By Julian Chiemingo Rivera, Community News Service
Editor’s note: This story is via Community News Service in partnership with Vermont State University Castleton.
Jumping onto the Funky Flies website, shoppers are quickly met with a variety of items to buy — from skateboard decks and skateboard dog bowls to coffee beans from Colorado.
The Rutland-based online business attracts a community through funky designs and art in a variety of products.
And it’s funky enough that even Snoop Dogg followed and retweeted the brand.
In 2021, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, were at their peak in selling high-priced art. Nowadays, some of these artistic pieces are shaping out into small businesses.
It all started when Jonathan Gicewicz launched an NFT project in February 2021.
“The art was called Funky Flies,” Gicewicz said.
This NFT was very successful in selling on OpenSea, an NFT and crypto marketplace. Gicewicz decided to move this artwork into a real-life business. He creates apparel with designs that revolve around their Funky Fly model.
“The art is a different type of art,” he said.
He models his shirts with a unique design that is unlike typical graphic T-shirts.
“It’s almost like this ’90s throwback kind of skateboard and kind of feel vibe that we’re going with,” said Josh Leggette, product and marketing manager.
Gicewicz and Leggette started this side-hustle business straight out of their homes. Most of the work and construction was produced right in their garages.
“By the end of winter, there was probably 2 inches of sawdust everywhere in my garage,” Leggette said.
More recently, Funky Flies has been able to move to more of a mass production business. And the products they produce have grown from just apparel. Their newest hits include the popular pet bowls made from skateboards.
“It’s a different market. It’s not your normal cat and elevated dog bowl. It’s something a little more niche and a little more funky,” Gicewicz said. “Now that we have this Chewy connection, we are looking toward pet products because the name lends towards pet products — you know, ‘flies on s–t,’ so to speak.”
This past March Funky Flies launched on Chewy.com, an online pet supply retailer, to expand their market. They currently market their skateboard dog bowls on the site and are working to put more pet products there.
The Funky Flies guys have been slowly trying to expand their community through social media, craft shows and donations. Recently, Leggette went to a pet adoption day at a local store and donated a skate deck dog bowl to be raffled off. Anyone who adopted a pet that day was entered into a raffle to win it.
The biggest donation Funky Flies has made was to the Uganda Skateboard Society. They donated 100 complete skateboards and kits with their NFT profits. This donation was over 20 boxes of equipment and cost about $40,000, they said.
“At the end of the day, this is a passion project for us, and we do want to give back to the younger generations as well,” Leggette said.
Leggette and Gicewicz also host small businesses on their website (funkyflies.com) and have brand partnerships with other local small business who struggle with having an online shop.
“I reached out to a brewery, for instance, up here, and the logo is great, but they don’t want to carry inventory because it’s too expensive for them. If we partner with them, they can have their own drop-down right in our website for a partner project or project business,” Leggette said.
This can be good for tourists who want to order a glass from this brewery and do not want to travel with it. This is a safe and efficient way to promote other businesses in the area, the owners said.
“It helps other people who would not have the ability to sell stuff online,” Gicewicz said.
Gicewicz works hard to create unique non-AI generated art. This art sometimes comes from collaborations with other artists across the country. He is currently working with the artist known as The Vintage Gimmick.
“It’s very fun to work with other creatives so they can see their designs on a deck and actually see it selling,” said Gicewicz.
Gicewicz and Leggette currently still see it as a passion project but hope one day it can become their full-time job.
Funky Flies owner Jonathan Gicewicz and Product and Marketing Manager Josh Leggette are growing the online business including having products on Chewy.com.
