We had the good fortune of connecting with Ryan Rock and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ryan, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
Before Covid we had no thoughts of starting a business. I was living on 38th st in Manhattan Beach in 2020 when they closed all the beaches in LA unless you were doing “activities”. It seemed everyday a group of friends would come over to borrow my wetsuits and old boards to learn how to surf.

One morning we had a ragtag group out there and our other founder Jackson was distracted by how unflattering the wetsuit was on him which led to someone making the joke of, “Fat Boy Surf Club reporting for duty”. The jokes continued over breakfast burritos later that morning and continued again while having some garage beers (again couldn’t hang at the beach). We decided we wanted to have some shirts made for our “Fat Boy Surf Club” to wear at the bars when the world eventually opened back up.

Our third founder’s girlfriend, Kelley, was a graphic designer so we asked her to make us a logo. We wanted to incorporate manatees because they are called sea cows, so we decided our logo had to include the original Fat Boys of the sea. Kelley is incredibly talented and created our OG Mana-Tee logo for us.

Fast forward July 1, 2020 I was furloughed from my job and on July 3rd I got covid 1.0, back when you weren’t allowed to leave your house for 14 days, so I had a lot of time on my hands. We started the instagram and signed up for a free trial of Shopify, built a basic website and put our original t-shirts on sale.

Our brand definitely has that same Jimmy Buffett/Margaritaville mindset to it, so when we saw Jimmy Buffett was involved with the Save The Manatees Foundation, it was too perfect of a match. That is why a portion of every sale benefits the Save the Manatees Foundation and has allowed us to “adopt” four manatees to date.

What should our readers know about your business?
What sets us apart from other lifestyle/apparel brands is our commitment to only using high quality garments and our commitment to our customers. We pride ourselves on our customer service and want to ensure that each one of our customers actually feels like they are joining our Club/community.

From the very beginning we started donating to the Save the Manatees Foundation and other ocean conservation organizations. It has been very cool to see how many people care about these causes and want to do what they can to support – Plus, by supporting they get an awesome FBSC shirt or hat which is a win/win for everyone!

Our business has grown so much in the last year because we have stayed authentic to our original brand messaging:

At Fat Boy Surf Club, we believe that surfing is for everyone. It does not matter if you are a boy, girl, skinny, or fat. Being a Fat Boy is a mindset – so we don’t even care if you don’t surf, as long as you like to have fun and don’t take yourself too seriously, we’ve got room for you in the club.

And of course, “You don’t have to be ripped to rip.”

There have definitely been challenges along the way since none of us have any background in fashion or experience building a brand. However, by connecting with our customers and really leaning into this concept of Club and Community we have been able to continue to grow our business.

We are still a small company (only 3 of us), but through these first couple of years we have learned to always put the customer first before profits and to stay authentic to who we are. It has been incredible to see how many people have been with us from the very beginning and continue to support and root for our success. It really is a true community.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We would definitely take them on a true Fat Boy Surf Club weekend! Which includes a little bit of surfing, a little bit of beach time, and probably too much food and a few too many drinks.

We would start by going for a surf at our home break in El Porto, usually around 43rd st. Really give them a feel for that crowded lineup. Directly after, it is straight up the street to OB’s for a coffee, a beer, and a breakfast burrito.

If there is a good south swell coming through then it is up to my favorite spot in LA, County Line. Anyone from out of town is going to enjoy that drive up PCH. After getting out of the water, we have to call in a breakfast burrito order from Lily’s to pick up on the way back down to Manhattan Beach.

From there it is time to stop in at our favorite bar, Shellback, to visit Rico, have a couple pitchers of Big Wave, and a couple Fanta shots.

We would have to spend a day at North End in Hermosa putting in an 8 hour shift watching football and another drinking Mai Tais at Tony P’s in Marina del Rey.

Then depending on if it’s winter or summer, a day/two day trip to either San Diego or Mammoth. The Fat Boys also love snowboarding so Mammoth is always an epic way to spend a weekend. Or if it is summer, I grew up in San Diego so would have to take a day trip to Encinitas for surf and mexican food.

We just moved our warehouse to our new Redondo Beach HQ, so the rest of the week would be exploring Redondo and finding our new spots down here (so if you have any recommendations, please reach out to us!).

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Oh we would be nowhere without the support and encouragement of our friends. Again, we didn’t set out to start our own lifestyle brand, so we will be the first ones to tell you we had no idea what we were doing (still don’t) and had to learn everything on the fly.

As soon as we launched our website, instagram, and first shirt, I can’t tell you how supportive our friends were. Everyone in our friend circle not only bought shirts, but they promoted them to their friends, tagged us on instagram and we really began to spread organically through word of mouth.

We didn’t have any cash to pay for ads, we had to rely on our friends wearing and sharing our products. This has helped us build this organic community and loyal following where people not only want to wear our clothes, but they want to share it with their friends/family and on social media. We repost anyone who wears our clothes and tags us and this all started with our friendship group and really was our original marketing strategy.

To this day, every weekend/every happy hour our group of friends is all wearing Fat Boy and we can’t express how much that support means to us. Our community keeps growing and we would be nowhere without them.

Website: www.fatboysurfclub.com

Instagram: fatboysurfclub

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FatBoySurfClub

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fatboysurfclub/

Other: Save the Manatee Foundation – https://www.savethemanatee.org/

Image Credits
Tassio Pniewski – first surfing image Aric Van Halen – next 5 images Al & K (Annelaure & Krisztina) – last 2 images

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