#342: Ryan Bartlett of True Classic, on Growing Revenue to $150M in 3 Years, Comedy as an Intentional Marketing Tool, and Lessons for Successfully Scaling Manufacturing and Hiring

Ryan Bartlett is the Co-Founder and CEO of True Classic, a D2C men’s clothing brand that has grown from $0 to $150M in revenue in just a few years. At True Classic, they understand that not every body is shaped the same. That’s where they come in, making premium, high-quality, everyday essentials for every type of person, with no gimmicks.

Their goal with this company has always revolved around over-indexing on the value they give to their customers and communities. This means best in class customer service, entertaining ads that make you laugh, products that are intentionally designed to help you look better, and donating shirts at scale (40k+/month) to help homeless vets, shelters, schools, and other communities in need.

• What True Classic is doing today
• Ryan’s background, True Classic’s origin story, and getting the business off the ground
• What differentiates True Classic and how Ryan thought about their market positioning
• Early manufacturing decisions and product development
• How Ryan approached early marketing
• The power Facebook marketing and how their changes in privacy policy have impacted companies
• How they became more intentional with their marketing by creating comedic video ads
• What enabled them to scale to $150M in revenue in 3 years
• Agencies vs. in-house marketing
• The benefits and dangers of moving at warp speed
• Lessons learned for successfully scaling manufacturing
• Developing their intentional hiring strategy
• Launching internationally
• Ryan’s big vision for True Classic
• The mission and impact aspect of True Classic

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