Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Cobb.
Please kick things off for us with some background on the story.
BRUH. firstly is “a state of mind” and second it’s our brand. We’re a new skate/surf/snow brand, started up by myself and my brother (Daniel 22 professional kiteboarder and instructor, and Nick 16). We grew up learning action sports; wakeboarding, snowboarding, skateboarding, kiteboarding, etc. and we wanted to promote the same stoke we have for these sports. We decided to start a brand that can do that. We like to use the word “bruh” in a lot of ways when doing these sports, as many do. When you see a major wipeout, the first thing that comes to our mind is “bruh”, so we thought, why not trademark it? So we did.
Throughout my life (Daniel’s life), I have always loved board sports, art, music, and this community of like-minded people. I always had a dream of being a professional athlete, or somehow being involved in the action sports community.
I grew up in a small town in Michigan, but we had lakes to go wakeboarding, hills to snowboard, and decent streets to skateboard on. I wanted to do it all. In high school, about five years ago, I had an idea to start a business that would incorporate all of these sports, but this was just a dream in my head.
By my junior year in 2014, I started thinking of ideas, and one day I was with some friends and we kept using the word “bruh”, and it stood out to me. Whenever we see someone get wrecked on a skateboard or pretty much anything, one of our initial reactions is just, “bruh”. So I applied to trademark the word, and start building this brand that would own this “state of mind”. By 2015 “BRUH.” was officially registered and trademarked under my name. I didn’t know where to start or exactly what to do, I just knew how to make a logo and a t-shirt.
After graduating high school, I decided I wanted to go to art school so that I could help my brand or possibly use my degree to get a job in the advertising world. In 2015 I moved to Atlanta, GA where I attended SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). This is basically where the roots of BRUH. were created. Pretty much every class project I had worked on had something to do with BRUH. Which, honestly really worked out in my favor, and helped BRUH. get some growth within my community there. I then decided to buy the domain name “bruhatlanta.com” because I wanted my brand to have its voice in Atlanta, and to flourish there at some point.
Long story short within the four years I lived in Georgia, I moved back and forth between Atlanta, Savannah, and even Australia (as I am a professional kiteboard instructor). I just came back to Michigan after graduating from SCAD and building the crap out of my brand, so it can become this generation’s next big board sports and lifestyle brand!
BRUH has made its way around the world a little bit and still has a long way to go, but the roots of BRUH. will always be in Atlanta, and I plan to open a shop there eventually.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No, it has not been at all. Starting it in high school was very difficult because I didn’t understand a whole lot. I had so many big ideas, but had no idea how to execute them, nor did I have the funds to do so.
Now that I am a bit older, I understand a little more and have done plenty of study and research along the way. The hardest thing about having a business like this is that it can be very competitive unless you are more than just a t-shirt company. And when you are starting off, you don’t really have the funds to produce the more advanced gear and products that you would want to make.
Another big struggle is finding manufacturers for your products and understanding how to price the products. Making a profit and having decent margins is a huge pain in the ***. Sometimes you just want to give everything away because you want people to actually wear or use your stuff lol.
I technically didn’t officially launch my brand until early July this year, but it has been in the process since 2014, and it has been an extremely long process. Going to art school also made it difficult to manage my business, because school was always so intense I never had time to really give it 100%. I was pulling all-nighters weekly throughout the last four years, just to maintain everything.
Though the struggle is real, I would say it has been so worth it. Even after five years, I still have no doubt that this brand is and will be what I have always dreamed of and more.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
BRUH. is known for its logo and expressionless face that you see, and the fact that we actually trademarked the word “bruh”. We specialize in apparel, skateboards, kiteboards, wakeboards, and snowboards at the moment.
A few things that I would be most proud of is some of the content we have recently released and some unreleased stuff that will be coming out in the coming seasons that are either in R&D or in production. We have snowboards coming this winter season and some really sick outerwear that will freshen you up on the slopes.
More tailored for Atlanta, especially with Terminus Wake Park being so close. We have a specialty wakeboard coming out next season that has been in R&D for a long time now that is going to be the gnarliest board on the market. This board will be title “the tri-hard”. (sorry we can’t disclose any more info than that at the moment 🙂
We haven’t outsourced a single thing within our brand besides the manufacturing, everything has been built by me and my brother from the ground up. A big thing for us though is collaboration, and we are huge fans of the artist community. We are continuously looking for artists who want to collaborate with us and create something sick. We have been wanting to feature local artists on our skateboards within Atlanta, so if there is anyone who wants to hop on, hit us up!
What were you like growing up?
Oddly enough, I was not a risk-taker growing up. I was fat, not cool, and honestly too scared to do a lot of things. I was always a musician at heart (I was trained classically on the piano) and had dreams of doing something cool one day, but at the time, none of that seemed really possible. By the time I was 13, I was like “bruh” what am I doing with my life? I’m doing awful in school, I got diagnosed with ADD, I let my older sister always beat me up. Who am I? lol At this point I had a turning point, I already knew how to wakeboard, snowboard, skateboard a little bit, etc. But I was always a pansy, so I decided I wanted to overcome all of those fears and take some risks.
I started taking on a ton of hobbies, I learned all sorts of things. I became a music producer, a video editor, a graphic designer, a website builder, a football player, an actual wakeboarder, snowboarder, etc. Things were no longer absolutely terrifying or impossible to take on. I wanted to do everything, so I did haha. When I was younger, no one would have ever assumed I was an extrovert or an ENFP (my dad was truly concerned for me) I am basically an entirely new person now. Someone who, honestly I had to work hard to become. This was a “bruh moment” for me.
Pricing:
- Cop one of our skateboards from $45-50
- Full Send hoodie – $50
- dad hats are rad – $25
Contact Info:
- Website: bruhshop.com
- Phone: 248-860-5918
- Email: yo@bruhshop.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chiefbruh/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BRUHShop/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/chiefbruh
Image Credit:
Kendall Cobb
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