Case 36 — Stüssy · David Sinatra · 2014

Your best year is being driven partly by accounts that would sell your logo next to anything. Do you keep growing through wholesale, or walk away from tens of millions of revenue to sell it yourself?

You run a family-owned streetwear label that is having one of the best years in its thirty-four-year history: revenue will finish above $50 million, more than double where it was when the founder walked out in 1996. Much of that money comes from wholesale — independent boutiques with fashion credibility, but also larger chains like Urban Outfitters and ASOS. Streetwear is getting hot, and the larger accounts would happily take more. You remember what happened in the 1990s, when a rival with a similar scrawled logo, Mossimo, was everywhere, customers confused the two, and your brand faded with it. You have no outside investors, no debt to service, and no one asking for a growth rate.

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