Key Takeaways:
- Tom Ruiz officially accepted the CEO role at Fun Day Surf this month, after first consulting with the brand in February and joining the team full time in April.
- Fun Day Surf has expanded into premier surf shops across the West Coast, Hawaii, and the East Coast, with Ruiz targeting 120 U.S. doors by the end of 2027.
- Fun Day is launching its Spring 2027 line in the coming weeks and heading into Surf Expo next month with a retailer tour.
Tom Ruiz is one of the more recognizable sales leaders in the surf industry, having help built brands including Volcom, Salty Crew and Seager over the course of his career.
Now Ruiz has taken on his next chapter as CEO of Fun Day Surf, the brand built by professional surfer Jamie O’Brien on his YouTube and social following, where he has 1.35 million subscribers. Fun Day offers a lineup of softboards, hybrids, bodyboards, and hand planes alongside a line of apparel and hats.
Ruiz began consulting with the Fun Day team in February as the brand shifted from a direct-to-consumer model to a hybrid DTC and wholesale approach, joined the company in April, and officially accepted the CEO position this month.
Ruiz spoke with Shop Eat Surf Outdoor about how he linked up with O’Brien, the brand’s wholesale strategy and door-count goals, and how Fun Day is turning O’Brien’s built-in audience into sell-through at retail.
Jamie built Fun Day Surf on his own YouTube and social following. What made this the right next move for you, and what’s the first thing you want to tackle as CEO?
Tom Ruiz, CEO, Fun Day Surf: It wasn’t a hard decision. The Fun Day brand direction and the timing to enter the market alone sparked my interest. Then I met Jamie O’Brien.
Jamie and I hadn’t met before, but once I started working with him, I began to better understand his marketing prowess, his reach, and his ability to connect with the surf community globally. I was also very impressed by the brand’s direction, which Jamie and Jason Bleick largely curated. Jason Bleick is a creative powerhouse and one of the best designers I’ve worked with.
They created something fun and different in the surf industry. Between Jamie’s star power and branding reach, Jason’s incredible creative talent, and the brand’s market positioning, the decision to join Fun Day as CEO was easy. Fun Day Surf has already started building a brand that is highly relevant to the surf world and emotionally connects with surfers. It’s also refreshing to see a brand built by surfers for surfers.
As CEO, and from an operational standpoint, the focus always starts with the fundamentals: operational efficiencies, sticking to the calendar, creating productive product ranges and managing margins, planning inventories, and delivering a quality product on time, season after season.
To do so, we’re adding key positions. Our most recent addition is Ryan Wist, who has incredible talent in multiple areas of the business, including merchandising, planning, sales, and systems. Logistics and warehousing are a large focus, including navigating freight costs. We will be adding a warehouse in Hawaii, SoCal, and the East Coast.
Once we have tightened planning and operations, we’ll look at product expansions, strengthening our DTC and international distribution.
Tom Ruiz, the new CEO of Fun Day Surf. Photo courtesy of Fun Day.
You’re the guy brands hire to build wholesale from the ground up. Fun Day’s already in a handful of doors — what does the bigger account strategy look like from here?
Tom Ruiz: The wholesale distribution plan is simple: be in the best surf shops in America, expand your footprint in these shops, and then expand into international territories.
JOB and our marketing manager, Damien “Damo” Robertson, did a great job opening the first nine shops before I arrived. Jamie has solid relationships with the shops and opened premier surf shops on the West Coast, Hawaii, and the East Coast, including HSS, Val Surf, Spyder, Revolution, Surfride, Hansens, and Free Line. On the East Coast, we have Cinnamon Rainbows, and in Hawaii, Town and Country.
Since then, we have added a strong sales force across the country and continued our “best-of-the-best” surf shop strategy, adding Proof Lab, Pac Wave, On The Beach, Surfside Sports, ET, Sun Diego, Killer Dana, Drill, and Laguna Surf and Sport.
Phase Two is the East Coast. We have sent invitations to a selected group of East Coast retailers, inviting them to be part of the Fun Day Surf Ohana. We have now added IWS, BC, Nomad, Surf City, Whalebone, and Bunger. So far, we are off to a great start; the support from the shops has been extremely encouraging.
The goal is 120 surf shops across America by the end of 2027. We are anticipating a great turnout for the brand when we launch Spring ‘27 in two weeks.
Fun Day already has a built-in audience through Jamie. How do you turn that into retailer confidence and actual sell-through at the shop level?
Tom Ruiz: Great question. How do you convert Jamie’s brand power into Fun Day energy? We already shipped boards and apparel in mid-June and didn’t wait to see if the product would sell through. Jamie and the team hit the road and did a JOB signing tour through SoCal.
I have done a lot of these grassroots events over the years and was blown away by the turnouts. We showed up, and 200 people were waiting in line to meet Jamie and get the team’s autograph. We also have a little 8-year-old secret weapon: Uriah Anchor. This grom is so rad and puts out incredible energy. He is his own brand in the making.
Fun Day Surf Ambassador Uriah Anchor. Photo courtesy of Fun Day Surf.
The shops loved it, and we’re planning a mini tour with BC, IWS, and Nomad in the days leading up to September’s Surf Expo next month, plus more events like this next year.
Jamie does an insane job of supporting retailers through his socials. We will now add in-store signage, windows, and a rack program, along with incentives, to drive customers to the shops.
Our sell-through was above expectations — the accounts are psyching on the brand’s sell-through and have continued to reorder through the summer, and we are now sold out of many of the board styles and apparel.
We are reloading the apparel and boards for the holidays and will start prebooking 2027 in a couple of weeks.
Okay, so I feel like I have done several stories in the past when you might be stepping back and working less. What keeps pulling you in?
Tom Ruiz: Ha! I hear that question a lot. I’ve been very blessed to have had an incredible journey over the years working in the surf industry with best-in-class brands and athletes, traveling the world, and being able to hang out and surf with the best of them.
And that’s only part of my experience. The other part is all the incredible people I have met and built relationships with over decades in the shops, with reps, vendors, and other brands. Not a day goes by without me having a conversation with someone in the surf industry, either asking each other for advice or just catching up, shooting the sh*t.
After decades of living in this world, it has become part of who I am and what I do. I’m comfortable with that, and so is my family. That makes it that much easier for me to stick with it and keep charging.
It’s also hard to walk away because I see opportunities in the market. I’m a surfer at heart, I’m healthy, I’m competitive, and I’m having fun doing it. And now, being able to work with Jamie O’Brien and the Fun Day team is another exceptional opportunity. So why quit working? I say, don’t fight the fun!
