The Passion, Persistence, and Resilience of Curt Flaitz, Co-Founder of PSD Underwear

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Kurt Flights, the co founder and president of PSD Underwear. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Kurt.

Yeah, I appreciate it, Casey. Looking forward to it.

Of course. I mean, I would say just to jump into it, man, I, over the years have seen PSD everywhere. I know our good friend Danny that helped set this pot up, sent me out an awesome care package and I'm rocking it literally all the time now. But, you know, having this conversation with you today, you guys have been a brand for quite some time now and I'd love to dive into the origin story of psd. But for before we get into that, I'd love for you to just give a high level overview for people that may not know what is PSD underwear.

Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, it's actually, it's fun to kind of dig into these stories because we haven't come up for air in a long time, you know, have we, we have been building this brand, you know, for, for a while now. But yeah, I mean, listen, we're, we're, you know, I saw, you know, category killer. You know, we, we, you know, we have a, you know, men's, women's youth underwear brand. We've been very disruptive to the space and I always say we live in, in between, you know, Calvin Klein and let's say Jockey, you know, right there in the middle. And, and you know, we, because we've grown up with our consumer, we know it the best and it's kind of one of those, you know, brands where there really isn't that second choice. You know, nobody picks up Hanes and then PSD and says, man, I don't which one I'm going to buy. You know, it's kind of us or us or nothing at this point. So, yeah, men's, women's, you know, youth.

Underwear, I love that, man. And going back, I remember you said you guys started in 2007, this show. You know, I love diving into the entrepreneurial journey and just knowing that how you guys have built this brand over time, like it's, it's been quite some time. You guys have, as you said, become an industry killer. But, you know, it didn't start that way. What led to you and your brother starting psd? What were you guys doing before? And just what led to that moment of taking the leap of faith and starting the business?

Yeah, it's actually has been, you know, it's been a while. But, you know, I kind of, I give credit, you know, with 2007, 8, 9. You know, when the economy's crashing, it kind of, you know, kind of stops times a little bit. So we, I always say we got some free years because, you know, the world was moving really slow, so. And we were going fast, but the, you know, so we got to catch up, you know, with some. Some free education, you know, with the economy crashing. But, you know, we actually, we were fresh out of college, so my brother, I was fresh out of college, just went to school for business and marketing. And my brother was a great graphic designer. Always, you know, artist, you know, naturally gifted, but just was a dreamer. And then kind of, you know, always, always wanted to do something special but didn't know it. And he was influenced. He was two years older than me. He was influenced by, you know, the pop culture, Tupac, Biggie, you know, Timberland, Triple five, Soul, Fubu era. And. And then me being two years younger, I was actually on a completely different, you know, playing people. I was like part of the action sports boom where it was like X Games, Travis Pastrana, you know, all. All that world. And so it was funny and we were just kind of wired differently. You know, you just can't believe that, you know, only being two years apart, how different you. You are as siblings. But, you know, he wanted to start, you know, in a clothing line. Actually. He always wanted to do a brand and he was like, spray painting T shirts in the garage. And I was, you know, kind of coming out of college, just, just hustling and. And he came up with the concept and the idea and. And, you know, it was just one of those things where you wanted to go out and, you know, we're originally from upstate New York, so, you know, not the fashion capital of the world. And at that time, you know, it was. We were just so naive to the industry that we thought we could make it, you know, from our garage in upstate New York not knowing what it was going to take. And so we kind of, you know, blindly jumped into it to where it was like, you know, he wanted to do it. He printed up some shirts and got some logos and some designs that were really good. And I had some savings and. And I was kind of influenced by these big events. And I thought, man, if we're going to do this. He asked me kind of if I wanted to get involved. And I always, you know, love marketing and, you know, sales and just kind of, you know, just building. I was always kind of a natural entrepreneur, you know, businesses and detail shop, whatever it was, you know, buying motorcycles in the winter and selling them in the summer, you know, in New York. And, and so, you know, really came to where I was like, I was like, man, if we're going to do this, we got to buy a, you know, a bus or an RV or something to put our logo on, start going to events and some. So yeah, so the original plan was just, you know, we just felt like we were going to the moon somewhere and somehow we just didn't know what we were going to do. And sort of, it actually started out as a, as apparel. It was just a brand, whatever we could print our designs on was what it originally started at. Yeah.

