Until early December, brothers Ian and Eli White relied on friends and family for their sales. Their new clothing brand, which has a goal to highlight the jobs done by trade workers, was three months old and had yet to catch on.
Facebook ads promoting T-shirts and hoodies — tagged with their brand name, Workman, and catchphrases like “Worked to Death†and “Safety Third†— failed to get the brand off the ground.
Turns out, Facebook may have just been the wrong platform.
“We honestly didn’t get a lot of traction at first,†Ian White said on a mid-December afternoon. “That was definitely kind of discouraging for a little bit there.â€
The brothers — both of whom are recent Raymond Central High School graduates — set Workman to the side and refocused elsewhere, Ian on his day job at a Lincoln marketing firm and Eli on his first semester of economics studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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“But we still had ideas,†Ian said. “We still wanted to do this and felt that there was a way to do this.â€
On Nov. 28, Ian was in Cancun, Mexico, on a planned vacation when a friend sent a TikTok video promoting another clothing brand. The low-budget clip had more than 30,000 views.
“I was like, ‘Well, that doesn’t look that hard, I think I can do that,’†Ian said.
The next day, he posted Workman’s first TikTok, which displays a text message from “Dad†reading “Which one of those hoodies did you want me to get you for Christmas?†Swiping to the right introduces Workman’s apparel line while an outlaw-tinged country song plays.
For the next three days, the White brothers made more TikToks, and Workman’s sales perked up. $300 one day, $400 the next.
Then, on Dec. 2, the app’s algorithm latched onto a Workman video with a narrative similar to their first post — a text message from Dad asking which Workman hoodie his son wants for Christmas.
“And it just went crazy, and that’s when the website got hit really hard,†Ian said.
Their phones buzzed with “cha-ching†notifications that signaled sale after sale.
“I was checking the website during all my classes that day,†Eli said, “and I think we had an average of about 170 to 200 people at all times.â€
Views piled up on the TikTok video, approving comments rolled in — in a stroke of algorithmic luck, the White brothers had caught the break they had hoped for. Just like that, their new business was raking it in.
“I remember I was texting Eli that I couldn’t feel my hands,†Ian said. “It was a surreal experience.â€
By the end of that day, the Workman website had racked up over $20,000 in sales. Less than three weeks later, they were at $120,000. And now the Workman operation stakes a sizable claim over Shirts 101’s production floor.
On a mid-December afternoon, the brothers, plus their dad Jeff White, gathered in a meeting room at the patriarch’s Aqua Systems on North 27th Street, one door south of screen printing company Shirts 101. Extra space at the water softener dealer’s digs have been occupied by Workman’s front office — manned by the White brothers and a friend of theirs, Micah, whom they brought in for back-up.
Ian stood to take a phone call mid-conversation — to set up a customer hotline to reach Workman’s founders directly. They’re still working out many of the business’s structural kinks.
“We’re working this week to get some stability,†Jeff White said. “Because this just kind of happened.â€
As of Dec. 16, Workman had received more than 2,400 orders, some from as far away as Australia and Norway. And before their TikTok breakthrough, every order that came in was being automatically outsourced to random shirtmakers around the United States. Keeping track of them all could turn into a logistical nightmare. They promptly put a stop on automated orders.
“And that weekend, we met with the owners of Shirts (101) to show them what was happening,†Jeff said, “and their eyes got about this big around.â€
Shirts 101 was the previous occupant at Aqua Systems’ building, which still houses Shirts’ embroidery machines and staff — they transport boxes of clothes across Theresa Street in a golf cart. That was the extent of the Whites’ business relationship with Shirts owners Rick and Jo Poore.
“At that point, I didn’t even know that (Shirts) was a certified union printer,†Jeff said. “What we’re going after is blue collar. Union workers. And Rick told us, ‘Do you realize what you have here? I can put you in contact with every union there is.’â€
Ian White says the idea for the business came to him naturally one night when he and Eli were out at their parents’ house, dirtying their hands on an outdoor project.
“We were working outside, and one of us said, ‘We’re just a couple of blue-collar boys putting in work,’†Ian said. “I was like, ‘That’s kind of a good idea … We’re putting in work, but think about all those other guys doing the same thing.’â€
The name “Blue Collar Boys†was already in use by a Carhartt wholesaler. “Workman†came from an evening of brainstorming.
“It encapsulates ‘blue collar’ in one word, I think,†Ian said.
And the blue-collar class, he said, often doesn’t get the love he thinks it should. Ian studied computer science at Doane University, but he initially leaned toward pursuing a career in auto body and mechanic work. He has a lot of respect for the people who work in those fields; in his eyes, there’s nothing that makes a plumber’s job or an electrician’s job less important than that of a lawyer or doctor.
“People should be proud of what they do and be well-represented,†Ian said. “I feel like our brand offers that.â€
So far, Workman has rolled out about a dozen shirt and hoodie designs, each representing a different trade and sporting a unique, cheeky slogan — some with PG-13 double entendres. A design for electricians is branded with “Strippin’ For A Livin.’ Another design for pipelayers reads “Layin’ Pipe.â€
“We try to think of stuff that our blue-collar friends might say on the job site,†Eli White said.
Much of Workman’s early feedback has been positive, and comments on TikTok have streamed in from trade workers asking for a design that represents their own job. The continued interest makes them think their early success isn’t a fluke, and that what they’re doing is making an unsung demographic feel seen.
“It’s about people working for themselves and being proud of the hard work they put into things,†Ian said. “We want people to see these designs and say, ‘That’s my job. That’s what I do.’â€
More information can be found at or on TikTok at @workmanusa.