Broken Bow Country
Category: Art and Apparel
Founder: Colton Patterson
See also Align’s interview with Patterson.
Founded: 2023
Representative products:Official John Wayne T-shirts, cowboy-themed T-shirts, art prints, stickers
At a glance:
- In less than a year, Patterson has amassed nearly 750,000 followers with his Instagram posts and artwork.
- He’s only 17 years old, a student at Columbine High School.
- He has used his platform of over half a million followers on Instagram to raise more than $10,000 through the sale of original artwork for victims in the recent assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump.
- Patterson has a sizeable following for the artwork and content he creates for country and Western music.
In their own words (CEO Colton Patterson):
What I realized very early on is that like no one will care about it until you just put it in front of them and you’ve shown that you can add value to their life. Because I imagine I could have started with the drawings, I could have posted them as much as I wanted, but until you’re in front of people, until they know you have the credibility and the ethos, they’re not going to care for the most part.
I just think cowboys are cool.
Regarding his Trump fundraiser:
This has nothing to do with politics. I was incredibly moved by what happened, and I wanted to use my platform to do something that extended beyond the controversy and the arguing.
I couldn’t care less about what nasty things people have to say about it online and the politics around it. All I know is that at the end of the day, I used a unique privilege to give back to people that needed it, and that’s all that matters to me.=