The name Karmaloop is synonymous with online street wear boutique. However, the company isn’t just another “online retailer” to brands such as Triumvir, Triple Five Soul or Fresh Jive. Their niche is to involve their target audience that wanted more out of their shopping experience. A “For the people, by the people” type of approach is how I perceive it. Anyone that has shopped on the site is familiar with the street rep program. Go out there and spread the word about Karmaloop, enabler of dope street wear. By doing so, your efforts equated to cash and discounts for you and yours.

Throughout the years, Karmaloop has undergone enhancements like the addition of a brick and mortar in Boston, various web channels i.e. KarmaloopTV, a products blog, and finally, Kazbah, a separate ecommerce channel for upcoming brands. I’ve been a fan of Karmaloop since day one thanks to fellow street rep and friend, Jason Foreman. Who would’ve thought one day, I’d get to interface with Greg Selkoe, the owner of Karmaloop and pick his brain. Let’s begin…

Besides the perks of being in the business and receiving free gear, what made you decide to start selling gear online? Especially with taking the risk and plunging into the whole underground smaller brands sector?

Greg Selkoe: I was working for the city government during the end of the initial dot com boom and was looking to do something new and fun where I would get to work for myself.

I didn’t know a ton about business, so it made sense to start something that I had solid knowledge of. For me, that was the clothing, and I had a great grasp of the culture that I wanted to market to. I learned the business along the way. Basically, that is how we have always grown, just doing things and winging it.

How did the venture start and how old were you when you kicked it off? Did you have any guidance along the way?

G: I was around 25 and I was lucky enough to have some good people giving me advice. It is amazing how willing people are to help out or give advice if you just ask. It was very tough and we struggled for a long time, maxing out credit cards and borrowing money from friends and family. The original office and warehouse was my parents’ basement, so that helped to keep overhead low. And my girl was working, so she supported us.

I kept extending myself, getting deeper in debt. I invested all the money I had and then I looked to my family and friends: My dad invested… cousins, friends, friends of friends. I just set out in my mind that failure was not an option. If we had gone under, I would have had a mob calling for my head.

As I said, I had no business experience or retail experience, so I basically knew that I didn’t know anything. Fortunately, I was able to get older people with more experience to mentor me, and I learned as I went along. The main advice I would give anyone starting a business is just don’t give up

Karmaloop started in 1999 when street wear wasn’t quite poppin’ yet. Who were some of the first companies you worked with and how did you hook up with them? Were you able to envision the explosion that the scene has achieved over the years?

G: We started with Triple Five Soul, Spiewak, Gypsies and Thieves (GAT), CAT and last but not least, Caffeine.

Watch for Triple Five to be back in the Street wear game soon. We have a project with them called Classic Soul, rereleasing some of the original bangers.

Gypsies and Thieves eventually turned into Green Apple Tree, which is a brand we no longer carry. CAT work wear had an ill fashion brand at the time but they killed it for some reason, and you totally had to be on something to have worn Caffeine.

In 2005, you opened a store in Boston. What made you branch out into retail? How has it changed the scene in Boston with the retail store opening?

G: It was our hometown and we had the goods. This was well before we moved our warehouse to Ohio, so we thought, “Hey, why not.” The street wear scene in Boston was pretty dead when we started, but there were advantages to being here. There are lots of college students to intern and almost all of the sneaker companies are here: Puma, Reebok, New Balance, Converse and Pro-Keds/Saucony. Even Adidas has some of their U.S. offices here and continue to move more operations here.

It is important to me that we are doing it here in Boston. Even with some of the challenges, I think we have an impact on Boston’s culture. If we had left, a lot of the creative people in the city would have moved away as well. A ton of new stores have opened since we started up, and Boston has become a little street wear mecca. The city is home to Awol, Lab, Reup, Concepts, Technical, Relic, Laced and a bunch more. I think the competition is great for the city and we don’t sweat it. We wish them well.

