What happens when you mix Crocs with a trucker hat? You get the Swap Top hat.
The idea for Swap Top came to Lake Highlands couple Chase and Brynn Heckendorn one Friday night in January during dinner at Mi Cocina.
They were discussing their three boys and their newest obsessions: Crocs shoes and their charms, Jibbitz. They searched Google during dinner to see if there were any hat apparel companies that incorporated customization with charms. To their surprise, there were no companies to be found.
They knew then that they had found something worth looking into.
“We have three boys who are in elementary school, and they are coming into their appearance. They care about what’s trending and what’s cool,” Brynn Heckendorn says.
“It is at the forefront of popularity with this age group.”
The next day, the Heckendorns took a trip to Dick’s Sporting Goods. They bought a pair of Crocs and a North Face trucker hat.
By the end of that weekend, the Heckendorns had a prototype for the Swap Top.
“We started cutting the shoes up and putting the hat together,” Chase Heckendorn says. “We just thought the idea of being able to customize a hat with these charms was cool, but we didn’t really completely understand the concept on shoes. We thought it would be much cooler on a hat.”
The Heckendorns used prior knowledge from owning other businesses to help launch Swap Top. Before they created Swap Top, they owned a marquee letter rental company called Shout It Dallas.
“That’s how we got started. We kind of already had that foot in the door because of Shout It. We had worked with outreach, manufacturers and finding people that can take your concept to an actual product,” Brynn Heckendorn says. “We were able to get to work right away messaging people and creating a prototype.”
Despite having experience with creating a product and running a company, the Heckendorns soon realized that Swap Top would have its own difficulties.
“We probably heard about 30 ‘nos’ before we had one person willing to kind of help us,” Brynn Heckendorn says.
“The hardest thing was reaching out to all the hat manufacturers and getting all these people saying like, ‘No, I’m sorry, we can’t help you. It’s too different. It’s not something that’s just straight off the shelf for us,’” Chase Heckendorn says. “They just didn’t want to help, and so we kind of had to do that next level of outreach.”
The Heckendorns finally heard a “yes,” and they have been working nonstop ever since. The official launch for Swap Top was in May.
Swap Top has two color options: the Black Top OG and the White Top. Two more products are coming soon: the Cool Cream Swap Top and the Kids 5-7 Swap Top, which will be available in all colors. The Swap Top costs around $35; cost is $28 for the Kids Swap Top.
The hats are designed with seven holes in the front that can be customized with hat charms. You can purchase charm sets from Swap Top that’ll cost about $10 for seven charms.
You can also reuse your Crocs Jibbitz on Swap Top Hats or purchase different charms from online sellers.
In the future, Swap Top wants to focus on the concept of being a truly personalized gift.
“I don’t know if that means that one day, you can go on our website and literally pick seven charms that represent your whoever you’re gifting it to, and we’ll box it up and ship it or something like that,” Chase Heckendorn says. “But I think we’re definitely keeping an open mind to stuff like that.”
