Jake and Pete Randall, '18

Twins Jake and Pete Randall planned to play basketball in college. After finding out that these plans would change, they decided to channel their passion for the sport toward a different outlet. Taking to social media, the twins built up a community of people who shared a love for basketball with their accounts, DunkBros and RandallTwins, on Instagram. As their social media following continues to grow, Jake and Pete have big plans for the future of their brand. Read the interview below to find out more.

So you have your brand?

Jake: “A lot of Rockhurst people think that’s just what we do, but —”

Pete: “There’s a lot more to it.”

J: “Yeah.”

Can you explain that a little more?

J: “So I guess I’ll just start with telling the story of how it became. We got recruited to play basketball here at Rockhurst. We came here freshman year to play as preferred walk-ons. Long story short we got cut from the team, and we were really just at a point like we didn’t really know what to do. So we created an Instagram account that basically featured basketball stuff. And it was called DunkBros.”

P: “And we did it to stay around basketball because being cut from the team and coming here to play was pretty devastating so we didn’t know what to do and then —”

J: “Yeah so then we got into weightlifting, then dunking and all that stuff so it worked out that we post basketball videos on Instagram as well as our dunk videos. And DunkBros is what we called it. We still continue to do that and that’s basically what Rockhurst people know. I mean, they know more, but then we grew our brand to have a RandallTwins account where we do basketball skits, we’ve been on ESPN, Sports Illustrated —”

P: “MSN, we were trending on Reddit.”

J: “We’ve had a lot of videos.”

P: “I mean, we’re fortunate. We’ve probably had around two videos with millions of views each. We’re just fortunate to have these.”

J: “So that’s kind of how it started. There’s a brand DunkBros and there’s a brand RandallTwins and that’s how they both started. RandallTwins started from DunkBros.”

P: “DunkBros is a community for people who are involved in the sport of dunking to just be featured and get some exposure, and then RandallTwins is more of our skit videos and things like that. And people call us DunkBros, which is kind of confusing.”

What was it like when your social media following started to increase?

J: “I mean, it was relieving first off because we knew whatever we were doing was working. So when we’d get featured on other pages and stuff like that, we were like ‘OK, we found the recipe that kind of worked’.”

P: “Again, we’re just so blessed because Whistle Sports, who we’re signed with now, they have 2.5 million followers and they have a big, big platform. They would repost us so since the get-go we’ve kind of had some reposts.”

J: “Well our first RandallTwins video we posted got reposted by Whistle Sports.”

P: “Since then, people have seen our videos. We’ve been meeting people and we’ve been out to LA (Los Angeles) and traveling for it.”

What is Whistle Sports?

J: “Yeah, so we’re signed with Whistle Sports. It’s a media company, and basically the agreement is that they’ll repost our videos and stuff like that as well as we have the potential opportunity to get brand deals.”

P: “And opportunities for- just really cool opportunities for conventions and a whole bunch of content opportunities.”

Did you have any doubts when you first started out?

J: “Absolutely.”

P: “Well especially at Rockhurst when we first started off —”

J: “It was kind of a joke. And that was cool, but we definitely weren’t aspiring to be what it became.”

P: “We just did it to stay around basketball. Honestly, that’s our passion, so we just stuck with that and it’s just kind of crazy how things turned out. We didn’t expect things to turn out this way.”

How has the Rockhurst community supported you?

J: “It started as kind of, jokes and people making fun of us. But, it kind of grew with the growth of RandallTwins. Like our skit videos.”

P: “With the growth of that people were like, ‘Wow they’re —”

J: “Like, ‘Wow.’”

P: “I get texts from a lot of kids on campus like, ‘Dude I see your videos, my friends tweeted this to me, I love it’ all the time and it’s great. So the support is really nice because in the beginning it was just me and him, but as we grew things got easier and people started supporting more.”

J: “Yeah, because Rockhurst is a close-knit community so, you know, everyone knows everyone and it’s just really, it’s really nice to have support from Rockhurst.”

P: “Especially the staff and faculty.”

Where do you want to take DunkBros and RandallTwins in the future?

P: “When we graduate we’re moving to LA.”

J: “We’ve already decided we’re moving to LA just to grow the brand. We don’t really have —”

P: “Plans for DunkBros, but we’re fortunate again to have the opportunity to make RandallTwins a job for the next four years. I still can’t wrap my mind around that.”

J: “And that’s what we’re going to go for. So we’re taking LA; that’s a huge step for us to just network and continue to make videos and see if we can actually make this our future job. Which is weird, because it’s contrary to all of our Rockhurst stuff that you should actually get an education, get a good job. But, it’s scary. I don’t really know what the future holds, and I don’t think that we have a definite plan but I think we’re just going to go to LA and network and figure it out.”

P: “Our goal, or our plan is just to stay true to ourselves and be the best people we can be and help others.”

J: “The videos are a good segue into what we actually want to get into. We don’t want to make videos for a long time. We want to build a brand that can help other people.”

P: “Eventually start a nonprofit.”

J: “You know, basically start our own company.”

You did a video with Trey Kennedy over the summer. How did that come about?

P: “He’s an associate with Whistle Sports and we hit his manager; I’m good friends with his manager so I just hit him up and found out he was in Kansas City. He texted him and it took a bit of scheduling and work but we met up, talked a bit about stuff and then —”

J: “We’ve actually filmed about five videos with him.”

P: “We’re fortunate, again, because he’s taking over.”

J: “He’s a good guy.”

What would you tell your freshman selves now?

P: “I gotta say, everything works out. There’s gonna be a bunch of stuff you go through, adversity you’ve gotta overcome, but just know everything works out. You might not see the big picture right now. I thought my world ended when I didn’t play college basketball. My dreams were ripped away from me, but there’s a bigger picture and I couldn’t be more happy with how things turned out. Looking back on playing college basketball, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it. Just with how everything’s happened now.”

J: “For me I would just say, trust the process. We thought basketball was the route for us and we just had to stay true to ourselves and trust that God has a bigger plan and we are where we are.”