HAGS started with “Have A Great Summer,” but the idea has grown into something much bigger than a summer clothing brand.
My name is Tyler Batliner, and I’m the founder of HAGS Clothing.
When people ask me how HAGS started, there really isn’t some complicated business story behind it. The original idea came from something almost everyone remembers seeing at the end of a school year.
HAGS Have A Great Summer.
People would write it in yearbooks without really thinking about it. I always thought there was something cool about those four letters because everyone understood what they meant.
Summer is something you spend months looking forward to. You’re out of school, hanging out with friends, going on trips, spending weekends at the lake and making memories.
I started thinking about what it would look like to build a clothing brand around that feeling.
That was the beginning of HAGS.
Starting HAGS in College
I started working on HAGS while I was attending the University of Missouri.
At the beginning, I didn’t have everything figured out. I definitely didn’t have some perfect five-year plan for what the company was going to become.
I just knew I liked the name and the idea behind it.
There are already thousands of clothing companies. I knew that putting a random logo on a shirt wasn’t going to automatically give people a reason to care about another one.
I wanted HAGS to actually stand for something.
The original message was Have A Great Summer, and that is still the heart of HAGS today.
But college eventually helped me see that the idea could become bigger.
From Have A Great Summer to Have A Great Saturday
When you’re in college, Saturdays are a big deal.
At Mizzou, especially during football season, you could feel the difference on a Saturday. People were tailgating, seeing friends, going to the game and spending basically the entire day doing something.
It reminded me of what I liked about summer in the first place.
You’re looking forward to it. You’re with your friends. You’re having a good time. And when it’s over, you have memories from it.
That’s where Have A Great Saturday came from.
It wasn’t meant to replace Have A Great Summer.
It was another way to express the same idea.
That has become a big part of how I think about HAGS now. The brand doesn’t have to be tied to one season. It can be about the moments people look forward to.
Have A Great Summer is the heart of HAGS.
Have A Great Saturday is where we’ve been able to take that feeling into weekends, college life and gameday culture.
Making Clothing People Actually Want to Wear
One of the things I’ve learned since starting HAGS is that having a meaning behind a brand isn’t enough.
People still have to like the clothes.
That sounds obvious, but it’s something I’ve had to learn through trial and error.
I’ve made designs I thought were going to do really well that didn’t. I’ve also made simple products that people responded to much more than I expected.
That’s why I pay a lot of attention to what people are actually wearing.
I like the idea of HAGS products having some personality without being so complicated that you can only wear them once.
Our rope hats are a good example.
One of our designs simply says COMO, representing Columbia, Missouri.
Someone who went to school there or spent time there immediately understands what it means. It’s a simple hat, but there’s a connection behind it.
That has led us to create more products inspired by college towns and the places people associate with some of the best years of their lives.
Social Media Gave Me a Head Start
Before building HAGS, I had already spent years creating social media content through TheRealTbat.
I built an audience of more than 200,000 followers, and my content has generated more than 75 million views.
I’m obviously grateful to have that audience because it gave HAGS something most new brands don’t have when they start: people to show the idea to.
But it also taught me one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in business.
Followers aren’t the same as customers.
Someone can watch one of my videos, laugh at it and keep scrolling. It costs them nothing.
Buying something is different.
When somebody is spending their own money, they have to actually like the product and trust the company they’re buying it from.
I’ve had posts get plenty of attention without generating many sales. I’ve also had products perform well without needing a viral video behind them.
That completely changed how I look at social media.
Getting attention is valuable, but it’s only the beginning.
Trying to Build HAGS Beyond Myself
One of my biggest goals is for HAGS to become bigger than my personal social media account.
TheRealTbat gave the company a great starting point, but I don’t want HAGS to always be viewed as creator merchandise. I want someone to discover a HAGS hat or shirt, like it, buy it and become a customer without needing to know who I am. I think that’s when you’ve actually created a brand.
That’s also why I’ve spent more time thinking about the HAGS identity itself.
The products can change. Trends are definitely going to change. Social media is going to change.
The message needs to last longer than any of those things.
A Brand Built Around Good Times
If I had to explain HAGS without talking about clothing at all, I’d say it’s supposed to represent the times you wish lasted a little longer.
The summer you still talk about.
The Saturday where all your friends were together. The football weekend you remember years later. The trip you didn’t want to end.
That’s what I want people to eventually associate with HAGS.
Shop clothing is how we’re expressing that idea right now, but the meaning behind the brand can be much bigger.
And I think that’s important if I want HAGS to grow over the long term.
What’s Next
There is still a lot I want to do with HAGS.
We’re continuing to expand our college-town and gameday apparel, experiment with new designs and introduce the brand to more people.
I also think HAGS has potential well beyond college sports.
Have A Great Summer is something almost anyone can understand. Summer, travelling, weekends and spending time with friends aren’t limited to one place.
That’s what makes me excited about where HAGS could eventually go.
I’m still learning as I build it. I’m still going to make mistakes. There will definitely be products that don’t work and ideas that change along the way.
But the original idea is probably the one thing I don’t see changing.
Have A Great Summer.
Four words that started as something people wrote in yearbooks became the reason I started a clothing company.
Now I want to see how far those four words can go.
