More Than Just Cupcakes

Now that he has finally taken his craft overseas I thought of grabbing the opportunity to talk about a guy who started from scratch with pretty much nothing but his ideas and turned out to be voted America's Number 1 Young Enterpreneuer of 2008. This guy is no other than Johny Cupcakes, a marketing phenomenon in the United States who is the exact opposite of your corporate 9 to 5 kind of guy. The most remarkable part of his story is the fact that he got to the point where he is today with minimal education, since he ended up being a college dropout, and even less money to beging with. The whole Johny Cupcakes concept came out of nowhere in 2000 when while working at a silk screening shop, Johny decided to put a nickname he was given to work on a shirt. That specific tshirt proved to be quite a hit since in no time not only his fellow employees but also clients of the shop started asking for one for themselves. That was it. From that moment on the hype just kept growing and growing and Johny started coming up with new designs and doodles that would sell like hot (cup)cakes. At the time he was lucky enough to have customers in touring bands so his logo would pop up in photo shoots and music videos all across the world bringing even more attention to it. He started going around shops spending quite some time in order to find potential carriers and every time he got payed he would just re-invest the money he earned in order to make his products even better. In 2004he attended his first trade show in Las Vegas which was very succesful since Johny scored some deals with shops in Europe and Japan, and one year later the first Johny Cupcakes store opened in his hometown of Hull Massachusetts. But that was nothing compared to the frenzy that took place when the next Johny Cupcakes store opened in 2006 at one of Boston's most expensive streets, 279 Newbury, a street hosting stores for brands like Marc Jacobs, Nike Town, Burberry, Urban Outfitters and many more among others, having 600 people waiting in line for the grand opening. Same deal in LA which was up next for a retail opening at 279 Melrose Avenue close to the Kid Robot and A Bathing Ape stores. The best part about it is that Johny never paid money for advertising and relied solely on word of mouth which has been one of his main advantage since day one. Before receiving Business Week's award he had already given lectures to all kinds of places from universities to high schools, and also non-academic seminars all over the world, focusing on how to start a business from scratch without having startup capital or any other resources stressing the importance of the internet and effective use of retail space as well as the importance of art, graphic design and creative packaging. In three days from now London will be the first city in Europe to host a Johny Cupcakes stores. If you ask me, it was about time