Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexander Schaffer Czech.
Hi Alexander, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
During my sophomore year at San Dieguito High School, I started taking ROP screen printing classes at night with a bunch of my friends. These classes opened the door to the world of graphic design, screen printing, production, and entrepreneurship to me. Whenever I would do a print run of one of my designs in those classes, my friends would always ask to throw the shirt they were wearing on the press, so they could have my design included on their tee. I soon saw an opportunity to make money, and my friend Spencer and I started our first brand called “phreedumb”. We were both into wave riding and skateboarding, so we started selling gear to all of our friends around school who shared similar passions. The brand took off, and I started approaching shops and getting our tees, fleece, and hats into stores. I ran phreedumb for almost 5 years and learned a lot about business and the apparel industry. During this time, I was also working at BJ’s Surf Shop in Solana Beach. During my time here, I learned a lot about what a retail buyer does and how to run a small retail business. The owner would travel a lot, so I was left to hold down the shop, keep product in stock, and make sure that we were making sales. There were a lot of days where I would be done with my high school classes at 11:30 and then open the shop from noon to 5:30. This whole experience taught me about what it meant to be responsible for the livelihood of keeping a business going. BJ’s was a hub for all the local surfers and skaters. Moms would drop their kids off at the shop in the mornings with $20 for food and leave them with me all day. The kids would stash their stuff on the sidewalk by the shop and go surf or skate while I kept track of them and their gear. Moms would call the shop and check in with me to make sure their kid was OK. We also had a ton of folks taking the bus over from Escondido, who would set up camp at our shop all day. It was a very cool experience. That’s where I learned that spaces like BJ’s were the hub of the community. I later worked at K-5 in Encinitas and found the same community vibe there.
After graduating high school and having two years of Mira Costa college classes, I left North County and moved to San Luis Obispo to attend Cuesta Community college. I realized I needed to focus on school and build my path forward. I stopped building phreedumb and started focusing on learning more about art and design. I had taken business classes at Mira Costa College with the intent to study business at a 4-year school; however, I learned that studying business was nothing like actually running a business and wanted to focus my studies on developing my creative skills. During this period, I started helping my friends with a new bodyboarding company they were starting called “No Friends.” They needed art and design help, so I began designing their tees and laying out some of their ads. I was their first designer. Our time together taught me a lot about working as a team. I had designed logos for other people in the past and had been designing for my own brand, but never had worked with people who had a vision that I needed to design towards that wasn’t really my own. It was a great feeling to know that I was contributing toward their success and we were making it all happen together. During this period, I also started doing some freelance work for other businesses. I fell in love with Identity design and decided that this is what I wanted to pursue at a 4-year school.
After 2 years in San Luis Obispo, I moved to San Francisco to attend the Academy of Art college for graphic design. Being that it was a private art school, it wasn’t cheap. I had to pay my way through college on my own, so I took my studies very seriously. After a year and half there, I started to feel that I was being cheated. I had a few phenomenal teachers during my time there, but when it came to learning the Adobe software, I felt like I could be learning it on my own for free. The teachers were teaching from the different Adobe software guides, and I wasn’t feeling stimulated overall. After spending every penny, I had saved to go to college, I reevaluated my situation and decided transfer to a different school. At this point, I felt very confident in my design and software skills and had already worked “professionally’ in the industry on my own and for other people. I was hungry for academic stimulation and wanted to develop my conceptual capabilities, so I decided to attend the San Francisco Art Institute and build my drawing and painting skills. This was the best academic decision I have ever made. Before my move over to SFAI, I attended a semester of San Francisco Community college and built my oil painting and drawings skills up more. Overall, it took me 7 years to achieve my 4-year degree. During this time, though, I built up a massive amount of experience that would later lay the foundation for several of my next steps in life.
After college, I wanted to pursue being a professional artist and designer. I moved back to San Diego and started renting an art studio in the Gas Lamp district above the business Hooters. I missed the art scene in San Francisco pretty quickly and moved back 6 months later. Once I was back in SF, I started working for Aqua Surf Shop full time. I eventually became their manager and helped them open up their second store on Haight Street. I was also showing my work at local galleries and doing some freelance design for friends. After 5 years of this, I felt the need to make another change. I knew that I couldn’t make a career out of being a surf shop general manager, and being a professional artist was going to be an unpredictable ride. I left Aqua and started remodeling a family member’s house in San Luis Obispo with my soon-to-be wife. After we were married and finished this house, I found a job in Campbell, CA. at a Design/ Build firm, and we moved to Santa Cruz. During this period, the economy started to tank, and I could see my position at this firm not lasting too long. My mom was a high school teacher and was always telling me what a good high school teacher I would be. The only thing I liked about high school when I was a kid was the screen printing classes I took and being on our surf team. I didn’t see myself as a high school teacher. While working at Aqua, I had started teaching art on the side to the disabled elderly through a program called Art with Elders, so I knew I enjoyed teaching but didn’t think about doing it at a high school level. With the economy starting to tank though, and seeing construction starting to cease up, I knew I needed to find a new path. I eventually enrolled at San Jose State and pursued my Single Subject Credential in Art. In less than two years, I was in the classroom teaching art … to high school kids.
