. It was countless hours of learning, watching videos, and actually implementing the skills I had learned. In April 2019, CTB Clothing Co. launched its first collection. CTB stands for chase the bag and our brand motto is your bag contains goals, dreams, and money We started with an e-commerce store plus social media accounts.
We started building our online presence. It was time to let the community know our message so we started doing pop-up shops in Raleigh Area in 2020. Our community started to grow more locally so we started to become a business vendor in-store with local retail stores in the area.
This year we have been doing pop-ups in Greensboro, Charolette, and outside of NC to gain more awareness.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
My name is Nicole Tatum born and raised in Greensboro, NC. I’m the designer & owner of CTB Clothing Co. I started this brand in Raleigh, NC April 2019. I have always had a passion for fashion, and I wore clothes from brands like Stussy, Diamond Supply, DGK, & Zara. I had family members that had Cricut machines and were crafters. At first, I would sit in and watch them work until I decided to design my first T-Shirt. I borrowed equipment to get started before I could reinvest into our equipment.
CTB Clothing Co. LLC is a retail company that offers unisex premium urban wear to the community with uplifting vibrations.
We’re not only a lifestyle clothing brand. It’s a mentality! CTB stands for “Chase The Bag” and our motto is your bag doesn’t have to be filled with just money. It can also contain any dreams or goals you are working towards in life.
Enjoy 15% off your purchase by using code REBEL15 at checkout.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
We currently sell on our own website and I feel like it is more of a personal connection with your customer being able to browse your custom E-commerce store versus buying your product through platforms like Amazon or Etsy. You have your own custom domain which makes your online store presence more professional. You can collect more data about your target audience plus details about the traffic coming to your website. Every platform has different processing fees and monthly memberships to sell your products. We use square and this allows us to have a POS system for our pop-up shops.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Our best source of gaining new customers is by doing free giveaways on social media and local pop-up shops. The giveaway attracts new followers to your account by your existing fans tagging friends to enter. Pop-up shops are a great way to get into the community and share your message with people so they can support our movement. We give them a promo code for following at the events.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ctbclothingco.com/s/shop
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ctbclothingco_llc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ctbclothingco
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ctbclothingco
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ctbclothingco
- Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ctbclothingco
Image Credits
@cole_t03, @24dubb, @jtabron2, @officialsmokee, & @t_man_94