The NFL QB with a $1M+ Side Hustle: The (Untold) History of Ben DiNucci

Intro coming into his senior year of college he was interviewing for a job at Northwestern Mutual because he wasn't sure if he was going to get drafted then after failing to score a single touchdown on national TV he got benched for a different backup quarterback but now banucci runs one of the most successful brands of any athlete in American Sports even though most people don't even recognize his name so how did he get here and what was Ben secret from going from a seventh round backup ubb who's already been cut twice in four years to one of the most successful athlete entrepreneurs in the NFL well I sat down for an exclusive interview with him to learn more about the untold story behind the rise of the NFL's most impressive multi-million dollar side hustle Ben denucci grew up around Early Life & High School Pittsburgh Pennsylvania where he attended Pine Richland High School his ball placement football IQ and overall athleticism were evident from an early age and by his sophomore season he was already the starting quarterback for his varsity team as a senior he became the first player in Pennsylvania State history to throw for over 4,000 yards in a season while also throwing for 46 touchdowns and leading his team to an undefeated regular season in state championship appearance Pine Richland would go on to lose that game 49 to 41 but Ben solidified his status as a Pittsburgh high school legend by passing for 383 yards and four touchdowns with a 69.6% completion rate this was enough to earn him Pennsylvania's Gatorade Player of the Year a three star ranking and offers from schools like Mexico State forom JMU akand and Pen but at the last minute he decided to stay home and go to College pit where he would back up Nathan Peterman during his freshman year and by the seventh game of his sophomore season Ben would be named the starter but he ended up losing that job to true freshman Kenny picket the week before the team upset number to Miami 24 to4 that December Ben announced he'd be transferring to James Madison University in FCS school where he would be named the team starter ahead of the 2018 season and the following year in 2019 Ben would finally break out throwing for 3,441 yards and 29 touchdowns on a 71% completion rate he was named conference's offensive player of the year and even led the Dukes to the FCS national championship game where he would once again fall short but Ben would still leave JMU ranked top 10 in almost every offensive category after just two seasons with the team which proved to be enough to get the attentions of Scouts across the NFL but NFL Draft Ben wasn't quite sure where he'd end up or if he'd even get drafted at all that was until the Dallas Cowboys hired their new head coach see like Ben Mike McCarthy also grew up in the Pittsburgh area and his brother Joe McCarthy was even Ben's eighth grade basketball coach even more coincidentally just 5 days after mcarthy got the job in Dallas Ben ran into him in the hotel lobby before playing in the FCS National Championship at Toyota stadium in Frisco Texas and whether or not these two connections were enough to get Ben drafted in the seventh round of the 2020 draft the Cowboys selected the jamu quarterback with the 231st pick to avoid him signing with another team as an undrafted free agent this landed him a 4year $3.4 million contract but only 95,000 of it was guaranteed hardly enough to live on for the rest of your life especially as a player who's not sure if they're going to get a second contract much less make the team but as Ben told me he had no plan B my plan was I'm just going to let this thing ride out and see see kind of how long it um how long it last and I I'll kind of figure figure it out after that um my girlfriend and I kind of joke about this all the time like proba a few months before my senior year started at at JMU my senior season I had a call with Northwestern Mutual just to kind of you know a little bit about me a little bit about them I was like hey I might as well start start figuring out if something doesn't you know fall the way I want it to right I get hurt God forbid or something happens I just don't play well and this isn't fo football's not in the cards anymore like I might as well start just connecting networking and see seeing what else is out there but is as if you were able to speak it into existence in August of 2020 as he was about to start his rookie year training camp his phone started blowing up I'm Getting a Cold DM sitting in my bed in the hotel room during training camp one night and all of a sudden like this true brand starts liking all my pictures what the heck is true brand so I go to the page I'm like yeah these are these are kind of interesting click message and he had already sent me a message just like any of these other brands do that are trying to to get stuff in athletes hands right it was basically hey man um do you want some free hats and so uh I met up with him he he gave me probably four or five hats uh I wore them around my rookie year uh facility games whatever and um you know every time I'd wear one some some guy whether it's Dak or whoever would be like hey man that's kind of cool like what's the what's the deal with that um I had no idea right I'm just like no I don't know just any of these other brands that that that are trying to to get stuff in guys hands now at the time true brand only had around 2,000 followers on Instagram and was the small side hustle of a guy named sang trong sang was working full-time as a sales executive but had started the a few months prior during the start of Co the idea to turn the word Dallas upside down was a nod to how upside down the world felt during the start of