Joseph Ferlito – Co-Founder of Trrtlz; the journey from concept to company; learning along the way; overcoming struggles and obstacles; handling growth.
Segment 1: (Length :05:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Joseph Ferlito and his journey as an entrepreneur thus far, as well as his background to co-creating Trrtlz; from concept to company.
Joseph’s finer points:
“When we were in Sicily, and we met a friend named Alessia. She had went away for a few days on her own. She’s originally from Sicily. When she came back, she had these bracelets with a turtle on it. We liked the bracelet, bothered her a little bit about it and obviously she like the bracelet too so she kept it on.“
“My cousin is from Northern Italy and I’m from New York and before we left, she shared a bracelet with each one of us. That’s it. I came home, I had a couple people ask me about it and that was it.”
“The next year we were there (again) on the beach, saw some guys selling similar bracelets as the one Alessia gave us. We bought 100 of them and as we traveled along and met people (who would go a little bit out of their way to help us with something), we would just share the bracelet with them.”
“We did this for a couple years and kind of played this game where we’d reward people for everyday acts of kindness that normally go unnoticed. We were getting these reactions that were unbelievable.”
“I was in college when this first starting happening. I would also do this at school (College). As we’d give them out, friends of friends would start asking about these bracelets and my cousin had already worked in marketing, distribution and production so we started talking about the idea.”
“One of our friends worked in design so we had him basically produce our own Trrtlz inspired bracelets from what we saw originally.”
“So, we had this string with a turtle on it and we thought, ‘how do we change this, how do we make it our own, how do we give it more value to what it is and extend the idea of sharing the bracelet?'”
“Not everyone can afford to share a $5 bracelet to share that feeling so it had to be affordable and accessible to everyone.”
“Over the years we were kind of perfecting it. I was doing anything and everything to get by at that time. Finding a job wasn’t the easiest thing. I worked as a photographer, I did construction, I did everything, everything.”
“At the time we finally had a semi-finished product and we met our first vendor. We got into stores. We were told no, no, no. We found the right person, they put it in stores and 20,000 were sold in the first week.”
“It’s not the actual value of the bracelet. It’s what you’re giving behind that. Nowadays, everyone creates apps and technology; more reasons to stay on your phone. Our take was let’s take a step back and interact as people.”
Segment 2: (Length :07:00) – Talking with Joseph Ferlito; Building on the concept; talking about the journey of growth; learning along the way;
Joseph’s finer points:
“I gotta say, throughout the entire process, it was super discouraging. I know this could go crazy and become the next big thing, but how are we going to do that. I can’t explain to you how many people thought I was crazy.”
“Luckily my cousin did have some experience in that world. Let’s say with some of his mentoring and my own inspiration and creativity, we were able to find the right team.”
“If all the puzzle pieces aren’t in place, we don’t have the complete picture.”
“That was one of our biggest assets. Finding production. Developing packaging.”
“I had a validated product. As to which route to take, it didn’t really matter if I came to a dead end because I wasn’t really that far along the path. If I had to take a few steps back and step forward again, it’s not that it wasn’t difficult, but I wasn’t losing as much; just my time and effort.”
“When we had first started reaching out to stores, we were cold calling everyone. This nobody company with a semi-finished product trying to put themselves out there and say, ‘Hey, we have this thing and we know it will sell. Can you just try it out?”
“I went through every connection I had . . . it was all about trying to find this right person. Even when you find the right person, it still wasn’t enough.”
Segment 3: (Length :07:00) – Overcoming obstacles and struggles they didn’t see; pivoting and adjusting accordingly; Advice for people who are on their journey and the right mindset.
Joseph’s finer points:
“When we had first started reaching out to stores, we were cold calling everyone. This nobody company with a semi-finished product trying to put themselves out there and say, ‘Hey, we have this thing and we know it will sell. Can you just try it out?”
“I went through every connection I had . . . it was all about trying to find this right person. Even when you find the right person, it still wasn’t enough.”
“These are again, the boring details behind what it is, but there are 100 of those details you have to figure out before you get that final product.”
“You keep on. It’s a very very obvious thing, but it doesn’t sound so obvious when you’re in this situation and you are discouraged and people tell you you’re crazy or don’t know what it is. That doesn’t make it any easier.”
“We were confident in what we were creating . . . And it’s not just having a good idea, but following through with that good idea.”
“Sometimes when you think you’re ready, and I thought I was ready a few times, we weren’t, and those were lessons we learned.”
“As long as you keep growing and keep changing and keep editing it and making it right for your customer or what you believe in, eventually it’s going to work. It’s passion. You can’t buy that. You need that.”
“Being discouraged, you really have to take that and build upon it.”
“It is a struggle. It’s never easy. It’s never going to be easy. It’s just learning from everything. It’s consistently growing.”
“You do small steps and small steps, eventually those small steps become big and the deeper you go, the further along that path you become.”
Segment 4: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them. That only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like”
– Lao Tzu
GENERAL NOTES:
Joseph Felito – Co-Founder of Trrtlz
- Joseph was born and raised in New York which continues to be an endless source of inspiration and adventure.
- He truly believes that life is an adventure to be shared and in doing so, created a keepsake that has become a sentimental currency for gift-giving, embodying who you are, your personal adventure and how you want people to remember you.
- Co-Founded Trrtlz with his cousin Peppe.
- Joseph & Peppe wore these tiny bracelets adorned with turtles – long after they returned home from a trip to Italy.
- As people exclaimed, “Oh, I want one!” a lightbulb went off and the cousins started making their own turtle-inspired bracelets to give to friends and family (and, yes, the occasional stranger [er, beautiful woman] to break the ice). From this love of friendship and thirst for adventure, Trrtlz officially hatched in 2013.
- What hatched as a simple collection of turtle designs now includes an arkful of animals such as Elephantz, Monkeyz and Owlz, as well as licensed styles with Disney, DC Comics, Marvel, Hello Kitty, Peanuts, My Little Pony, NFL and the MLB.
- Starting at only $1 and available at Target, Wal-Mart, 7Eleven, Walgreens, Kroger, Michael’s and more, Trrtlz are being spotted on the wrists of celebrities, trendsetters and tastemakers alike..and men who are still just trying to pick-up women.
- What Joseph enjoys most about his success is that Trrtlz fans – men, women and children ages 6 to 66 – are constantly sharing their adventures by collecting, stacking and swapping bracelets coast to coast.
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