Entertainment, Yahoo! Life, and Yahoo! Verizon Communications Inc. Is Ecko a black brand? What does Ecko stand for? Who made Ecko clothing? Where is Echo clothing made? Why does Ecko have a rhino? What does Marc Ecko say about learning? Is Ecko Unlimited a good brand? How did Marc Ecko start? Who was Marc Ecko? Does Marc Ecko own complex? Where is Marc Ecko from?
I started doing T-shirts in eighth grade. I got a book of graffiti art in seventh grade, and that was the path into it. When I would draw graffiti, it would get the same approbation from my peers that I had got from my relatives when I copied comic book characters. I asked my parents for an air compressor and airbrush.
By high school, I was wearing my own T-shirts. People would say, "Where did you get it? I did it all the way through high school. I became the guy who was known for that. His high school guidance counselor convinced him he needed a profession. Being the son of a pharmacist, Ecko decided he would attend the School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University.
College showed me how unique Lakewood was. You show up at Hardenburgh Hall, and the white kids say, "Why are you so black? I was average at pharmacy school. I said, I could do this and pursue a career having to do with pharmacy and be quite average and definitely not happy. At the end of my freshman year, I came up with an idea with my friend Cale Brock, who was a really good singer.
I made a jacket and put a cassette tape by Cale in the pocket along with a little note for Biv saying that if he wanted more airbrushed stuff to call me.
Then I dislocated my shoulder, so my older sister Shari went to the concert and went up to the stage and handed him the jacket. At 3 o'clock in the morning, the phone rang.
It was Biv. He asked if we could come to see him before he left the next morning. I called up Cale, we borrowed my mom's car, and we drove down. Cale sang for him, and Biv signed him. Knowing Biv gave me a lot of access. I was going to a lot of parties. It made my ambition greater. Everyone was a businessman. Everyone had a hustle. There had to be a market. It gave me a sense that my instincts were right. One of the first people I told was my twin sister, Marci. I said, "You're going to leave college, we're going to work together in this business, and it's going to be big.
It was just that I was going to a lot of parties. I began writing a business plan, but it was very naive. It wouldn't make it up the elevator in this building. I remember referencing Ralph Lauren and Polo a lot. I would say, "People are buying Ralph Lauren for lack of something from their own generation.
I thought if you were famous, you had a key and could turn anything on. It's not the case. My friend Perry, the son of my art teacher Mrs. Landesberg, had a friend Seth from Teaneck, New Jersey, who had been living in Austria, working in real estate. They said he had some cash to invest in a business. I telephoned him. Seth comes to my house in this red Mustang convertible, in denim shorts cut really short. His fingernails were dirty up to his elbows, and he's got a yarmulke on. I thought, What a mess.
What's going on here? When we started to talk, I found it somewhat intimidating that someone my age could be so direct in asking about the business and what I wanted to do. I was intimidated and blew him off. Realizing I didn't have any better options, I called him up six months later. He was so nice about it. We speak once or twice a day. I left the house at this morning, and we touched base on the phone for 10 minutes. I can take a deal to the point where it's conceptually doable, and then he can go in and be more lawyerly about it.
He's doing what a CEO should be doing; I'm doing what a chief creative officer should be doing. I probably count on his opinion as the most important.
I brought in Marci a year later, when she graduated. She now runs Zoo York [a skateboarding-apparel company that was the first major acquisition by Marc Ecko Enterprises]. The company needed a name and a logo. Ecko's family name was Milecofsky; at home, he was known as Echo, because his mother's obstetrician had told her that, despite her sense that she was bearing twins, she was merely feeling "an echoin the fluids.
For a short time, we were "Ecko Unlimited by Mark Echo. In , I changed my name legally to Ecko. While I was in pursuit of a logo, I went to visit my folks. My dad had a wooden rhino in his "blue room," the garage that he converted into a den and bar, with blue shag carpet and wood paneling floor to ceiling.
It occurred to me that that is such a great animal. I began thinking of Ralph Lauren [with its polo pony logo] and Lacoste [with its crocodile]. I decided I would use the rhino. When I told my buyers, they had such contempt for that idea. Buyers thought they knew what my brand was. It's why you always have to start with your end audience. And you can't design by committee, even when you're sales driven. They said, "We don't want Timberland; we don't want rugged; we just want graffiti.
We put out 25 T-shirts. One was a rhino. That one sold out. I am a something from nothing guy. Can you share an example when something didn't turn out as expected in your business and how you reacted to it? There have been so many occasions.
I think it is a fallacy to think you ever have things turn out "as you expect them. So why design your expectations that way?
That said, I started Complex as a Magazine. Paper and CMYK. If you asked me on day 1, or day I'd never would have contemplated building a media entity that is now ranked in the top websites in the US. We did M page views last month. Last month! And where it is heading is so exciting. Schleppers like me, with no notable bonafides in media, can get a shot. I have never been bankrupt nor have ever had to bankrupt any companies.
Wrong guy. I am proud to say, I have always landed the plane If a Freshman in college asked you how to go about starting a business, what would you tell them? I tell them just start. Just get in. Just swim. Prepare to feel like you will be drowning. Don't begrudge it. Success is the hang over of failure. So be ready to fail a whole bunch. Then I'd tell them to enjoy the things that matter-- happiness and good health. In the end, if you can not capture that no need in chasing the money.
Money won't buy that.
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