Meet Rufus Williams of Humble Flourish Brand in Oak Cliff

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rufus Williams.

Rufus, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Humble Flourish Brand started when I met my business partners Keith White, Julian McDaniel and Chris Mahone at Bowling Green State University. We would frequently use the word ‘Flourish’ in conversation. One day Keith, had the idea for a t-shirt design that utilized the phrase we all loved. I really liked the design but I was unsure if other people would relate to it and want to purchase a Flourish shirt. After graduation, I moved to Dallas, TX where I met our fifth business partner, Erik Grayson. After Erik saw the design, he really believed in it and thought it was marketable.

Collectively, we invested $200 total to produce the first 25 shirts. We gave away half of them and sold the rest. From there, we’ve continuously built the brand to what it is today. Some of our proudest moments include obtaining a licensing deal with our alma mater, BGSU and creating the Quickie design for Draymond Green during the 2017 NBA finals. We’re always reinvesting in the brand and coming up with new ideas to push the brand further.

Has it been a smooth road?
Success doesn’t come without struggle. We’ve done some great things but we’ve also had some hiccups along the way. After selling our first design, we used all of that money to invest in a shirt for our school’s homecoming. All of our friends were excited about the design and we had pre-sold a lot of shirts. Then, once we got the shirts in, we immediately recognized that the colors were all wrong. We obviously couldn’t sell shirts that represented our school with the wrong school colors. So, we took a lost on that investment and we still had to reorder the shirts to fulfill pre-orders. We went from our first real success to our first real failure within a few months of starting the business. However, we didn’t give up and we’ve used those lessons to make us better.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our mission is to empower our people by producing clothing that tells our story and is a positive reflection of the culture. We are very aware of who our audience is and we’re proud to represent them in our marketing campaigns. Our ability to stay relevant and in-tune with our audience has played a key role in our success.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Dallas has shown the Humble Flourish Brand so much love. There’s a strong entrepreneurial spirit here in the city. It’s a great place for a growing business to get started. If you have a great product or service, people will get familiar with your name and grow to support you.

Contact Info:

• Address: Dallas, TX
• Website: humbleflourishbrand.com
• Email: humbleflourishbrand@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/humbleflourishbrand/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humbleflourishbrand/

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