On October 8, 2009, entrepreneur and clothing designer, Johnny Earle gave a lecture in the University Union Ballroom at Sacramento State on how he made it big. He discussed the story of his brand Johnny Cupcakes and how he went from selling shirts out of the trunk of his beat up car to becoming a multi-millionaire. He also gave out priceless advice on how he succeeded where many have failed before. The event was heavily promoted through newspapers and blogs and drew hundreds of fans that loyally followed Earle and what he came up with for Johnny Cupcakes.
The Lecture
The schedule start time for the lecture was 7:30pm, but it did not start until around 8:15pm due to the long line of kids waiting eagerly for his merchandise. Johnny Cupcakes shirts, notebooks, folders, pencils and oddly enough, glow in the dark vampire teeth were on sale before the lecture. University Union Unique Programs put on the event and worked the merchandise booth before and after the lecture. Earle spoke for almost three and a half hours while the time allotted for the lecture was around 2 hours. Sacramento State student, Sean Rooney had only heard of the brand when he decided to attend the event. Rooney felt that although the lecture went on for over 3 hours that all of the information was important. Rooney said, “I thought the lecture was entertaining and informative. It felt like I was talking to a friend, not a multimillionaire. It was inspiring.”
Director of Unique Programs Zenia Diokno LaPorte has seen many entertainers in her time at Sacramento State University, but the Johnny Cupcakes event was truly original. LaPorte, joined by 26 volunteers who stayed until 3:30am, started setting up for the event at 1:30pm earlier that day which is earlier than usual. The volunteers remained busy throughout the event with normal duties like watching the doors to ones they rarely do, like selling merchandise and putting gifts on every chair in the ballroom. La Porte stated, “Although he had many requests, he was not demanding about them. He was really nice about them so you didn’t really notice.” She felt pleased with the 700 people that came out to see Earle speak and received a lot of positive feedback on the event.
Sacramento State senior Ashley Tapia had been a fan of Johnny Cupcakes for two years before she heard the news that Earle was coming to speak on behalf of his brand. She stated that she liked the brand because, “Everyone likes cupcakes and the shirts are making fun of pop culture. Whenever I wear his shirts I get compliments on them.” Tapia has spent many seasons working as a tour guide for people in Disney World and she played a similar role for the Johnny Cupcakes event. Her job was hospitality, which meant that she was supposed to be the liaison for the merchandise table and anyone outside of Unique. She picked Earle up from the airport and drove him back the next day. She also showed him around campus and did whatever was requested of her to make his lecture just how he wanted it. The excitement of having her favorite clothing designer speak at her college wore off shortly after he left. She felt that before meeting Earle she “put him on a pedestal expecting that he would be this amazing person. He was nice and knew what he was talking about, but I was hoping for more…maybe connections or advice for the future.”
Overall the event seems like it was a success with a packed ballroom full of fans that stayed until almost 3:30 in the morning to meet Earle. He told the audience that Johnny Cupcakes makes thousands of dollars in online orders each day so for now it is safe to assume that more shirts will keep being “freshly baked” for the kiddos to collect.
Photo credit to University Union Unique Programs October 2009
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