Jacq and Scot Tatelman didn’t set out to build a bag company. They started with a nonprofit — the Country Roads Foundation, sending underprivileged New York City kids to a summer camp in the Poconos — and it was there, watching some of those kids carry their belongings to camp in trash bags, that the idea for STATE Bags took shape: a backpack company where every purchase funds a fully stocked backpack, hand-delivered to a child in need. They launched it in 2013, built around that buy-one-give-one model and a program they call #GiveBackPack.
The company’s defining moment, though, arrived on a Sunday night in February 2020, when Tatelman opened an email from her CEO — he was quitting. The timing could not have been worse: STATE’s shipments were sitting stranded overseas as the earliest pandemic disruptions hit global freight, and back-to-school sales, a core chunk of the business, were evaporating in real time, according to Forbes. Tatelman had never planned to be CEO. She became one anyway, running the company from home while the world locked down.
What she did next was retool the product line for the moment rather than wait it out: fanny packs paired with cloth masks, marketing built around safe car trips to see grandparents, and a back-to-school push aimed at families stuck at home instead of in classrooms. Forbes and Inc. both reported the result: STATE’s revenue grew 10x during the pandemic under her leadership, a reluctant CEO turning a crisis into the company’s biggest growth stretch.
That momentum held. By 2025, STATE’s back-to-school “cult” product drops were selling out quickly enough that customers told Entrepreneur they were setting alarms for launch day — a demand pattern Tatelman said builds “year after year.” And the financing caught up to the growth: in January 2026, asset-based lender JPalmer Collective closed a $4 million line of credit with STATE Bags, which the company said replaced a patchwork of short-term financing with one reliable, growth-aligned facility. Thirteen years after two people mailing backpacks to campers started a company, the CEO nobody expected to run it is still the one steering where it goes next.
Frequently asked questions
What is STATE Bags?
STATE Bags is a backpack and bag brand co-founded by Jacq and Scot Tatelman in 2013, built around a buy-one-give-one model: for every bag sold, the company hand-delivers a fully stocked backpack to a child in need through its #GiveBackPack program.
What happened when STATE Bags' CEO quit in 2020?
Per Forbes, Jacq Tatelman received an email on a Sunday night in February 2020 telling her the company's CEO was resigning — just as STATE's shipments were stranded overseas amid early pandemic disruption and back-to-school sales were collapsing. She took over running the company herself from home, shifted the product line toward the moment (fanny packs paired with masks, campaigns about safe visits to grandparents), and grew revenue 10x during the pandemic, according to Forbes and Inc.
How is STATE Bags doing now, in 2026?
By 2025, STATE's back-to-school product launches were selling out fast enough that customers reported setting alarms for drop day, per Entrepreneur. In January 2026, asset-based lender JPalmer Collective closed a $4 million line of credit with STATE Bags, which the company said replaced a patchwork of short-term financing with a single growth-aligned facility.