A Chat with Fred Meyers, President & CEO, The Queensboro Shirt
CS: How did the company get started?
FM: The company started as a hobby when I was a college student in New York. The Lacoste alligator shirts were kind of at the height of their popularity. I had grown up wearing the shirts and had always liked them, but as they got to be really popular, and it became a status symbol, that turned me off. I was saddened by the fact that I couldn't wear these shirts that I loved, but I thought wouldn't it be great if you could get a shirt that was the same high quality as that Lacoste shirt, but with anything you wanted on it, so you wouldn't have to use Lacoste's logo, but you could use your own logo. It started off as a hobby. I found some resources, some shirt suppliers and some embroiderers and things like that. And I founded it kind of goofing around while I was a college student. I got a couple of customers. I then went directly to Columbia business school from college. I continued to work on it, and I was making a little money on it, but it wasn't a huge moneymaker. I kept working at it through business school, and it was very interesting to have this little project going on while I was still in school. It put what I was learning in school into context. When I got out of business school, I wasn't really all that ready to get serious about the world. Having gone straight to business school from college and not really having worked ever. So I decided to just run with this thing until I hit a brick wall, and then I'll get serious about life, and that was 25 years ago.
