
A 'Short' Visit to the Chubbies Headquarters
Special | 3m 13sVideo has Closed Captions
Steve Goldbloom visits the headquarters of Chubbies, a California shorts startup..
Steve Goldbloom visits the headquarters of Chubbies, a California startup dedicated to restoring the glory days of 1980s men's shortswear.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback

A 'Short' Visit to the Chubbies Headquarters
Special | 3m 13sVideo has Closed Captions
Steve Goldbloom visits the headquarters of Chubbies, a California startup dedicated to restoring the glory days of 1980s men's shortswear.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipFinally tonight, how short are your shorts?
Probably-- Why shorts?
I actually-- I can't think of a stand up for this one.
You're Chubbies Shorts.
And you've all got fantastic calves.
Come on in, guys.
I'll show you around.
We're going to learn about Chubbies.
I hate to break this to you.
But, uh, we have a check your pants at the door policy here.
Do you have any cargo shorts or anything like that?
Something more subtle.
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Yeah, something subtle would be good.
Do you guys have anything a little longer?
That's a top notch looking crew right there.
Why shorts?
Well, I'm extremely comfortable right now.
So-- I don't think I look great.
We all met at college at Stanford.
So I studied economics and public policy.
Urban studies.
Management science and engineering.
How did mom and dad feel when they-- OK.
This looks like a little Pinterest.
Inspiration for us when we first started the company was old photos of our dads.
Here in our office, we actually do all of our designing of the shorts.
We're doing stuff like finding wind breakers out of our costume closets and saying, I like this color.
I like this fabric.
I like this type of short.
Let's combine those things and make an epic merging of awesomeness.
Tearaway swim trunks.
Tom Selleck shirt short.
This is our ugly Christmas short.
Short that has a lot of flies on it.
A classic Christmas sweater that reverses into a Sherpa short.
Old dad underwear are awesome.
Those have been used?
Or is that-- there's a fresh pair?
Oh, these may be-- it may not be-- you may not actually be able to-- What do you guys think about the notion of startups in the Bay Area that are not solving the big issues out there?
Do you think you want to change the world?
Is there any social impact associated with the Chubbies?
One of the things that we're all about is confidence.
I'm gonna be honest.
I feel a little self conscious.
But you won't.
How much funding did you get, to the dollar?
Be honest.
To the dollar.
Do you know to the dollar?
$4.0153 million.
Liar.
No, really.
You seriously got $4 million to start this?
All of our shorts are American made.
We design them here in San Francisco, and then we manufacture them all over the country.
We have 13 different facilities across the state of California where we actually cut, sew, wash, dye all that kind of stuff for our shorts.
That's done in other places.
You know, when you go to a coffee shop, it's always nice when they do one thing really well, like they make just coffees, no sandwiches, don't make everything complicated.
Do you just-- just gonna focus on shorts?
Yeah.
I mean, we think there's a lot of work still to be done in the shorts world.
Plus, on a hot summer's day when your legs are all sweaty, your only alternative is shorts.
That's good.
All right, guys.
Thanks so much.
Hey, great meeting you.
Thanks for having us.
Good to meet you.
Good to meet you.
And I'm just going to get a couple things here.
Just for the, uh-- I'll bring back what I don't like.
We're not gonna keep them all.
But this is a nice kind of smorgasbord of Chubbies.
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