Case studyCo-founded brand
DeKryptic
A licensed apparel brand I co-founded — AR-activated garments, 50+ licensed properties, and the production workflow behind them.
AR Apparel · Licensing · Commerce
Built it, licensed it.
Licensed apparel is a crowded shelf. A Marvel tee is a Marvel tee wherever it is bought, so the product has to carry something the licence alone does not.
And a brand running 50+ properties cannot pre-buy stock for every one of them. The production model has to carry the spread, not a warehouse.
AR-activated apparel — tees, outerwear, backpacks and trading cards — industry-first at the time. The garment carried the artwork and the activation together.
Print-on-demand built across three DTG platforms wired into our Shopify, so a drop could be produced and shipped without inventory sitting against it.
I negotiated the licences as Director of Licensing — Marvel, DC, Nintendo, Warner Bros., Disney, and the exclusive merchandise rights to The Boondocks — and ran the AI animation and retouching pipelines behind the campaigns.
The brand ships today across The Boondocks, Marvel, Rick & Morty, Squid Game, Coca-Cola and more, with a dedicated Boondocks storefront and a collectibles line alongside the apparel. I stepped back from day to day in 2024 and remain on the board as technical consultant.