YouSaid · the spoken record

Shep Murray

lines on the record: 61
first: 2026-04-27
most recent: 2026-04-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Truly being a family brand, so you know we value our team, we value our family and our friends and we wouldn't be here without them.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And one of the things that we talk about the future, and we started this talking about traveling with our mom and dad and the experiences that they afforded us, it's hard not to think about what it might be like to be one of my kids or one of chef's kids. And to know that basically anytime you get in the car to go somewhere, anytime you go on vacation, well, dad's going to be taking pictures of just about every store he sees. He's going to make us go to his store. He's going to talk to his team. He's going to do all this stuff. And it's funny. My kids are younger, but like, you know, my wife, the same thing. They're learning. They don't even realize it. But like, they know so much and they've been patient and supportive. You know, I think just like, you know, hopefully we were to our parents through the process. And I think that's another one of the things that we don't necessarily realize how impactful that is on us personally and the brand.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say being a part of a team, which is sort of what I would put the brand at. Gave me the courage in a lot of instances to do things I wouldn't do on my own, you know, to go up to somebody and make a sales pitch, to go introduce myself to somebody, to put myself out there. The brand has given me the courage to do that. As a result of that, it's created a lot of opportunity.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And, you know, we didn't touch on it too much, but our logo is a smiling pink whale. Our brand is fun. It makes people's lives better. They come to us for the best moments in their life. And to be a part of that. Something that you know, I don't think we can put a value on that.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know it's in any organization, it's very hard to have somebody come from the outside to lead and be successful. The success rate is not high But I think there was a disconnect. We're not a fashion brand. We're a brand brand. And so there's a big difference between fashion culture and brand culture. The other thing that I think was a disconnect was how important customers are. And how lucky we are to have customers, that it's a total privilege. You know, there's lots of choices. And the minute, and I think we did this, I think we lost sight of just how important customers were. We spent a lot of time with tons and tons of internal meetings and planning and stuff for each other. And a lot of theater that really didn't end up being customer facing. And I think the customer let us know.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right now, we definitely believe we've got opportunity for more stores in the States and beyond. But we also think, you know, in the short term, we've got a lot of opportunity within what we already have. And when you have more things, it's hard to make sure that all of them, you know, everyone is singing the same song at the same time on the same day. And so getting everybody to make the most of what they have is something that we focus on a lot.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really set you up for success. So we just really don't take anything for granted. And I think that Some of that may fall by the wayside once you get fat, you know, taking on some capital.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the things about taking on investors, there's two things. One, if you give an entrepreneur money, they're going to spend it. There's no doubt if somebody gives a bunch of money, we'd find a way to spend it. But when you don't give them any and they're hungry, you figure out a way to make it. And that has been really at the root of how we operate. Our best years have always been the years where we are chasing our tails to keep up with demand. I mean, that makes sense, right? To always, the one thing you can't really buy is customers wanting your product, right? The rest of the stuff you can always catch up. And the years that have been, the harder years are when we have too much inventory. We've sort of overshot the mark. So, you know, in a lot of ways, the disciplines that are required to operate a business self-funded.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the things we were reminded of by our customers is that people liked that we are from New England, that we're authentic, and that going to our store felt like you were going to a yacht club or going to something that you might not have in your local community. So when we opened in Memphis or we opened in Dallas or we opened in New Orleans. Didn't try to put like in Memphis guitars and Cadillacs like Elvis, we built a store that felt like you were in New England at a yacht club. And I think what we found is that there were like-minded people all over the place. Denver, Colorado and St. Louis and Chicago and everywhere”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was definitely that concern. But We also learned that is that better than getting stuck with this stuff and potentially having a slippery slope. So you use that tool. You don't lean on that tool, but it's there when needed”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“100 million. And at that point in time, we really could sort of hunker down or we could really, you know, Go for it because we saw a lot of opportunity. We saw real estate was sort of depressed. We saw that the workforce, there was, you know, getting a job was not as easy. So from our standpoint, that meant there was a lot of great talent available. And so we sort of revamped our management team at the time, say management loosely, but we sort of really put together our first sort of seasoned management team to complement the people who've been with us. It wasn't to replace them, but really to go alongside and mentor. And we signed a whole bunch of leases. We just went for it with the stores and we started to scale.