Photo by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

“Team Dream is a small business by most any measure.

The quirky cycling apparel brand has just five employees. It produces only about 100 pieces of each garment and operates out of a converted gas station in San Marino, where a closet-sized nook doubles as both a fulfillment center and R&D lab. Its founder, Sean Talkington, has taken in no outside investment and only applied for his first credit card a few years ago because his bank told him he needed one to operate a retail store.

“We’re a blip,” Talkington said. So it came as a shock one day to learn that Team Dream clothing was being counterfeited and sold on a major Chinese e-commerce site.

Piracy was a problem that befell big brands such as Nike and Adidas, Talkington thought, not upstarts like Team Dream, which has no advertising budget and got its start selling clothes out of a 1970 Volkswagen bus.”

Continue reading this article at the LA Times. Thanks to Ben for sending this over!