HAGS founder Tyler Batliner explains how HAGS Clothing grew from a simple university idea into a brand built around summer, sport, community and social media.
Could you briefly introduce yourself and HAGS Clothing and tell us how the idea for the brand first came about?
I’m Tyler Batliner, founder of HAGS Clothing and the creator behind TheRealTbat. I started HAGS while I was attending the University of Missouri.
The original idea came from something really simple: “Have A Great Summer.” Growing up, I would see people write “HAGS” in yearbooks at the end of the school year. Everyone knew exactly what those four letters meant.
I liked it because there was a feeling behind it. Summer meant being out of school, travelling, being outside, hanging out with friends and making memories. It was something people looked forward to every year.
I started thinking that HAGS could be more than something written in a yearbook. It could represent that feeling and become something people could actually wear.
As the brand developed, “Have A Great Saturday” became another part of HAGS. It takes the same feeling behind Have A Great Summer and brings it into weekends, sport, events and everyday life.
Have A Great Summer is still the heart of HAGS. Have A Great Saturday is an extension of it.
“Have A Great Summer” is at the heart of HAGS, while “Have A Great Saturday” was added later. What do these two ideas mean to you and the brand?
The heart of HAGS actually started with Have A Great Summer, and that will always be the foundation of the brand.
Have A Great Saturday came later.
When I was at university, Saturdays were what everyone looked forward to. You had football games, tailgates, friends getting together and usually something going on all day. It reminded me of the same feeling I associated with summer.
That’s when Have A Great Saturday started making sense.
The two phrases really represent the same idea to me: enjoy where you are, spend time with people you care about and make memories.
You’re never going to get that exact summer or that exact Saturday back.
That idea is much bigger than American college culture. Whether your Saturday is spent at a football match, a festival, on holiday, at the beach, at a race or simply out with friends, the feeling is the same.
That’s what I want HAGS to represent.
College and gameday culture play an important role in HAGS Clothing. What makes this market particularly exciting for you?
My experience at the University of Missouri definitely had a big influence on this side of HAGS.
What we call “gameday” in American college sport is really an entire experience built around the event. There are traditions, friends getting together, food, clothing and entire communities participating.
I think that idea translates well outside the United States too. Sport has an incredible ability to create communities and traditions. You see it with football clubs in the UK and Europe, motorsport, rugby and plenty of other sports.
For HAGS, I’m interested in everything surrounding the event, not just what happens during the game itself.
People remember where they went, what they wore and who they were with. That lifestyle and community aspect is what makes the market exciting to me.
Who is the core target audience for HAGS Clothing, and what do your customers value most about the brand?
Our core audience is currently younger consumers, particularly students, recent graduates and people interested in sport, travel, weekends and casual fashion.
But I don’t want HAGS to be restricted to one age group or one country.
Everyone understands looking forward to summer. Most people understand looking forward to Saturday too.
I think customers connect with the simplicity of HAGS. We’re not trying to make the message overly complicated.
Have A Great Summer.
Have A Great Saturday.
Go somewhere, spend time with your friends and enjoy it.
That’s something I think people can understand almost anywhere in the world.
The apparel market is highly competitive. What makes HAGS Clothing different from other college and gameday brands?
There are thousands of companies selling T-shirts and hats, so I don’t think simply making another design is enough.
For me, the difference starts with the meaning behind HAGS.
Have A Great Summer gives us an identity that isn’t dependent on a particular product, sport or location. Have A Great Saturday lets us take that same identity into weekends, sport and events.
That gives HAGS room to grow.
We can create something inspired by a university town, but we can also create something for summer, motorsport, travel or another experience without completely changing what the brand represents.
The product is important, but I want the idea behind HAGS to be what people eventually remember.
You have also built a community of more than 200,000 followers with TheRealTbat. How has that experience influenced the development of HAGS Clothing?
It has given me a huge head start, but it has also taught me that having followers doesn’t automatically mean you have customers.
Through TheRealTbat, I built an audience of more than 200,000 followers and my content has generated more than 75 million views.