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“2008 was interesting because the recession was starting to hit and things were getting tough to internally in our business. There was a lot of shifting going on. Our parents passed away just a few years earlier. We had some people on our team, the Shep and I didn't always agree with or agree on. So that was presented some issues. And the world was very uncertain. And we sort of were faced with, okay, what do we do here type of situation? I think our business is probably about. Around that time, I mean, I guess around 50, $60 million in sales”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Store. And so we opened a store in Greenwich, which we're still in that same location today. And there was a lot of excitement around it. People lined up overnight to sort of get in and be the first one in there. And then we opened, I think, four or five additional doors with them. And then a few years into working together, we started to see the beginnings of a recession. And they were spending a disproportionate amount of time helping us versus what they needed to focus on, which was their core. And so we came to agreement where we sorted back part of the business from them so that we owned the stores outright. But we have a lot of gratitude towards the Mitchell family because they helped us set up a foundation to grow from. And we're still close to this day.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they said, okay. And we said, you know, we realized we do quite a bit of business with you. We don't want to take the business from you. That was always an issue in all these places where we opened stores and said, look, what do you think we should do? And they said, you know, we agree. You guys have a great brand and you've got a lot of opportunity. And we think you should open stores. And we appreciate you reaching out to us. We know quite a bit about how to run stores and how to run them very well. What do you say we work together and we open the store together? And if it works out, we'll open some more stores together. And so they were very helpful. They helped us identify real estate. They also knew that we had a vision as to what we wanted the store experience to be like, what we wanted the product assortment to be like. And it was very different from their aesthetic and their store, which is more of a luxury, like high-end luxury specialty.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's a local store here in our town in Connecticut called Richards, which sold still in business, sells fantastic brands, men's and women. Done a nice business with them. They sold a ton of our ties and they were selling our other products as well. Remember calling them one day saying, look, we think that we should have our own store here in Connecticut.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We felt like it was the namesake and where we wanted to be. So that's why we did it. And yes. So incredibly busy for a very short period of time. And like any seasonal business, it's very challenging to go from zero to 100 back down to zero all within like a hundred days, which is basically what the season is up there”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We learned very quickly what we did not know about operating retail. So we thought to open a store, we need a store. We need a location. So we actually bought the building. I don't even know why we did it or why we thought we shouldn't rent a space, but we actually bought a building, a very small building in sort of an undesirable location. We also thought it would be smart to put a bunch of our very junior. I mean, we were pretty junior at the time, obviously, people who with no retail experience to operate the store. They were great. People loved them. It was super fun.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Part of it too was we were pretty confident that we could figure things out, we were good at that. Things we didn't know how to do, we knew we could figure out a way to do them. And so We found was we were wearing polo shirts, khaki shorts, flip flops, belts. Why are we buying these products from other people? Why don't we figure out a way to make them ourselves”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that being pitched an opportunity of what other people with experience saw potential in our brand has propelled a lot of different opportunities for us over the years, things that we didn't think of or we didn't know were possible or we simply just didn't know how to do. A lot of what we've done is being open to opportunities as they come our way.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We said nope, we don't want to do that. That's really not something that interests us. He said, okay, that's fine. And then he showed back up at our place like a month later. And he had just taken it upon himself to make some samples for us. And he put them in front of us of boxers. And we're like, oh, those look great. I bet we could sell a ton of those. So next thing you knew, we were making men's boxers in our prints”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think we were listening to our customers, and one thing that we're hearing a lot of was, and a lot of our customers were women who are buying gifts for their husbands. And they really wanted something for themselves. They had fallen in love with our aesthetic and our look and our prints specifically. And they really wanted something. And so we came up with the idea of doing a tote bag and lining the edge of the bag with our print. And that was another great product, like you said earlier, accessories are great because there's not much sizing and that type of thing. And somebody suggested to us somebody who was making some of the silk or something for us said, you know, really think that you guys would do well with your prints on men's boxers.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we got some great advice early on. He said, you know, guys, I really think you need to set a goal that you want to achieve in terms of how many annual sales and neckties you're going to do. Before you add another product category. And it was sort of hard to hear as an entrepreneur because we started to see lots of opportunity for our prints for other things. He said, I think it was $5 million. I think he said, you know, get your tie sales to $5 million if you can do that. If you can do that, layer on one more product. And so we're like $5 million. That's going to, is that ever going to happen? But it did. And that's how we went because losing focus is easy to do when you are an abstract thinker and you are an entrepreneur.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So for us at the time, it meant it's working with the ties, keep making ties, keep selling ties, don't take on more than you can do.