Dallas Crum, Dylan Carlson, Trever Bostrom, and Connor Kingsbury started Vivid Roots to inspire people to follow their passions and enjoy all that life has to offer. They promote adventure and pushing life’s limits. Vivid Roots believes that we should make the world better for all those who surround us, and provide a helping hand to those in need through out life’s journey. They use the mark “Live Vividly” to embody it all.
Vivid Roots sells apparel that represents this way of living. With every purchase they donate 20% off gross profits to implementing sustainable clean water systems in developing countries. They have partnered with Rotary International to help implement these wells, water distribution & filtration systems. To maximize the impact of each shirt they have established a leverage funding system with some Rotary Partners that allows them to turn every dollar they donate into seven dollars!
Below is a Q&A with Dallas Crum, co-founder of Vivid Roots.
When did Vivid Roots begin? Tell us about how the group got together and said lets do this, lets start this social enterprise?
The idea of Vivid Roots began in 2013 after a great summer spent having fun with friends and family in the great outdoors Idaho has to offer. All four of us have been friends for about the last decade so talk of business ideas came up every so often in joking context. The idea slowly began building and became less of an idea, we played around with making logos, we had meetings where we discussed the very basics of what we wanted to be and where we thought we wanted to go. Myslef and Connor’s acceptance into the Boise State Venture college February of Last year was a really big milestone in terms of how serious this was getting. That is an amazing program that has put us in contact and provided us with opportunities with many influential people. We have taken full advantage of all the opportunities that have presented themselves and hard work and persistence has forced more of those opportunities to appear!
Why water? What was it about this specific issue that Vivid Roots wanted to do something about?
The reason that we chose water was fundamentally simple. For how many issues there are in the world, this is one that we can truly make a difference in with enough support! Kevin Learned (Venture College Program Director) is an Active Rotary Club member in Boise, and he got us in contact with our Non-Profit partner Water For the Americas. Although we had been e-mailing Keith Thompson of Water for the Americas back and forth for some time, once we finally took a trip to Central America with Keith, the Vivid Roots team, and Rotarians from Guatemalan Clubs did the partnership seem real. We were all able to put faces to names and learn about each other in a way most e-mail conversations cannot express.
As you progress as a business what plans do you have for the product lines. Will you stay with just T-shirts or expand to more products?
When talking about the products that Vivid Roots hopes to offer in the future, we would like to have full product lines of clothing (Sweatshirts,Henley’s Tank tops etc) for both men and women. We currently made a test order for a small number of hats and water bottles and sold the bulk of them within the first 48 hours. So, not only clothing , but we hope to have several accessory items as well, of course all of our products will help raise funds for these water systems.
What is your overall vision of what you want Vivid Roots to be and accomplish?
I think I speak for the whole team when I say that we want Vivid Roots to be a company that stands out from the rest. We want to set a bench mark in what it means to be an authentic, raw, and transparent company. Our main priority is not getting rich, it is promoting and encouraging people to live a life full of joy and value (Living Vividly) and feeling a sense of responsibility as humans in fortunate situations to help those that are not as fortunate. Our mindset is that most anything is attainable with hard work and truly believing that success will happen. As time goes on, this fact is further and further validated. We have a long way to go before this will be a solid source of income for us, but like i said, it is about spreading the message and helping make the world a better place for everyone. it is comforting knowing the beautiful and fruitful impact of giving someone with such a simple, and necessary opportunity that comes with clean water.
In short, the over all goal of Vivid Roots is Live Vividly and leave the world a better place than it was before we started.
