Hank [BS/MSEE,
MSM $$$, Ph.D. Mgmt] teaches 
Jake video here:
Bert Jacobs, with his brother John, began the wildly successful Life is Good brand 10 years ago in Cambridge. The Jacobs brothers started small, selling t-shirts printed with a stick-figure named Jake — first on street corners and then in local retail stores before going national. Jake’s image and optimistic message can now be found on bags, mugs, footwear and jewelry. Their story is yet another inspiration for students of entrepreneurship….read on…
In 1984, Bert and John Jacobs designed their first tee shirt. They knew nothing about the business.
For Five years, the brothers traveled the East Coast, selling door-to-door in college dormitories. They collected some good stories, but were not very prosperous. They lived on peanut butter and jelly, slept in their van, and showered when they could. 
Chicks were not impressed.
By August of 1994, with a combined sum of $78 in the bank, Bert and John considered getting real jobs.
And then someone special came into their lives
His name was Jake. And he showed them the way. Read the entire Jake/Life Is Good Story here: And visit their web site here:
You should take away several very important lessons from the Jacobs brothers: Their funding, or lack thereof; their perseverance; their passion; their fly in the face of conventional wisdom; and their success in spite of life getting in the way. I believe they indeed believe in their company’s tagline: “Life is good.” Hank
I don’t even hope to capture all the insights from the article in a single comment, so I won’t even try.
These guys are the essence of what entrepreneurs should be in the sense that they seem to do things on THEIR terms, bucking conventional wisdom and the pundits.
The other insight is the following. When people “fail” (I use that word loosely), they typically draw a line of commitment. In other words, they are only committed to some point (e.g. someone deciding they will pursue a venture for 3 years, and if it doesn’t work they’ll get a regular job). It appears to me that the successful entrepreneurs do not draw lines of commitment. I think this boundless commitment is what make geniuses and mad(wo)men virtually indistinguishable. IMHO, they are distinguished by the results they produce, but that’s wholly another topic.
Lastly, setting up employees with General Neighborhood Shoppes (vs. franchises) is pure GENIUS. Kudos to the Jacobs brothers; I can’t wait for them to hit a billion!
you gotta give it to these guys for sticking through all those hard times in the van going door to door in college dorms, that’s not the life people want to live, but they had a vision and stuck to it. everything about the company that i read in that article shows that these two guys aren’t in it for the money, they aren’t getting greedy and switching to a lower quality material, and they say there’s no way that they’ll sell the company…decisions like those give off a serious impression of what the company is about. And since their motto is “life is good” giving off that don’t get caught up in the rat race and enjoy every day of your life vibe, they need to make decisions like that to support what they’re doing in their business.
First off, this is really interesting information. I had always wondered where these shirts were coming from all of a sudden. I had one for each sport I played.
Secondly, theses success stories are the motivation and inspiration for people who want to be entrepreneurs. It’s the passion and the drive to do your own thing, and then to watch you succeed. The Jacob’s brothers are the type of people that deserve their money and they deserve to be happy. They stuck through the tough times and focused on their dreams, and now they’re on their way to being the founders of a multi-million dollar company. Congrats Life is Good!
The design is so simple and positive. It’s amazing how entrepreneurs can “fall” into success. Who would have thought that a drawing on an apartment wall -a stick figure- would make them millions of dollars? Sometimes you have to look at the most obvious of solutions to realize that what you have already is exactly what you need to be successful. By using availible resources and common knowledge ideas like this are easy. The hard part is making your ideas work. With a positive attitude and relentless, passionate effort it will happen. Life really is Good.
I oftentimes find it very interesting how someone can come up with something so simple that its amazingly revolutionary. the success story of the brothers is interesting because of their constant pushing for thier product to sell. Going door to door is not always the most efficient way to get a product sold but it can be effective. I am very interested in why they continued to try to sell this design when it wasn’t making them much profit. I guess they either really believed in thier product, or being an entreprenuer can make you alittle on the edge.
I think if you read carefully, Jake was the key to their success and happened well after their initial foray into the basic business.
in an attempt to elaborate on Hank’s comment, I think before Jake, “Life is Good” had no personality. Think of any of the brand names (e.g. Starbucks, Google, Nordstrom, Porsche); they all emanate their own personalities…
Its always amazing how you can be successful with just one more person!
Its nice to read about success stories and the struggles they went through, because everyone can relate to
them. Also, to read about companies that truely stand behind their company like living in a van selling their shirts to college students and continuing to follow their dream.I have seen these shirts all over the country and conitue to see how popular they are at resorts.
I think the lesson learned here is to give everything you’ve got and stay with it no matter how hard times are. These brothers could have called it quits a million times, but since they kept a positive attitude, they made 80.
It’s great to see these guys succeed after everything they had to go through to try and make it in the business world. We’ve read a lot about entrepreneurs who have come up with great ideas that seem to get rich quick, but this just reminds us that’s not always the case. The perseverance of these two brothers should be commended and their story should be a lesson for all future entrepreneurs. Life is good to those who persevere through the tough times.
That’s a pretty cool story. I think that if I was them I would have gone out and gotten a “real job” after collecting only $78 in one year, living in a van, living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and not being able to shower regularly. It’s amazing that they were able to keep going and become successful after that. Those things seem pretty disheartening to me. I guess that really is what an entrepreneur has to do; just stick to their idea and you can see what it did for them.
I think that it is great that these guys were willing to stick with their product through such adversity. I also find it humorous that they were so against getting a real job that they were willing to live in their van. It just shows that sometimes you have to fight toe and nail to get your product off the ground.
While it was amazing that they stuck through all the hard times, they didn’t have to go through that. If they tried to target the stores instead of individual customers, they would have become successful much quicker. Think of how little they must have made, 10.6 cents a day each. Thats worse then in a chinese sweatshop. The phrase work smarter not harder comes to mind.
What a great success story, this is a perfect inspiring story for entrepreneurs in general. I couldn’t imagine only having $78 dollars to my name and living off of peanut butter and jelly and never losing sight of my end goal. In the end, they got what they deserved. They stuck with their original idea and it paid off for them, who could want anything more.
This is a true rags to riches story. It reminds me of how Forest Gump he wiped his face on the guys t-shirt and started the happy face logo. It is always good to hear about people who really had to work for what they got. They are a true example of hard work pays off.
It is always nice to see people succeed when the main goal of their business is to inspire people or to cheer people up. So many of the cases we have seen aren’t cases of people being really passionate about a great idea or good cause, many of them are about people that see a good way to get rich or to have a successful company and they take advantage of this. It gives me hope that people can get rich from something that they believe in because it almost seems as if people don’t get rich from doing what they are passionate about anymore.
This article is great. It reminds me you do not need a business degree. One of the Jacob brothers just had an art/english major. It also reminds about the people who remember why they started the business in the first place. I read the full internet article and what amazes me is how they been helping trautamized children from Sept 11 and children with dieses. The festivals they do are amazing because they only make profit off the t-shirts and everything else is free. I believe that is the best way to do business by bringing the community together.
Very inspirational story. I actually went on the website and considered buying some stuff until I saw the prices. If people are actually buying this stuff, life IS definately good for these guys.
That is determination! Wow, they stuck to their idea till the very end and they were rewarded with immense success! They truly live up to their catch phrase ‘life is good’. I must get one of those shirts!