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LikeWear™ is the first and only company dedicated to selling licensed apparel and accessories via direct sales.
Direct sales is consumer-to-consumer selling as opposed to retailer-to-consumer selling. You’ve probably heard of companies like Mary Kay, The Pampered Chef, Avon and Tupperware. LikeWear has a similar business model, independent sales representative force and compensation plan, but we make fun, high quality clothes for kids embellished with images of products and brands they really like. Hence the name LikeWear.
In addition to making clothes that kids like to wear, we created LikeWear to provide moms with a fun and financially rewarding way to earn money or have a career - all without having to significantly alter their lifestyles. We do this by providing the guidance, sales tools and legal right to sell officially licensed clothing and accessories at the local level. Licensed clothing and accessories is a multi-billion dollar business — and now you can be a part of it.
LikeWear is a relatively new company, but we’re partnering with leading brand and
Please take a look at our current collection and the career opportunity we offer.
We hope you find something you like :-) |
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About Us |
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Lisa & Ken |
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Co-Founders Lisa & Ken Gold |
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Our History |
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In May of 2004, Ken Gold returned home from a weeklong trade show to find his entire dining room filled with “stuff”. Blank apparel, iron-on transfers, fabrics, rhinestones and ribbons littered the room… and his wife, Lisa Gold, was hunkered over a sewing machine creating her own clothes. It turns out that while he was away, Lisa decided she was tired of just being an at home mom to their three kids and wanted to start a small business selling embellished children’s clothing. She called it Good As Gold’s and her plan was to make the product herself and sell it at local sales events and house parties in and around northern New Jersey.
Over the next couple of years Lisa built a respectable business and a local following for her line of casual kids’ apparel. She even started to sell to some small boutique stores. Then, as a result of her products being given as gifts, she began receiving unsolicited requests from women who wanted to sell her clothes at sales events and house parties in other markets, some as far away as Boston and Chicago.
Ken supported his wife’s entrepreneurial “hobby” and helped her out on the side with accounting, marketing and computer design work. He also lugged her tubs of inventory around to the various sales events and parties she attended and made deliveries to retail customers. While there, he’d frequently walk around and check out the other products and vendors. As a marketing professional with licensed product experience, Ken noticed that there were very few licensed apparel products at these events or at the local boutique stores his wife sold to. And if there were any, they were quite often counterfeit.
The Golds did some research and came to realize that Lisa’s business was very similar to the home business opportunity that Direct Sales companies like Mary Kay or The Pampered Chef offer their independent representatives. They also learned that Direct Sales is a $32 billion category and there were no other companies focused on selling licensed apparel via the channel. It quickly became apparent that there was a real business opportunity here. If they could acquire the apparel licensing rights for brands and properties that people really like, they could provide a turnkey business opportunity for moms to sell licensed clothing in their local neighborhoods all across the country.
The Gold’s formed an LLC in June, 2006 and true to their vision of having people “wear what they like”, named the company LikeWear (noting that “Like” is also a combination of the “li” from Lisa and the “ke” from Ken ;-). Ken was working full time as Vice President of Marketing for a video game publisher, but in his spare time, he hired a network marketing consultant, started writing a business plan and installed a professional heat press in their dining room... He also used his industry connections to set up meetings to pitch the idea at The Licensing Show in New York. The concept was very well received by the licensing executives they met with because it was non-competitive with their existing licensing deals, incremental revenue, a unique way to “market” directly to their target audience and had the side benefit of rooting out license infringement at a grass roots level.
Shortly after the show, the company signed on its first licensing partner, Tootsie Roll Industries. With assets from recognizable candy brands like Tootsie Roll, Blow Pops, Dots, and several others, the Gold’s worked together to create a unique line of licensed clothes and accessories. When it was ready in April, 2007, Lisa stopped doing business under the name Good As Gold’s and LikeWear entered its “soft launch” phase.
The first few collections were very well received. They signed on a number of independent sales representatives and the company started to grow. Lisa handled everything by herself during regular business hours, while Ken stayed up until the wee hours each night working on invoicing, computer design and all the other demands of a growing business. However, because their dining room was still doubling as a production facility, the Gold’s agreed that they wouldn’t bring on any more sales reps until they could outsource the manufacturing. Even with these challenges, they managed to sell more than 11,000 units of clothing and get LikeWear products featured in more than 45 different boutique stores in 5 states in their first full year in business.
In November, 2007, Ken’s company restructured and eliminated his position. The Gold’s saw this as an opportunity, and a sign of destiny, to take the business to the next level. Since then, they have increased their manufacturing capabilities, signed on General Mills as their second licensing partner, and are currently preparing for a seed round of financing so they can build an infrastructure to support growth and provide a fun, profitable career opportunity to mothers across the country. |
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LIKEWEAR, the LIKEWEAR logo, WEAR WHAT YOU LIKE and the Smiley Icon are trademarks of LikeWear LLC. © 2008 LikeWear LLC. |
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