The Hoodie That Would Not Stay Home
Sometime in late 2024, my buddy David Carroll, founder of Dope Marketing, handed me a red hoodie with the word DOPE printed across the chest. We had just spent the day at his automated print-and-direct-mail factory in Minneapolis, touring the machines that have turned Dope Marketing into a roughly $4M/year operation on its way to a $100M valuation. You can see the factory tour here: Inside Dope Marketing: How David Carroll Built a $4M Automated Print & Direct Mail Powerhouse, and the longer interview I did with David wearing that very hoodie here: David Carroll’s Playbook Behind Dope Marketing’s $100M Valuation.
I did not expect the hoodie to become a travel companion. But when I went back through Google Photos and pulled every single appearance of that red DOPE hoodie, a pattern showed up that was too fun not to document.
The Aggregate Stats
Across more than six months of travel, conferences, dinners, video shoots, and airports, the red DOPE hoodie shows up in Google Photos on 17 distinct days, across multiple countries and continents, including one cameo where Jack Wendt wore it instead of me. Here is the rough tally, which I’ll clean up in QA once the full city list is locked down:
- Days worn (documented in photos/videos): 17
- Total photos and videos captured: 38
- Span of the journey: Oct 27, 2024 → Apr 8, 2026 (about 17 months of active rotation)
- Hoodie gifted: By David Carroll at the Dope Marketing HQ, Minneapolis, MN
- People who have worn this specific hoodie: 2 (me and Jack Wendt)
Mileage and exact city/country counts are being finalized (see the day-by-day log below, which will be updated in QA).
Day-by-Day Log of the Red DOPE Hoodie
Each entry below is a day the hoodie shows up in my Google Photos library. I am listing them in chronological order so you can see how it traveled. Cities will be filled in during QA as I confirm from the photo metadata.
- Oct 27, 2024 — first major appearance, 1 photo and 4 videos from the same day
- Nov 24, 2024 — 1 video
- Oct 2, 2025 — 3 videos (one of which was shared to me by someone else on the shoot)
- Oct 8, 2025 — 1 photo, 1 video
- Nov 12, 2025 — 1 photo, 1 video
- Nov 30, 2025 — 1 photo, 2 videos
- Dec 7, 2025 — biggest single-day stack: 5 photos and 2 videos (this is the Minneapolis Dope Marketing factory visit with David Carroll and Jack Wendt, which became the $100M Valuation interview and the factory tour video)
- Dec 8, 2025 — 1 video (day after Minneapolis)
- Dec 18, 2025 — 2 videos
- Dec 31, 2025 — 1 photo (New Year’s Eve shot in front of a decorated Christmas tree and fireplace, wearing the DOPE hoodie)
- Jan 2, 2026 — 2 videos kicking off the new year
- Jan 26, 2026 — 1 video
- Jan 28, 2026 — 1 video
- Jan 29, 2026 — 1 video
- Mar 24, 2026 — 1 photo (looked like a Cappadocia / fairy-chimney style landscape, to be confirmed)
- Apr 7, 2026 — 1 photo
- Apr 8, 2026 — 4 photos from what looks like a multi-frame shoot
The Jack Wendt Cameo
One of my favorite frames in the whole archive is the one where Jack Wendt, who toured the Dope Marketing HQ in Minnesota with me, is wearing the red DOPE hoodie himself, standing next to a friend. Jack and I filmed the Inside Dope Marketing factory tour together, and at some point the hoodie jumped bodies. That is the mark of a good piece of merch.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
All of this is thanks to David Carroll, founder of Dope Marketing. David is a former bouncer turned entrepreneur who has built one of the most interesting automated print and direct mail operations in home services marketing. We have been friends and collaborators for years, and he is the reason this hoodie exists in my life at all.
If you want the full story of how David built Dope Marketing, watch the podcast interview: David Carroll’s Playbook Behind Dope Marketing’s $100M Valuation. I am wearing the red DOPE hoodie in it, naturally.
QA Notes (to be cleaned up live)
This article was published directly from an inventory pass through my Google Photos library, searching for “red hoodie” and filtering to the DOPE-branded appearances from Oct 2024 onward. A few items are still being confirmed:
- Exact city and country per date, pulled from photo metadata
- Total miles flown while wearing the hoodie (to be computed once cities are locked)
- Any dates above that are not actually the DOPE hoodie (to be removed)
- Any DOPE hoodie appearances that Google Photos did not surface in the “red hoodie” search (to be added)
Updates will be made inline rather than in draft.