We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Taurus & Brie Teel – Williams a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Taurus & Brie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Got Drip 4 Sale!!! I Got It! Do You? That’s how it all went down in February of 2019, kicked back in our bed vibing off Plies hit song “Got Drip 4 Sale”. Y’all! We knew we was on to something, Brie immediately pulled out her pad and sketched the original Got Drip Inc. logo. That’s it! That’s the design! Taurus said, however, we knew we needed to separate our drip from everyone else’s to change the perception of the word drip.

The next day we made a status on Facebook asking people for their thoughts on the word drip. The responses were crazy, we had people commenting things you wouldn’t even imagine. Nevertheless, there was one comment that stood out to us suggesting an acronym. We ran with that idea and turned drip into Dope. Rea. Intellectual. People… then splash, Got Drip Inc. was born.

Y’all don’t know how crunk we was JUST to take the word drip and turn it into something positive. We mean something that could potentially inspire, connect, and influence other Dope. Real. Intellectual. People through fashionable street wear. Once we got our Mission Statement and Why behind our brand, the next step was getting our logo into a physical form.
We had to figure out a way to get our image vectorized to be converted into stickers. We researched sticker companies that could produce quality stickers and accessories as a brand marketing tool. The following month we created business pages on social media platforms in order to get the attention of our target audience.

After setting up our Facebook and Instagram pages, we Googled local print shops in our city that could produce quality clothing. After searching for awhile, we finally found a print shop and purchased 10 promotional shirts to pass out and let everybody know Got Drip Inc. Coming Soon!

We posted pictures of the shirts, stickers, and accessories for content, although we didnt have the acronym incorporated with the promo tee’s, we made sure the next drop would include the acronym. We followed up that order with 50 shirts in 3 colorways, and that move sparked our first drop of limited pieces of quality product.

Realizing we didn’t have to produce hundreds of shirts at a time, but quality drops of limited pieces made from outsourcing overseas manufacturers. Going through the manufacturing process, we had to learn about mocks, fabric types, cost of goods and different types of printing, leading us to learning more about our products and services.

As we continue to follow our path, we had to become self aware and realize what works best for us and our brand. Remembering that the ideas are what brought us where we are today, and the ideas that are being created in this moment is the vision for our future.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Brie and I were led into this industry from years of experience working at some of the top clothing and shoe stores in the retail busines, such as Ross Stores Inc. Footlocker, Footaction, and Target, just to name a few. Being in the retail industry helped us get an idea of how a retail store is operated, and how customer service is a top priority. Going into our business, we knew that we would provide top priority customer service, which is something a lot of businesses are lacking these day’s. Honestly speaking, we always knew that we wanted to create t-shirts, but not just any t-shirt, more like thought provoking tee’s with a message. When we created this brand, even down to the logo and creative process, everything was designed to have a meaning, a reason and a purpose. The purpose was to create a brand that will Inspire, Connect, and Influence Dope. Real. Intellectual. People. to be just that! We understand that our brand may not be for everybody, because everyone don’t have Drip, but to the one’s who do, this brand is the one for you. Got Drip Inc. invites you to be part of our great customer service, quality apparel, accessories, and limited drops. We are mostly proud of the fact that we even had the confidence to start a business, while also being able to inspire and encourage other’s to become entrepreneurs as well. We don’t want people to only support the brand solely because of the design, the main goal is to get people to buy into our mission statement and why behind the brand.

How’d you meet your business partner?

The story of how Brie and I met is one we can remember vividly. It was the beginning of the new year in January of 2011. The setting was at the AMF Bowling Alley, in Garland TX. Now keep in mind that Brie and I meeting that night was not planned, but earlier that day, some friend’s and family just decided to go bowling. My crew and I had been there for awhile before Brie, her friend’s and a few co-workers had arrived that night. The night was going great, we was having a good game until I looked up after grabbing a bowling ball to roll my turn. All I seen was this woman in her work uniform, but what stood out to me the most was how good I thought she looked, and me being shy, I asked my friend if we can play the shy brother game. He was always cool with playing the shy brother game because he was far from being shy, so he obliged. I was sweating bullets when I noticed Brie and her friends and co-workers had a lane right next to ours. As my friend approached Brie to deliver my message, I couldn’t hear what he was saying or what she had said to him but whatever it was had me thinking the worse. He came back and said, “then he need to come talk to me,” I can’t lie, I was hyped, so I went over to where she was and we talked and exchanged numbers. Come to find out we lived up the street from one another, which was great. We started dating and have been together every since. In 2019 we decided to become business partners, me being into business and Brie being a creative designer is the perfect balance.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One lesson we had to unlearn was to stop telling people our dreams, goal’s, and visions to small minded individuals. We noticed that when we would tell others our vision, they would blow it off as if our goal isn’t possible. People start to place their fears and self doubt on you because they feel as though they couldn’t accomplish their dreams so we couldn’t possibly do it. Honestly speaking, Albert Einstein said that “visions are the previews to life’s coming attraction.” And we totally agree. And if you agree then dream big, set big goals that most people would fail to accomplish, I mean that’s what we did, we had the idea of creating t-shirts with a positive message but it turned into us having a whole clothing brand. I guess what we are really saying is to do whatever you believe you can achieve, the possibility for success is endless as long as you put forth the effort, and time into learning your craft and perfecting it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: gotdripinc_
• Facebook: gotdripinc_
• Youtube: Got Drip Inc. Apparel and Accessories
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Taurus Williams & Brie Teel-Williams