the pandemic and after a few months selling hats the design stuck but at the time sang was still only ordering a few dozen hats per month to sell the friends and family and he knew that if he ever wanted to blow the brand up he was going to have to take a giant leap a few Becoming an Investor in TrueBrvnd months after my rookie year I get a random call from from Sayang my business partner on a you know Tuesday or Wednesday night it's real late at had what the heck is he is he calling me for right now so I answer hey man it's saying um I've been thinking a lot about this bouncing it off a lot of people I really I need a business partner I need I need to FasTrack this thing do you have any interest in in going to business together and trying to blow this up and um the first initial thought that that came into my mind was regardless of of what else happens I guarantee you I can get the guys on my team to wear this and if the Dallas Cowboys are associated with something it'll kind of Catch Fire but not everyone in Ben's life thought this was a good idea mainly his dad Jay see Jay denucci was an entrepreneur himself running a promotional apparel business in Pittsburgh for most of Ben's life and he wasn't a fan of his son investing money in such a new apparel company my dad almost you know single-handedly talked me out of maybe the best decision I've ever made in my life and we joke about this all the time he said you better make sure you really like this hat he didn't understand he was like hey who's going to buy a hat that says upside down Dallas on he said this could be the most expensive hat you've ever bought in your life you better make sure you you really like this thing and um so one thing kind of led to another I kind of went back and forth for a few weeks I basically said kick Rock stat I'm going to I'm going to do this right like you I'm going to figure it out one way or another and if if if it doesn't work it doesn't work right it would have been the same thing as buying stock in you know Amazon or you know apple or whatever so um I said let's let's do it uh we we signed off on on the agreement on the papers and then just kind of kind of hit the ground running right after that so immediately Ben as sang for two hats for every guy in the team and every time he was at the facility he made sure to have one on two this laid the foundation for fans to get naturally curious about the unique design enough that hopefully a few of them would ask about the brand and buy a hat for themselves but still growth was slow that was until the perfect opportunity came around for some old-fashioned Gorilla Marketing now you can't fully appreciate how hard Ben had to work to show off his product until you've had to do the same thing yourself but that's even harder to do when the product you're showing off is the most comfortable underwear you've ever worn because I can't actually show you how sweaty itchy and binding my old underwear was before chill boy set me a box of their bamboo and performance boxer briefs and I realized that I needed to rethink my entire underwear drawer chill booy performance line is cool soft and quick dry which is important when it's 90° out but by far my favorite part is their Hightech micro mesh fabric that's been keeping my boys fresh and dry all summer long and if you're looking for something even softer they have their bamboo line which features an anti-chafing Glide Zone that's like a Cadillac for your undercarriage But whichever of the countless Styles or patterns you pick just know that you'll be ready to empt out your entire underwear drawer because you'll never want to wear anything else ever again and when you use my code tw15 you'll get 15% off your first purchase just click the top Link in the description or go to chillboy outcom and use code tw15 on your first purchase to get 15% off and thank you to the best underwear the game for supporting this channel now when HBO selected the Dallas Blowing Up on Hard Knocks Cowboys to be featured on their preseason show Hard Knocks in 2021 Ben and sang immediately knew that this was going to be their chance to get free exposure in front of millions of fans so as soon as I figured out that um you know we were going to be on Hard Knocks that I'm not taking a hat off for a month straight every time there's a camera I'm going to make sure that it's in front of the camera right and so the second the second episode came out and I was playing chess against uh against michah Parsons and um you know before we started filming live we got to see the set everything there were there were probably 10 cameras just around this chessboard all over the place so I kind of got a good lay of the land before I'm like all right I I I I know I got to wear this thing backwards so if it's if it's coming it's going to hit the upside down Dallas as soon as as soon as you see the chessboard and so the episode aired a few weeks after after it was after it was taped and um at at this point in the brand at this point the business in the brand like we were we were ordering 20 50 hats at a time it was very very very very tiny and um up until this point that we hadn't we hadn't had much stock online it was just kind of one-offs of random colors that we had done kind of kind of left over stock all a sudden when this episode airs on on Tuesday now a hard KN the Shopify store ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding we're like what the heck is going on man like I wasn't watching it so I didn't I didn't have any idea what was going on then I checked the Shopify store and there's hundreds of people on on our site and even though most of those visitors weren't able to buy a hat that night Ben and sang were able to use the data to order a couple hundred of the