Rush Bogin is the founder and CEO of Rush X Inc., a digital fashion company he started as a teenager that designs virtual clothing, accessories, and hairstyles inside Roblox. His work has generated more than 55 million sales across the platform, and his clients and collaborators include brands and cultural figures such as Adidas, Karlie Kloss, Elton John, Netflix, and Walmart. Alongside his company, Rush studies economics at Stanford University, where he also researches how virtual fashion shapes Gen Z identity.

That multiple-role identity, student and founder, player and platform operator, reflects the way Rush approaches Roblox itself. “I started as a player, honestly,” he says. “I really started on Roblox just to meet the developers. I was a huge fan of those people.”

That motivation pushed him into development. At 13, he built his first game and earned an invitation to the Roblox Developers Conference. That same conference introduced him to what would become his career. Roblox announced that creators would be allowed to design fashion items on the platform. Rush became fixated on the idea. 

“I literally posted concepts on Twitter tagging Roblox, being like, please notice these concepts,” he says. In early 2020, he received an invitation to start creating.

At the time, Rush did not consider himself a fashion designer. “I think Roblox got me into fashion,” he says. He attended a performing arts school and wore theater blacks daily. His Roblox avatar, by contrast, was neon green and deliberately loud. “I was really colorful on Roblox,” he says. “And then I was like, okay, what if I actually wore normal clothes in real life?”

Turning a Hobby Into a Business

Rush began creating fashion items seriously at 14, just as schools shut down in March 2020. He devoted 20 to 30 hours a week to building items, often without immediate results. Early releases might generate five or ten sales overnight.

Then one item changed everything. “I created this item called a cute white winter beanie,” he says. “Overnight it got a thousand [sales], and it was like at the top of the catalog.”

That moment altered how his parents viewed the work, and how Rush viewed it himself. “That’s when it started to pick up for me,” he says. “My parents were like, we didn’t realize that this was actually something that you could make money off of.”

As interest from brands followed, Rush formalized the operation. He founded Rush X Inc. while still in high school. “Once it started to pick up, my parents said it would make more sense to actually start a company,” he says.

The company allowed Rush to do more than sell his own items. Brands began asking for help to understand Roblox. “So many brands were coming on the platform before, and they weren’t too successful,” he says. “It felt like an advertisement shoved in your face, and no one really likes that on Roblox.”

Rush positioned Rush X as a bridge between brands and players, translating marketing goals into experiences that felt native to the platform.

Learning the Business of Creativity

Early on, Rush viewed himself primarily as a developer. That changed as competition increased. 

“There’s a certain threshold of what the items should look like,” he says. “After that, it’s more about how you present yourself, how you market your items, how you follow a trend.”

He learned to closely watch platform behavior. Seasonal aesthetics mattered, even in a virtual world. “Even though cold weather doesn’t exist online, people like to dress as if it does,” he says. That insight led him to release winter accessories, then pivot into male hairstyles after noticing a gap in the catalog.

Consistency mattered as much as virality. “I have items from three or four years ago that are still doing extremely well,” he says. “I don’t need something to go viral because I have such a large catalog now.”

He says that the catalog approach eventually made earnings predictable enough to plan around. “It was in 2021 when I had another item take off,” he says. “That’s when it started to feel like I was consistently making money.”

DevEx and Economic Independence

Roblox’s Developer Exchange program, which allows creators to convert Robux into cash, fundamentally changed what Rush could do with his earnings. 

“I’m able to pay for my college tuition with it,” he says. “I actually wrote all of my college essays about Roblox.”

Those essays went viral on TikTok, a reaction Rush finds amusing in hindsight. “They were clowning me in the comments,” he says. Today, he works in the Stanford admissions office, a full-circle moment tied directly to his Roblox experience.

DevEx also reshaped his future planning. “I’m looking for places in New York right now,” he says. “That’s because of DevEx.”

The recent increase in DevEx rates has only strengthened that foundation. “Everybody was screaming when it happened,” he says of the announcement at the Roblox Developers Conference. “It feels like a smaller percent, but I have 100% noticed a difference.”

That increased efficiency has allowed Rush and his collaborators to think bigger. “We feel very confident we can hire other people,” he says. “We’re going to use that money to hire people for this game.”

Building Brands Inside and Outside Roblox

Rush X is not Rush’s only venture. He also co-founded CHRUSH, a virtual-native streetwear brand built around limited digital drops. The model mirrors physical streetwear culture, with scarcity and hype driving engagement.

That strategy moved offline in 2024 through a collaboration with Walmart, which included real-world backpacks and skateboards tied to the virtual brand. “We created a real brand with them,” Rush says. “We’re still working on that today.”

Rush now works with a European manufacturer to turn designs into physical products. “We’re literally creating real designs through the 3D designs that we’re making,” he says.

What ties all of these efforts together, he adds, is a belief that virtual goods have lasting value. “The virtual fashion lasts forever,” the Roblox creator says. “Those items still mean a lot to me, and I get to wear them at any point.”

His academic research supports that view. “What I’ve consistently found is that because people are able to express themselves with these virtual goods, they feel much better about themselves in the real world,” he says.

What Brands Get Wrong About Roblox

Rush has worked on both sides of the equation, as a creator and as a brand partnerships intern at Roblox. That perspective shapes his advice to marketers.

“Brands take themselves too seriously,” he says, adding that the most successful activations lean into playfulness and exaggeration. “Roblox players like dressing up as characters,” he says. “They like being as silly as possible.”

He contrasts that approach with traditional influencer campaigns. “When you collaborate with a UGC [user-generated content] creator, you’re also collaborating with them as a personality,” he says. “They know what their audience likes.”

Unlike short-term social campaigns, Roblox content compounds over time. “People have that item in their inventory forever,” he says. “There are new audiences that come up all the time.”

Rush notes that longevity requires a mindset shift, but it also enables deeper brand building. “It costs a little bit more,” he says. “But it consistently has players interacting with it.”

Advice for the Next Generation

Rush is honest about how long it took to achieve success. “It took me over two years to make any type of money,” he says. 

The early period involved trial and error and learning to listen. “I was getting comments that were like, Rush, your items are horrible,” he says. “I wasn’t taking any feedback.”

That changed as he began responding to criticism and tracking trends. “You’re releasing to 100 million plus daily active users,” he says. “People don’t fully understand that.”

Rush expects more virtual-native brands to bridge into physical products. “Imagine being able to wear something on your avatar at the same time as you’re wearing it in real life,” he says.

For Rush X, the next chapter includes expanding CHRUSH, launching a new Roblox game, and continuing to build teams. “Being able to employ somebody feels very cool,” he says.

As Rush sees it, the work is just beginning. “As long as it’s fun,” he says, “and you’re listening to the people who are wearing your stuff, you can build something real.”

Photo source: Rush Bogin

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