There seems to be a lot of people out there trying to capitalize on the scene and not quite putting the love behind the product and culture anymore. What are your current thoughts on the street culture now?

G: The barriers to entry are low and it is easy to have a T-shirt line today. Karmaloop tries to only work with brands we feel are putting it down correctly. The current style of “street wear” may be a little overheated, but there will always be some form of style that will be popular with progressive, independent city people, even if it is called something else. There are always gonna be people putting their hearts into creating brands, so we try to look for those brands and weed out the bullshit.

Tell us a bit about KarmaloopTV. At what point did Karmaloop decide to become an entertainment portal as well as a street wear hub? Any other big plans poppin’ for 2008 and beyond? Btw, that WeSC commercial on there was kinda cool and creepy at the same time. It looks like Takashi Shimizu and Michel Gondry had some influence.

G: From the beginning, we wanted to be more than just a store. We are really a style community. We don’t just take clothes and throw them on a rack; we work with the brands closely. In a lot ways, we are just as much of a marketing vehicle for our brands as a retailer. We shoot the clothing on models that actually wear the gear they are modeling. We put up the brand’s creative and we push the brand in our emails. Basically, we try to tell a brand’s story. Basically, KarmaloopTV started out as an extension of that.

Music, clothing and art are all part of street wear culture and we wanted to put it all in one place. Working in street wear, we felt we had access to good content, so we rolled with it and started KarmaloopTV.

In usual Karmaloop style, we just jumped in and had no clue what we were doing, but the core thing is that we understand our culture, so the rest of the video or business stuff can be learned. Plus, we brought in some good people who were passionate about the project.

We have no laid out plan. We are just filming people we are feeling and sh!t we think is cool, and the response has been huge. We are just gonna get bigger and better and we are always looking for input, so if you got an idea, hit us up.

Yeah, the WeSC commercial was a little creepy. Greger, the owner of WeSC, is a huge freak. Just kidding, Greger.

With the various brands carried at Karmaloop, what determines their ongoing relationship with you guys? Is it mainly performance? The reason why I’m asking is because there are brands I’ve noticed that are no longer available.

G: We are super tight with our brands and we chill with a lot of them on the regular. We always try to give brands input and keep them ahead of the curve so people keep feeling them. All brands have a life cycle and some are going to be like Freshjive and keep it real for decades, while others are hot for a season or two.

At the end of the day, the customers decide who we keep. If people aren’t feeling a brand and it is not selling, we can’t keep selling it no matter how much we like someone.

Karmaloop Kazbah: This is one of my favorite links in the site. Tell me how Karmaloop came up with the brilliant marketing idea. Do you guys have hungry new brands submitting requests daily?

G: Basically, people kept sending me info on their brands. A lot of them were dope but were too small for us to take them in and warehouse them. But Karmaloop is about the new shit, and these people had skills, so we wanted to offer them to our visitors. As a result, the Kazbah was born. It allows up and coming brands to sell through Karmaloop and handle fulfillment.

Out of curiosity, I remember Stussy products were by phone in orders or in-store purchase. What was the reasoning behind that?

G: It is basically a policy that Stussy had to help control competition with their online store, but we are selling it online now.

Karmaloop is currently collaborating with fellow blog HighSnobiety in the “Give-Away a Day” venture. Any more collaborations in works? Any possibility of seeing one with Killahbeez.com?

G: Def. We would love to do one with Killahbeez.

Describe your personal style and favorite label right now.

G: I love all of our labels equally. My personal style is “pirate casual.

Thanks Greg for your time in answering these questions.

G: No problem, anytime.

Well there you have it folks, that concludes our interview with Greg Selkoe, visionary of Karmaloop.

Anything is obtainable with a passion and the drive to see it through. And Karmaloop is the perfect example to that statement. Many thanks to Greg Selkoe for the interview, the knowledge and new found inspiration. On a personal note, I had no idea Green Apple Tree evolved from Gypsies and Thieves.

*Edits: Mona Alice Oakenfold aka Michelle, Lex Diamonds aka David