4 Boise college buddies want their business to help the world
Four students from the University of Idaho and Boise State University who have been friends since high school have started a business to foster “vivid living” and to help the developing world.
Vivid Roots is an online T-shirt, hat and water-bottle company created by Dylan Carlson, Trevor Bostrom, Dallas Crum and Connor Kingsbury. For every product they sell, they put money toward clean water systems in countries like Guatemala and Ecuador.
Carlson, Bostrom and Crum graduated from Boise High School and Kingsbury from Borah High. Kingsbury and Crum are sophomores at Boise State University, where they enrolled after playing semiprofessional hockey for a couple of years. Carlson will graduate this year from the University of Idaho with a geology degree. Bostrom graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in finance and marketing. They’re all 22 years old except Bostrom, who is 23.
Bostrom said Vivid Roots was just an idea among four friends who had spent an epic summer together.
“It was two summers ago, and we were working full-time jobs, and any opportunity we had we would spend with friends and family camping, fishing and hiking – kind of living an adventurous lifestyle,” he said.
The foursome decided to take a hiking trip to Moon Lake near McCall. On the hike back, Bostrom said, they had an overwhelming feeling of gratification.
“We kind of realized how fortunate we were to be living the life we were living,” he said. “We wanted to promote that lifestyle to other people. Essentially we also wanted to help people along the way. So we had this crazy idea to start an apparel company.”
The friends spent the next night drinking beer and discussing ideas. Bostrom said the four decided to call their business Vivid Roots, because the name explained what kind of life style they wanted to promote.
“To live vividly is to wake up with the passion and excitement, knowing that you can do whatever the heck you want to do in life,” he said. “Live that healthier and happier lifestyle while doing the things that you love, and in the meantime helping those in need, because unfortunately not everyone in the world is not as blessed as we are.”
Vivid Roots partnered with Rotary International, the service organization. The company donates 20 percent of gross profits to charity. Bostrom said Vivid Roots reached an agreement with Boise’s Downtown Rotary Club through which Rotary will contribute $30,000 for every $5,000 Vivid Roots donates toward its first project, a clean-water effort in Guatemala.
Last summer the friends traveled to Guatemala to visit a Rotary Club there. Carlson said he discovered how important clean water and plumbing were for the people in the area. The year before, Rotarians had installed a flushing toilet in one of the local schools. Attendance at the school has increased by more than 50 percent.
“Kids are going to school just to use the bathroom,” Carlson said.
Kingsbury and Crum were accepted into Boise State’s Venture College, which helps students develop their own businesses. They team interviewed hundreds of their peers to understand what motivated them to buy the clothing they do, said Kevin Learned, the college’s director. They presold $6,000 worth of T-shirts with a digital design, a clever brand and a promise to help people, he said.
“Along with their partners, they have been some of our real stars,” Learned said.
Vivid Roots has won three college-level business competitions in the past year, and its winnings have helped fund the company. This month the team took more than $10,000 in winnings from the Idaho Entrepreneur Challenge, a statewide competition for college students. Vivid Roots will compete in an international business-model competition in May at Brigham Young University in Utah.
The company claims $18,000 in sales in the past nine months. Each of the partners works part-time to pay bills. They have agreed not to take any profits until next year, and they are not yet paying themselves a salary, Bostrom said.
The company contracts out design work to PromoShop, a merchandising and marketing-services company with a Boise office that also helps Vivid Roots work with manufacturers.
Vivid Roots expects to support a clean-water system to be built in Ecuador soon. The four partners will head to Ecuador this summer.
Carlson said most consumers between ages 18 and 35 are interested in companies that make a positive social impact. Targeting this generation for sales will help Vivid Roots thrive and will help more people, Bostrom said.
“Millenials, our generation, are not the type to strap ourselves to a tree and protest for a social cause,” he said, “but we will buy a T-shirt and support one.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 3:42 PM.