The Birth of Old Road Brand: From "Mulldog" to a Classic Concept

Every brand has a beginning, but very few start with a college nickname and a bad hat mock-up.

Back in early 2018, Old Road Brand hadn’t entered as a concept. I was actually working on a completely different idea: a collection of men’s stationery note cards. I had taken stylized Instagram photos of classic men’s aesthetics—mid-century chairs, architectural lines, and vintage cars, then had run them through art filter software.

While editing a shot of a vintage car, I needed a way to block out the real license plate. Thinking on my feet, I decided to replace it with a custom plate bearing nickname an old college buddy called me… Mulldog.

Looking at the rendered black-and-gold California plate on screen, a lightbulb went off. “That’s kind cool, I’d wear that on a hat.”

So I decided to mock them up in a few different state ideas, and fired them off to a circle of close friends.

The consensus was instantaneous—and painfully clear:

"What’s a Mulldog?"

Nobody got it. My marketing and product development background immediately kicked in to deliver a reality check: if your target audience needs an explanation just to understand your name, you’re pushing a boulder uphill. "Mulldog" was DOA.

I was stuck, so the mock ups went into a drawer.  Yet, I couldn't let the core idea go. I thought the product design itself had legs—mostly because I desperately wanted to wear one of those license plate caps myself! But the name was everything. It had to feel authentic, nostalgic, and—practically speaking—it had to fit within the standard 7-character limit of a real state license plate.

July 23, 2018: The Eureka Moment

For six months, the concept sat on the back burner, keeping my mind active while I searched for the right fit. Then on July 23, 2018, it hit me:

O-L-D R-O-A-D

Exactly seven letters. It immediately evoked memories of vintage road maps, Sunday drives, and timeless Americana. It was simple, iconic, and effortless. To give it that classic, enduring finish, I appended "Brand" to the end—and Old Road Brand was officially born. (And yes, the very first thing I did was sprint to buy the .com domain).

Crossing the Chasm

The name inspiration came from a box of old gas station road maps that belonged to my grandparents. I had also grown up in a car culture family. As a kid, I was adept at identifying different state licenses plates on family road trips. As I look back on the naming moment, unknowingly, I had pulled together several meaningful aspects of my life  Having the right name reignited my drive, and was the "green light" to the next steps forward.

The hard truth, as every entrepreneur knows... an idea is just a ghost until you put real action behind it. Turning a concept into reality requires taking a leap—specifically, putting real dollars on the line to trade abstract ideas for tangible products you can hold in your hand. That's what came next when I committed to testing the concept with patches for states that I would be traveling to in the fall of 2018.

Little did I know, taking that financial step in 2018 would be the start of a now 8-year journey, with over 10,000 hats made and sold to date. Nearly all of them, I've sewn or heat pressed myself. If you own one, thanks for riding with me on this adventure.