Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Vigil.
Jason, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
10 years ago I found this little quaint vacation home in northern California on some river front property called the Trinity River. After a few trips, it didn’t take long to discover the art of fly fishing and how passionate I was about this new-found hobby. It wasn’t just the fly fishing, it was more about getting away from the daily grind and recharging my body and mind while getting outdoors and doing what I love. From traveling and fishing some of the best rivers in the western states, I met a lot of people that shared the same passion as I did.
Fast forward to 2 1/2 years ago, I decided I was going to take this passion and turn it into a business. I noticed there was a lack of outdoor lifestyle apparel and that narrowed my focus to a line of apparel that you could wear on or off the water. Regardless if you lived in LA or Montana, I wanted to create something that was both fashionable and functional. In November 2014, the brand was born. Our brand quickly took off through our social media platforms and online sales and continues to grow today.
Has it been a smooth road?
It started out smooth, but as we grew it became a lot more challenging. This is my first run at an apparel line and I’m learning something new every day. Naturally, there’s going to be mistakes made during the process, but I think the biggest obstacle has been cash flow. The second toughest thing has been managing inventory. We started out with just a few items and it grew to over 300 sku’s. When we added new products, our sales went through the roof, so that was the early formula we lived by. Keep adding, keep selling, but really that just caused more headaches. So in short, trying to keep an inventory on so many items with little cash flow has been the biggest obstacle.
So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into the FishOn Energy story. Tell us more about the business.
We are an outdoor lifestyle apparel company. FishOn Energy Co. – Camp. Fish. Explore.
Our passion for fly fishing is the reason behind the brand. We are dedicated in capturing our adventures behind a rod & reel and the outdoors and didn’t want to just leave it on the water. We wanted to introduce it to our daily lifestyle, carry it along everywhere and wear it anywhere. We believe our brand can inspire those who are seeking adventure to follow our passion and explore with us.
We specialize in custom headwear, leather goods, t-shirts, sun shirts and lightweight jackets and hoodies. We have a program called PYP, which means “pick your patch”. Pick a style and color of hat you like and then choose between 47 patches and we’ll sew it on and ship it out. This gives our customers a customization feel and allows us to offer hundreds of hat combos without sitting on a bunch of hats with patches already sewn on.
We take pride in the quality of our products. The most important goal we’ve had from the beginning is to use the best manufacturers and the highest quality of product that we can get our hands on. Once we knew we had the products, customer service has been the most important part of our brand. Keeping customers more than happy, we’ll bring them back every time.
Our trademark logo really resonates with our customers, it says everything about what we do in a logo. Our style sets us apart by designing lifestyle apparel with more of a street edge to them.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We are already seeing a huge shift of younger fly fishing women and men getting into the sport. Wherever there is snow skiing or boarding there is most likely rivers and lakes in the area, so it totally makes sense that these younger groups are trending towards the outdoor activities in the area. We need to make sure we can provide them with the type of lifestyle apparel that they’re used to, but with a fly fishing and outdoors twist to it.
Contact Info:
- Website: fishonenergy.com
- Phone: 213-617-8559
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fishonenergy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FishOnEnergy
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/fishonenergy
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