Los Angeles, CA – Three dads turned a $750 investment and 100 hats into $35 million in revenue, entirely through storytelling and daily content. Gary Vaynerchuk, the serial entrepreneur and CEO of VaynerMedia, has joined the company as a partner and active strategic advisor. Dad Gang was founded in 2022 by Grant Eastey, Bart Szaniewski, and Ejay O’Donnell. Before it became a company, it was the name of a group text among three friends who spent years talking through the victories and frustrations of raising kids. When they eventually made hats to represent what fatherhood meant to them, the first batch resonated beyond their immediate circles. “Dad Gang wasn’t created to sell hats,” the founders say. “It was created to change the way fatherhood is represented.”
Four years in, the Los Angeles-based brand reports selling more than one million hats, building a community of over one million fathers, and expanding into more than 200 Lids locations nationwide. Its growth depended on showing up daily rather than on paid reach. The founders posted every day, centering content on the emotional realities of fatherhood rather than on product. As revenue came in, they reinvested it, but not into traditional campaigns—their paid media budget amounted to roughly $10 a day behind posts that were already performing organically.
Gary frames what the founders built as a skill most brands have undervalued. “Organic social media is the most important execution, talent, skill, and variable in today’s demand-driven world,” he says. Athlete collaborations formed through organic product adoption rather than outreach, with Mookie Betts, Justin Turner, and Teófimo López among those seen in the hat without any formal arrangement. “Almost every time you see a big name wearing Dad Gang, they bought it for themselves or were given it as a gift,” the founders say.
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Gary is specific about why he moved forward. “They’re far along,” he says. “They’re selling a lot, a lot, a lot of hats, and all three co-founders pass my intuition, and I can see myself in them.” The partnership’s first initiative is a series called “Dad Hour,” in which Gary will join the founders for live Q&A sessions with Dad Gang’s community. The founders frame their benchmark a year from now in terms of reach rather than revenue. “If you’re willing to stay patient, stay humble, keep posting, and continue putting in the work when there’s no applause,” Grant says, “incredible things can happen over time. Dad Gang is living proof of that.”