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the things we learned very early on when we had the success was to stay focused, which is not easy for an entrepreneur to do”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the ties, I mean, just the cost of the tie itself, the physical tie, the components was probably somewhere around $12, $13, something like that. And we didn't realize it at the time, but it was a very high profit margin product. It also had quite a long runway in terms of apparel. It was less seasonal. Like we could make the same print. Fact, we still make the same print, some of the same prints we did 20 years ago. So the inventory lasted longer than typically for apparel. And it also took up a very small amount of retail space. You could hang a bunch of ties on a wall and it didn't take up much space. And there's also no sizing. So, all those things were great, and I wish we could say we went into it thinking this is a great industry to be in, but we just. Just got luck”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We did for sure. We had one guy who said we were very pedestrian. We had a lot of people say, you know, we're just not selling ties. And you're totally right. We had no experience in this industry. And, you know, a lot of brands were started by people who were in the industry, you know, and had an idea and they acted on it. So for us, what we had to do was to show them that we were eager to learn. And by spending time in their stores, like stocking their shelves, helping sell on the floor just by hanging out and learning through us mosis, we earned their respect. And with that respect came their willingness to give us a chance.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was both. It was a total luck of the draw, what we were going to find. But, you know, it's hard to like, I think we look back on it like as the most fun we never want to have again type of thing where, you know, the reality is, you know, you're standing in a parking lot on the side of the road, putting on your tie, putting on, you know, we were like salesmen, you know, going into a place in the pouring rain, you know, in the fall each day. It got colder and wetter and rainier. And each day there were more no. And like, I think we look back and say, you know, the nose motivated us and they did for sure. But they were hard, you know, because it was a very uncertain time. I think we always knew we could get another job if we needed to, but we didn't want to, you know, and so what we found was we didn't know the business and we needed to learn the business.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In an order form, and just send it to people just cold call. That was very uncomfortable calling people and trying to be a salesperson when you're really not.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was a hard thing to do to be totally honest. There are two ways we found out about good accounts. One was most of the customers we had on Martha's Vineyard didn't live there. They were visiting. So they would go back to wherever they lived. And any customer that we had met or knew somebody in different places, we'd ask them, do you know of a good outlet for us in your town? The other thing we would do is we would find sort of similar brands and we'd get their catalogs or whatever collateral we could find and we would check where are their products available because people would often list their wholesale accounts in the back of their catalog. So we would sort of retrace the steps of somewhat similar brands. And in terms of reaching out to them in advance, we did a lot of gifting of our product. It was a very easy thing to do. So we would just pop a couple ties and a little, you know, color Xerox catalog that we put together.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm so glad you asked. Let me tell you about what we're doing. And then next thing you know, they're rooting for us and they're a customer.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, right then and there, we saw wow, there is a way to amplify what we're doing and to do that for free if you're clever.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they said to me, and I was a total wise ass. They said, You know, what are you doing? I said, Well, my name's Ian, and I started a company just recently with my brother. It's called Vineyard Vines. And I heard that the president is wearing ties that young people give him. I wonder if he'd like one of ours. And that night, that little clip was on every major news network on the 630 news nationwide”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There is a picture of that tie in the New York Times. It wasn't a Vineyard vine's tie, had nothing to do with us. But we did know that the press headquarters was the Edward Town Elementary School, which is just, you know, a mile from where we were, and that every major network was there. And they were covering the Clintons on vacation in the middle of the scandal. But there was very little news. So Chef's like, I don't exactly know what's going on, but just go over to the Edgertown School. So here I am. I'm 23 years old, ride my bike over there. I throw a whole bunch of ties around my neck, and I just start walking around the parking lot saying, I've got Martha's Vineyard ties. I'm starting a business called Vineyard Vines. Who's interested in buying a tie? Who wants to see our ties? And the people started to interview me because they had nothing else to do. There was nobody there.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that summer, in addition to selling ties at the local stores, we always would keep our backpack with us in case we met somebody and we could just sort of tell them our story about what we were doing and we were selling ties pretty much everywhere. And I can remember Shepp called me. He was actually in New York. He called me and said, look, I don't know what's going on, but Clinton is all over the news right now. There's something going on with him testifying today. And apparently the paper broke the story that he's wearing a necktie that Monica Lewinsky gave him while he's testifying.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, what we found early on and the whole height of the casual workplace worked towards our advantage because people were no longer buying ties because they had to because they had to wear them every day. They were buying a tie because they were going to a wedding or a graduation or some sort of occasion. And so they were more thoughtful in their purchase. And what we found very early on is that our ties sort of said something about the person before they even opened their mouth. So whatever the motif was, our first ones were Martha's Vineyard. It said right away, I go to Know before you even said anything, and we found early on that with our products, people who wore our ties were part of a in the know group. We almost like created a tribe.