Now that I was married and had a career path, I was feeling pretty stable. To subsidize my teaching salary, I began to pursue my fine art again and do freelance design work. I was able to find gallery representation in San Francisco for my art, and my clientele for design work grew. I was mostly creating tee graphics and building identity packages for Bay Area companies and businesses. When I would have a repeat client who I had done a tee graphic for, I would always hear how my design was ‘the best-selling design” they had. After hearing this from multiple sources over and over again, it started to make me think about starting up my own brand featuring my art. When a client told me that they sold 10,000 of my tee design, I did the numbers and thought two things: 1) They made a lot of money off my skill. and 2) I was not getting paid enough for my design work and was worth more. Shortly thereafter, I put together 3 tee designs under the banner of the fine art brand I had built, “ascstudio.” I was able to get my tees into a handful of shops in SF and Santa Cruz. After about 6 months, though, one of the shop owners told me that my tee designs were great, but the name I was marketing was not strong enough to build a real brand around. He was right. I was trying to build on my fine art business and not really thinking about creating a new entity to develop. It was at this point that I changed my mind set about what I was creating and began to focus on my art from an apparel brand standpoint. I needed a name to build a brand around.
My dad was a US Marine, and we had been stationed in Okinawa when I was younger. I fell in love with Japanese culture as a kid. I would later study Japanese language for two years at Mira Costa College even… I loved the culture so much. So, when it came time to think about a company name, I used my knowledge of the Japanese language to consider words for a potential brand name. After a lot of thought, the Japanese word “uroko,” meaning “fish scales,” began to stick. I liked that a lot of people could not say it correctly and didn’t know what it meant. Knowing that I wanted to market my brand to people who loved being on the water, I felt that identifying with fish somehow would be something that water-minded people could relate to … especially once they knew what the name meant. I didn’t want to name the brand “Scales,” for example … That sounded too obvious and cheesy to me. More importantly, I didn’t want to follow the path of most apparel brands and focus on having a name brand on the chest of our t-shirts. I wanted our tees to feature art and design that reflected one’s love for all things water and fish. The name, at the end of it all, was not what I wanted people to identify with. That was second in my book.
So here we are now, 12 years into building uroko. Since I started my brand, I have had twins who are now 8 years old and continue to teach high school full time. Ironically, I teach 3 levels of graphic design, screen printing, sign making, and entrepreneurship at Los Gatos High School … All things I do for uroko outside of the classroom. I am teaching the things that helped me get into this business when I was in high school. I love doing both jobs, even though there is a lot to manage.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Working two full-time jobs isn’t easy. I choose to keep my teaching job as means to pay my bills and provide for my family rather than take the profit from uroko and live off that. By reinvesting the capital, I make back into the business, it has allowed me to not take on any partners or loans. It feels good to bootstrap the entire venture. When I have needed more capital to grow, I have been fortunate to use my own savings that I have built through teaching. Both jobs feed off each other. I have made a lot of mistakes along the way. The economic fluctuation over the last 12 years makes for a wild ride as well. Being that my business model is based on “count and fill,” I have been able to sit on a few slower selling skus during rougher times, only to see them eventually sell through. That being said, I have learned to be patient and know that if things feel slow, I know that time is on my side, and things pick up as the economy picks up. The biggest struggle I have is finding sales reps who have worked in the industry and that have good connections with retail. The sales reps I do have are solid, but it took a while to get their help. There are so many untapped territories out there that I am not in. Finding someone with experience that isn’t already repping a larger brand feels next to impossible sometimes. Building my distribution network is a large task. We are up against massive corporations/ clothing brands fighting for floor space … It takes a lot for these retail spaces to give you a chance in their shop.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about uroko?
Uroko is small apparel brand that focuses on the printable category. We market to people who love being on the water and doing the different activities that surround the ocean, river, lake lifestyle. Our goal is to put art on tees, hats, and hoodies that expresses one’s love for all of these activities; rather than focusing on a big-name brand, I am the sole designer for all the art; however, the brand is not about me or my craft. We work hard to communicate that we are a family brand and that our focus is on the people who love what we love. We like to celebrate the joy and relaxation that water-related activities bring into our lives. We see people from all walks of life wearing our gear. I see teenage boys who are hardcore surfers wearing our gear all the way to granny’s rocking our tees. We sell to retail spaces all over the country, and we have a growing online presence. We have focused a lot on website sales over the past 3 years and continue to develop our e-commerce storefront.
I am proud to have grown up in San Diego. My great grandfather was in the first graduating class at San Diego High School. He worked in the Steel Mill that is now a part of the Padres stadium. I grew up fishing and surfing all around North and South County. It was the experiences that I had on the water that provided a lot of the inspiration for my brand.
What matters most to you? Why?
Building a successful business isn’t just about the money for me. I want to provide opportunities for the people that work for me and with me. Relationships with my employees, independent contractors, vendors, manufacturers, and accounts I work with are what make having a company fun for me. If everyone is happy, then they work hard or do their best for you … As a result of this, your business can be more successful.
Pricing:
- Tees – $32
- Hats range from $20 to $36
- Hooded fleece – $65
Contact Info:
- Website: uroko.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/urokolife/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/urokolife/
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/theartsea/?etsrc=sdt
Image Credits
Uroko, INC.
