Clothing venture gives positive feel

By Ryan Groshong

For Oladele Sobomehin, business classes aren't just for studying for the next midterm -- they're also about learning how to run his company.

Sobomehin, a Santa Clara senior, created Esfac'e Designer Cuts Unlimited along with his brother, CEO and President Olatunde Sobomehin, and three others in September of 2002.

According to Sobomehin, the goal of Esfac'e is to create apparel for a young, urban market that delivers positive messages.

"Esfac'e designer clothing is basically a new line of clothing that serves the market of primarily 80s babies - anyone from about 14 to about 24," he said. "We're just trying to deliver a product that's differentiated by the messages that we hope to convey through our clothing."

Esfac'e began with just 10 designs created after an all-night lesson in photo shop that centered around double entendres involving hair, such as "respect your roots."

"We had Africa on the front so people could understand 'respect your roots' as far as civilization - where the human race came from as well as respect the roots of your hair," Sobomehin said.

Since then, Esfac'e has grown to include a wider variety of designs, and has sped up its production process, including a production deal with a company in Bangladesh.

"We have all the contacts and people in place right now where if we play our cards right we could have our stuff in stores in the next 12 months, easy," Sobomehin said.

Terrence Boyd Jr., a Santa Clara student who owns about half a dozen Esfac'e shirts, said that the message of Esfac'e should make it more attractive to consumers.

For "a lot of companies, their focus is just on trying to make money and trying to be trendy and what sells, Dele's clothing tries to send a positive message out there," he said.

According to Sobomehin, relaying positive messages was the main goal behind the creation of Esfac'e.

"I don't think there are too many companies out there who are truly dedicated to promoting a positive message and doing that through clothing - I believe that we would be the first to really be on the positive tip and really be taking that angle to the next level," he said.

After the founding of Esfac'e, Sobomehin switched his major from civil engineering to finance.

"I felt like it would be important for one of the core members to have a strong sense of business and to have enough business savvy to take Esfac'e to the next level," he said.

Since then, Sobomehin has gained invaluable experience applying classroom concepts to the real business world.

"Ever since I've been in the business school, regardless of the class I've been able to take something I learned and apply it directly to Esfac'e and how we operate as a company," he said.

Steven Wade, a finance and accounting professor said that Sobomehin's entrepreneurial spirit should be applauded.

"Too often we have people who come in and they're in business school just because their parents told them to be in business school - but Dele and others are in business school because they have an idea and they want to learn things that they can apply to that idea, so obviously that always warms a professor's heart," Wade said.

Wade has offered advice to Sobomehin regarding "what you need to do to start a business," particularly involving venture capital.

Much of Esfac'e' success has been due to exposure at events at Santa Clara and Stanford, as well as sponsoring and organizing community events in Sobomehin's hometown of Portland, Ore.

The first event in Portland, called "the jump off volume 1" was held at a park and included a 3-on-3 basketball tournament and free food.

The second event centered on a voter registration drive in a primarily African-American community, where Esfac'e provided registration forms for new voters.

Sobomehin said that events like this show that Esfac'e clothing is a means to get their message across, not just a means to become wealthy fashion designers.

"The only reason we came up with the idea of having a clothing line is because we thought - we needed to do something to captivate a larger audience by means of something that's popular, and right now what a lot of people value or take seriously is fashion," Sobomehin said.

Sobomehin is not the first Santa Clara student to begin a business while in school. In 2000, Ryan Garman and Chad Arimura cofounded AllDorm.com, a company that sells dorm room furniture and accessories.

Arimura received a bachelor of science in computer engineering.

Garman, the current Chief Executive Officer of AllDorm, is a frequent guest lecturer in Santa Clara business classes.

Sobomehin also oversees a subsidiary of Esfac'e, Agile T-shirt Production. Agile has created T-shirts for various on-campus organizations including American Society of Civil Engineers, the dance team and Xavier and Communitas Residential Learning Communities.

In the future, Esfac'e also plans to expand by making its apparel available for purchase on the web site, esface.com.

Passion will take you far," Sobomehin said.

"If you aren't passionate about something people read that and aren't really going to be sold as far as what product or service you're trying to provide."

* Contact Ryan Groshong at rgroshong@scu.edu or (408) 554-4546.