That experience taught me how to get people’s attention, experiment with content and understand what an online audience responds to.
When I started HAGS, I already had a way to introduce the brand to a large number of people, which was a major advantage.
But I learned quickly that getting somebody to watch a video and getting somebody to spend money on a product are completely different things.
The audience gave HAGS an opportunity. The brand and products still have to give people a reason to buy.
How important are social media and community building when launching and growing a consumer brand today?
I think they’re incredibly important, especially for a young brand.
Social media has made it possible for a small company to reach people all over the world without needing the marketing budget of a major fashion company.
It also gives you immediate feedback.
I can show people a new HAGS idea and see how they react before investing heavily in it. That doesn’t mean likes automatically equal sales, because they definitely don’t, but the feedback is still valuable.
Long term, community is even more important.
I don’t want somebody to buy HAGS once because they happened to see one of my videos. I want people to understand what HAGS represents and choose to follow the brand itself.
That’s when you start moving from selling products to actually building a brand.
What have been the biggest challenges in turning HAGS from an idea into a growing business?
Probably realising how many different things go into building a clothing company.
Coming up with the idea and creating designs is the fun part. Then there is the website, fulfilment, shipping, customer service, marketing, product photography, margins and everything else happening behind the scenes.
Another challenge has been learning what people actually want.
I’ve created products I thought would do really well that didn’t. Then a much simpler idea can perform better than expected.
That has taught me to test things and pay attention to what customers actually do rather than assuming I already know the answer.
I’m still learning all the time, and I think that’s just part of building something.
How do you decide which products, designs and collections fit the HAGS identity while still responding to current trends?
I always try to start with whether the product actually makes sense for HAGS.
Obviously, I pay attention to fashion and social media trends. You have to understand what people are wearing, especially when your audience is young.
But I don’t want HAGS to release something just because it happens to be popular that month.
I want there to be some connection to summer, weekends, sport, travel, college culture or the general lifestyle we’ve built around HAGS.
The goal is to take inspiration from trends without letting trends decide what the entire brand becomes.
What have you learned about converting an online audience into customers and building long-term loyalty beyond social media?
The biggest lesson has been that attention and sales are not the same thing.
You can have a video receive thousands of views and barely sell anything. Another product might receive much less attention online but convert really well.
Trust is a huge part of it.
People need to feel comfortable with your website, products, delivery and customer service. That’s especially important when someone discovers a brand through social media and has never heard of the company before.
One of my biggest goals is for HAGS to eventually reach people who have absolutely no idea who TheRealTbat is.
TheRealTbat helped give HAGS its start, but I want HAGS to have its own identity and its own community.
What are your plans for HAGS Clothing over the next few years, and where would you like to take the brand internationally?
I want to keep growing the college and gameday side because it has become an important part of HAGS, but I also want to expand the lifestyle side of the brand.
That’s where Have A Great Summer becomes really important.
I’d love to eventually see HAGS in the UK and other markets, particularly around sport, university life, summer travel, festivals and other communities that fit naturally with the brand.
I don’t want to expand internationally just for the sake of saying we’re international. I want to find places where the message actually makes sense and build a real community there.
The goal is for someone to see those four letters anywhere in the world and eventually understand what they stand for.
Have A Great Summer.
Finally, what three pieces of advice would you give to founders who want to build a strong consumer brand and community from scratch?
The first would be start before everything is perfect. HAGS today is different from what I pictured when I started, and I’m sure it will look different again in a few years. You learn a lot more by actually putting something into the world than you do by waiting for everything to be perfect.
Second, pay attention to what people actually do, not just what they say. Likes, comments and views are great, but purchases and repeat customers tell you much more about whether you’re creating something people really value.
Third, give people something to connect with. There are endless places to buy a T-shirt or a hat. The product matters, but people also need a reason to remember your brand.
For HAGS, that started with four letters and a phrase almost everyone understands:
Have A Great Summer.
As the brand grew, that became Have A Great Saturday too.
Picturecredits
Thank you Tyler Batliner for the Interview
Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.