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we also went to another couple stores and unbeknownst to us there was a store called Murray's on the Vineyard, which is no relationship, even though our last name is Murray. And they bought some ties, but they did something that we didn't anticipate. They also had a store in Nantucket. And going to the vineyard your whole life, you don't necessarily go to Nantucket or vice versa. Within the first couple weeks, they had taken half their inventory, particularly just the ones with the fish on them, and put them on their store in Nantucket. And what we found like almost immediately is that Nantucket was selling like 2x what we were selling on Martha's Vineyard.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. It was a crazy amount of money to us at the time. And still, and so I remember going across the street in San Diego. Mrs. Flieger just bought a couple thousand dollars worth of ties. We're not going to have to work anymore. Like literally like that. It was like I made more money in five minutes walking in that store.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Knew her a little bit, and I was a kid, and she said, you know, why not? And we had made like a little stand that could go on the counter. So we had thought of that in advance. Say, leave you a stand. I could sell you some, fully anticipating that we would leave them on consignment. We wanted them to go out to retail at $65. And we're going to wholesale them to stores at $30. And we had a little one-page sort of order for them. And she looked at me and she said, I'll take 180.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I rode my bike. I put on a pair of khaki shorts and a white shirt in one of our vineyard vines ties, a red tie with a street signs on it. And I went to a local mom and pop shop called the Fliegers. And I walked in there and I said, this is what we're doing. What do you think? It was a store that we had been customers at our whole life.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, once we had the ties, I remember I was up on Martha's Vineyard and went to a couple of local stores. And I showed them our product. Chep was still in New York because I had a few samples and he was waiting for the last batch of ties to be completed. And we didn't have any idea that stores bought things in advance. You know, I thought I could sell them to them on Friday and deliver them on Saturday.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we got all these things together, and we quit, I think we both gave notice on the same day towards the end of May. I remember Shepp called me. He said, I quit. I said, he's like, no, no, I did. I'm like, really? He's like, no, I quit. I said, okay, give me five minutes. And I went and I talked to my boss. And I quit too. And we joke about this, but we literally met on the bar car, had a couple of drinks, and went home kind of buzzed and had dinner with our parents and were like, oh, and by the way, we both quit our jobs today.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally scary, even as a young guy. And one of the we started to ramp up to sort of get ourselves excited for it. And we ramped up in sort of unusual ways. We were very concerned about health insurance and not having health insurance. So we actually got our wisdom teeth pulled on the same day, even though they didn't need to come out because we were covered.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We quit in May of'98, leading up to we had very much decided by, I would say, April that we were definitely going to quit our jobs. But again, it's very, even a job that you don't like. It's very hard to quit.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think at the time we would pay by the dozen. I think that's still how it works. And so a lot of it was they were the cut and sew factory. They had people who could hand sew the ties, which is a real skill. It's not something that just anybody could do. So we would deliver all the paid components to them. The only thing that they were getting paid for was actually assembling and sewing the tie together.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And once we got those, it was like a big secret. We were really scared somebody was gonna steal our idea. We knew that other people had, you know, other companies had better resources than we did. And so we thought that there wasn't any need to tell anybody much anything until we were ready to go to market.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That first run, right? So we screened the silk overseas, we bring it into New York. I can remember driving out to the JFK commercial terminal. and my flip-flops along all these semis and I'm in the back of my Jeep or whatever I was driving at the time and grabbing the silk and driving it to the manufacturer so we got enough to make 800 and I can tell you this that we didn't know this going into it but ties have very good profit margins And they have no sizing, and they take up very little space in retailers.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we finance the business with credit card, cash advance checks that we wrote to ourselves. So while we still had our incomes, we signed up for, we each signed up for like four or five different credit cards while we had credit.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, our prints have since gotten smaller, but they were small enough that they looked appropriate with a suit, particularly at the time.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, number two was the shape of the island with whales between them Number three was just a fish, a bluefish on it. And number four was a bluefish with like a four by four jeep, you know, like an oversand vehicle between them.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And all I could think about was these two's guys, Tom and Tom, who got to ride around their boat and meet cool people and enjoy their summer and make a business out of it. And then on a larger scale, you had people like Howard Schultz revolutionizing getting a cup of coffee at Starbucks, David Nealman at Jet Blue, Pike's Place Fish Market, where they made throwing fish fun. And we saw all this energy and excitement being put into products that were sort of overlooked. And that was the fuel to propel us.”
2026-04-27 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT