Matthew Goldby, the owner of Hoss Company, is a self-described ‘Shiba Maxi’.
In early 2021, apparel line Hoss Co. had around $7000 of funding left. Goldby, who had been an early investor in a relatively small cryptocurrency called Shiba Inu Coin, made the decision to invest $4000 of the company’s funds into SHIB.
In three transactions during April 2021, the company accumulated some 921 million SHIB. Then, the cryptocurrency market crashed. Hoss Co. continued to accumulate SHIB, pausing its advertising spend, and taking Door Dash jobs, to buy the dip. Eventually, they stopped after investing $10,000 into around 4.5 billion SHIB.
Today, this is worth $160,000. This is the story of how Hoss Company used SHIB to launch its start-up even further.
How SHIB Helped Provide Security To Hoss Company
It was through browsing on Stocktwits that Matthew Goldby first heard of Shiba Inu.
After cashing out his Dogecoin in 2019, he saw SHIB as a potential new beginning. “I was in Doge in summer 2019, and I fumbled the bag,” he said. “With Shiba, God was like, ‘Hey, you have a second opportunity. Don’t mess it up.’”
Goldby then decided to invest in SHIB, and joined the Stocktwits community group for the token. “I was the 500th member in it, and I just saw the growth, I saw the community, and I saw how strong it was. It was the Shiba community that made me believe.”
It was then that he saw SHIB provided an opportunity for his company. Hoss Company’s staggered SHIB investments started to gain huge profits, as documented in this TikTok video.
As a small start-up, this provided Hoss Co. with financial security. “As a start-up company, it’s very, very hard to be profitable,” Goldby said, referencing the issues balancing sales with marketing and getting their name out there. “We work with a lot of athletes that cost money,” he said. “Thanks to Shiba, we are able to take those risks, as we know we have that cushion.”
Hoss Co. used some of its profits to pay its photographers and editors, but Goldby said they are reluctant to touch their holdings anymore. “We don’t want to sell it. It’s more beneficial to hold it in Shiba,” he said.
Hoss Company currently holds around 2.5bn SHIB - worth $89,100 at the time of writing.
However, it’s not just about the financial security for Hoss. SHIB has helped its mentality, too. “It’s opened the door for the future where we feel like we can do anything,” Goldby said. “It’s given us belief.”
On a more personal level, Goldby said that the Shiba community has “made me believe in myself to do crazy things in the future.”
The First SHIB Store?
While the likes of Bigger Entertainment and Shiba Swag Swap sell a range of Shiba Inu merch, Hoss saw the opportunity for a SHIB clothing line back in June. This included Shiba Inu beanies, shirts, and sweatshirts. They also accepted SHIB payments, which was pretty rare at that time. “We were one of the first companies in the world [to accept SHIB],” Goldby said.
However, it didn’t go as planned. “The honest truth is, I think there were only two people who [bought] it,” he said.
While NOWPayments and BitPay now make it easier to pay with SHIB, Goldby said other merchants “probably don’t have many orders with SHIB”. However, he acknowledged this isn’t much of an issue right now, as “in the future, it’s going to open the door to more opportunities.”
One of the major barriers for SHIB payments - high transaction fees - may be resolved by the release of the Shibarium L2.
Regardless, with the newfound interest in SHIB that has come about since September, Hoss Co has re-launched its SHIB merchandise.
Read More: ShibaSwap 2.0: What To Expect From SHIB's ShibaSwap v2 Update
[Image: Pedro Lastra/Unsplash/Hoss Company]