About H&G
Quietly outfitting college bookstores, one careful product at a time
H&G makes the small things you keep around because they mean something: leather wallets, key fobs, tech accessories, and home pieces marked for the place you spent four formative years. We don't chase trends and we don't print logos onto whatever blank happens to be cheapest that quarter.
We work directly with bookstores, athletic departments, alumni associations, student organizations, and licensed distributors. Production runs are sized to the season; the catalog evolves slowly, on purpose. The result is a small, tight collection that quietly shows up on shelves at hundreds of campuses each year.
Designed for the campus
Every wallet, keychain, and tech case is drawn in-house, then matched to the colors, marks, and traditions of the school it represents. No clip-art catalogs. Just considered design.
Built for daily life
The pieces that make it onto our shelves are the ones that earn a place in your back pocket, on your nightstand, in your dorm. Materials and finishes are chosen for the years after graduation, not the week before move-in.
Carried where it matters
From flagship campus bookstores and athletic stores to direct partnerships with student organizations, our products land in front of the people who actually wear the colors.
How it started
It began with a phone wallet, and a roommate locked out of his own dorm in a towel
Halbert and Gershanok Group started in the summer of 2018, when Ezra Gershanok kept watching his Penn State freshmen friends lose their dorm keys. He'd already lived his own version: stepping out for a shower, getting locked out by his roommate, and walking to the commons desk in a towel for a temporary key. That was the moment it stopped feeling like someone else's hassle and started feeling like something worth building.
Ezra and Jacob Halbert had met as kids at summer camp years earlier. When Ezra's girlfriend posted a Snapchat captioned “Ezra's Shark Tank idea,” Jacob saw it, called, and the two of them started designing together. They found a manufacturer, iterated on what became Keyper, and shipped a silicone phone wallet with a built-in key pocket. The wallet students buy today is still the same core design.
The first sales happened out of backpacks on campus. Ezra walked into local independent bookstores cold, with handmade displays he'd built himself. In June 2020 the team won the Inc.U pitch competition, where a panel of judges that included Shark Tank entrepreneur Lou Childs awarded them a $25K grand prize. Lou later became one of their first mentors and connected them to the warehouse partner in Columbus, Georgia they still work with today.
By late 2020 H&G had its first national distributor and official collegiate licensing. A Barnes & Noble trial in 2021 turned into core-SKU placement across their college stores. By 2022 the line had grown to 20+ tech accessories and dorm essentials alongside the original wallet. That's the catalog we're still building from today.
Milestones
- Jul 2018Spotted the dorm-key problem at Penn State.
- Aug 2018Founded Halbert and Gershanok Group.
- Fall 2018Sold the first Keypers out of backpacks on campus.
- 2019Walked into local independent bookstores cold and got shelf space.
- Jun 2020Won the Inc.U pitch competition ($25K grand prize).
- Oct 2020Filed the utility-patent application for the phone wallet with key pocket.
- Late 2020Secured official U.S. collegiate licensing through a national distributor.
- 2021Became a core SKU in Barnes & Noble college stores.
- 2022Grew to 20+ products: tech accessories and dorm essentials beyond the original wallet.
- 2023Expanded the H&G catalog beyond Keyper.