most popular hats people seem to want and within 15 minutes of re-releasing them they completely sold out this only created more demand and not just with the fans after Hard Knocks uh Dak came Dak 10x's Sales to me and said hey I want one of every color uh you know I'll pay for them I don't I don't want anything for free I'll pay for them bring me bring me one of every color so the next day brought him a box of 55 hats to the facility and he hasn't he hasn't taken them off in 3 years since Ben said d wearing their hats alone 10x the brand and by January of 2022 him and sang finally started to understand just how big this thing could become from 2020 to 2021 we 10x from 2021 to 2022 we 10x from 22 to 23 we doubled and we're on track to double again this year from from last year so um a lot of there there's been a lot of growth and it still feels very much that we're in the growth stage which is good but possibly even more impressive is the fact that Ben and sang still run this thing as a two- man with sang handling day-to-day tasks like fulfillment and Ben chipping in to manage the Twitter come up with new designs and of course get more hats in the hands of athletes and even though Dealing with Knockoffs dozens of knockoff brands have popped up around the country trying to mimic the successive true brand by turning the name of any random City upside down and slapping it on a hat Ben and sang believed that what they're doing is more than that we wanted to to give the city of Dallas the state of Texas something to to stand behind to to Rally behind to support right you see the on the East Coast it's the it's the New York right it's the New York Yankees logo people people buy those from everywhere people wear them from everywhere and on the west coast it's the LA it's the LA Dodgers logo right so there hasn't really ever been anything that has come into the Dallas Market other than the the cowboy star and really taken over the the market kind of like we have so our goal is you know let's let's control Dallas and make sure that no one ever buys something that's not true brand for the rest of their lives and I think this is the perfect explanation for why such Why TrueBrvnd is Successful a seemingly simple idea is having such massive success because the brand represents a type of identity and place for people to connect with that sits right in the middle of the country and as a testament to the success Ben told me that now 50% of their orders come from outside the state of Texas all without the brand losing any of its Dallas Roots as of last year true brand became the first local apparel company to collaborate with every major sports team in its City they also boast a licensing deal with all 10 UFL teams and have even collaborated with iconic Dallas Brands and celebrities like Dude Perfect post Malone and Waterberg at this point true brand is undoubtedly a multi-million dollar per year business although Ben wouldn't confirm any exact figures for me he did however seem much more at peace with what his life might look like after football I mean I tell The Future of Ben's Football Career people now this is my plan a football is my plan B at this point so I mean obviously I'm joking when I say that right but um I if I never if I don't pick up a football ever again like I I think I'd be okay right and I'm I'm really lucky to say that um that I've got something lined up that is very much so a good way of living uh it's fun for me right I enjoy it it' be one thing if I didn't enjoy it um wasn't having fun wasn't wasn't making money um but I I'm in a very good position now and honestly I haven't even thought about it much but if if I'm done like I got to be the biggest Optimist possible right like I I don't want to think I'm done playing football but in the grand scheme of things if I if I don't get a call in the next six months there's a very real chance that I don't ever pick up the football again since making his first ever NFL start on Sunday night football against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2020 where he completed 21 of 40 throws for 180 yards Ben hasn't taken another NFL regular season snap and after spending the 2023 season on the Seattle sea dragons and leading the XFL in passing yards attempts completions interceptions and throwing for the second most touchdowns he got signed by the Denver Broncos ahead of last season where he spent the year on the team's practice squad but then in May of this year he was cut again luckily Ben has a multi-million dollar side hustle to fall back on which is more than nearly every other athlete can say do you do you have Addressing the Haters a rub it back in your dad's face that uh this is work out for you as well as it has yeah all the time yeah all the time I was I was back home last weekend and we were having a few drinks over over the fourth and he he's still every time he's like I can't I still don't understand it still blows my mind I tell him the same thing right it's it seems so simple it seems so innocent right upside down Dallas like how one how has no one ever thought to do that before and two like what what did we do to make people want to buy this you know what I mean and so it's been it's been really really cool to just I mean right and people people there there's haters everywhere right you see the Instagram comments are like this is the stupidest this is the stupidest hat I've ever seen right like only the dags wear these hats in Dallas but I mean we got we got numbers to back everything up a special Outro thanks to Ben for sitting down with me you can actually listen to the full 50-minute conversation on Spotify and apple podcast and make sure to subscribe here so you don't miss my next upload I'll see you guys in 2 weeks [Music]