group Y Member Profile: Dustin and Dylan Odbert – Founders of ambsn

Interview by Jennifer Kalban

Name and Title:

Dustin and Dylan Odbert, co-founders of ambsn

When did you start ambsn and what sparked its creation?

Ambsn was started back in Sept of 2001 to raise money for our friend Cameron Clapp who was hit by a train one night and lost both of his legs and his right arm. Dylan who was a sophomore in high school at the time raised over $2000 selling T’s that read “Cant stop the Clapp” and donated all of the money to Cameron to help cover his medical expenses. As Cameron recovered we started noticing a following for ambsn in our local town of Arroyo Grande so we kept making small runs of Ts and selling them to our friends. Dylan graduated high school in 2004, I dropped out of Cal Poly SLO and we introduced the line at the September 2005 Agenda show when it was in a parking lot across from ASR.

How did it grow into a full-fledged business?

Neither of us have a schooled business background so from 2005 to 2008 we didn’t worry about silly things like Balance Sheets, P&L statements, or Income statements all we concentrated on was getting what we thought was cool different product in stores. We floated that way for about 3 years and in January of 2008 we were lucky enough that Dick Baker took notice of us and our brand with the encouragement of Mike Hischier and Gary Ward. Dick visited our booth during that January’s ASR and asked Dylan and I a bunch of basic business questions that we had no idea how to answer. He invited us down to meet for breakfast at his home in San Clemente and it was at that famous red booth at the Baker house where we were taught apparel business 101. With the help of Dick and gun for hire Bob Mignogna we got ourselves organized and structured into a true business.

Tell us what your roles are at ambsn?

We have been a two-man show for the last 5 years. I talk a lot so it was just natural that I would handle sales, PR, marketing and event planning. Along with that I take care of all of the administrative tasks that come with running an apparel business. Dylan is our creative director and designer as well as sourcing and production manager. We both handle shipping, receiving, and warehousing.

What do your daily routines look like? Take us through it:

Dustin: It really depends on the day of the week, but we try and start every morning off with a 20 minute meeting just to find out where each others heads are at and how we can make the day run as smooth as possible. For me Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays are AR/AP days, so I will spend those two days pushing paper, making sure all of our bills are paid and our accounts are current. The rest of the week is spent either shipping product, checking in on stores, making sure our sections are cherry and that the shop kids are stoked on ambsn.

Dylan: My day is usually consumed by sampling and production tasks. As much as I would like to spend all day every day designing product there is always some sort of production or sourcing issue to deal with so that forces me to do a majority of my design work at night. I am on the road in LA a few days a week visiting our factories making sure our projects are running smoothly.

How many people are on the staff and what are their roles?

Well we currently have an awesome intern on staff by the name of Katie Redmond. She has just graduate from the Otis School of Design and has sort of been bouncing around helping us wherever we need her, but mostly getting tech packs pumped out and other things that bog us down. We have also hired a rep that is doing a great job of servicing our Orange Co and LA North accounts which is awesome and also brought on a Mid Atlantic Rep to start growing that region for us. That has taken a ton of stress off of me because it has allowed me to pay more attention to other territories.

To read the rest of the interview, go to groupYnetwork.com