Wow. So it started as a clothing brand and then, you know, when did it just become underwear? When did you guys have that realization? Because I mean, underwear as a, you know, as a, as a business, what led to that? What was the market back then? And where did you see the opportunity in the space?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you talk to, I mean, you talk to successful entrepreneurs all the time. I mean, where you start and where you end is, is usually not the plan. And, and totally neither one of us thought we'd be, you know, in, in men's and women's underwear, you know, at the end of the journey or during the journey. But you know, I think the saying of, you know, adapt or die and you kind of are, you know, you know, you're always learning along the way. But so we, so we did do that. So we bought an rv, put a logo on it and our business plan was simply like, you know, we're going to work harder than everybody every single day. And as long as we're busy every day, we're moving those chains down the field. And we come from a hard knocks family where my dad was a football coach, he raised us like a football coach where it was just, you better hope that your, your, your, you know, competitors taking the day off so that you don't and you're getting ahead of them. And so we, we kind of took that naive to the industry, but hard nose work ethic and really put it into that boss of the tour. And so as we were, you know, the economy was crashing so there was no real new brands popping up and big brands were not spending the money. You know, Facebook had just started so social media you couldn't pay on, you had to be kind of cool and have a, you know, college ID to be on Facebook. We started going to college campuses and Buffalo Bills tailgate parties with the Bills Mafia original days breaking, you know, tables and whatnot and you know, traveling all over Vans Warped Tour and just basically we were just in that bus, traveling all over. We thought if we, as long, if we saw 15 people, you know, in one day, that was better than zero. So we, we just had a really old school snowball approach. But what was happening is, is it was really snowballing. And you know, Facebook added a tag feature. And so all of a sudden we're at one college campus, somebody tags us and their cousin sees us at another college, we go, they invite us. And we really were kind of the cool guys in a bus with cool designs, building the brand when nobody was doing it. And, and it was before again that that true kind of direct to consumer model was talked about and how to advertise on social media. So we were growing up with our consumer and, and so what, what happened while we were going, I'd say two, three years into the business now, we buy a bigger bus, we start going the west coast, going to bigger events. And now we're being invited to events. And rather than just poaching them and pulling up in front and, you know, slinging, you know, product and you saw this opportunity where, where a couple of things were happening in the industry. We saw some brands kind of pop up as, you know, almost as category killer movement was beginning. So Beats by Dre and Skullcandy were doing headphones and all of a sudden they were, they were the face of the brand, you know, from that category. And it wasn't a new category. They were just putting a face to it. You know, Herschel was doing it with book bags. You know, all of a sudden it was stance was just rumbling about socks and, and was doing beanies. And all of a sudden this category killer movement was happening. And you know, we saw where kids were wearing black Under Armour, which that's all they offered at that time was compression, just class instead of underwear. And we thought, man, if we could, if we could make a more comfortable, functionable, cool designs, you know, pair of underwear, you know, this is, this is something we could really own and claim. And that's where the industry was going. People didn't want. Had to tell brands anymore and they like this disruptive to the category. And so we started doing, adding underwear in the line and people really resonated, really passionate about it. And then we had this guy, Stevie Johnson was on the Buffalo Bills, wide receiver, super stylish. He was originally from Oakland. His, his family was in the music and whatnot. And anyways, he, he wore it during a game, caught a Touchdown against the Patriots and pulled his shirt up and showed the waistband and it was like the original viral. Viral.

It was like, that is crazy.

So, yeah, it's pretty cool. And so that kind of put us on the map of like the underwear brand. And so from there we, we started to pivot and put our focus in that. And then we had a opportunity with, you know, Kyrie Irving and he wanted to, you know, he, while we were on the road, we were meeting all these cool athletes and celebrities that weren't really celebrities yet, high school and college that are now number one draft picks and legends and, and you know, Kyrie wanted to do. So we took it back to Nike, wanted to do a deal with psd and they said no. And I gave him an angle and I'm like, well, why'd they let Jordan do Hanes? And he's like, man, let me tell that. So he went back and he was like, why'd you let Jordan do Hanes and you won't let me do psd? And so they actually came off their mark and let us do it. And once we loopholed a Nike contract, you know, we were able to bulldoze all athlete contracts. We kind of became that white space in head to toe deals for athletes and celebrities. And so that was kind of phase one of why we ended up getting.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

So when you say because, I mean, you guys have worked with so many different celebrities and entertainers and now creators and influencer. Back in the time when, you know, you're doing that deal with Kyrie. Sorry, you said Kyrie, right?

Kyrie Irving. Yep.

Yeah, Kyrie. So when you're doing that, like what was the mindset going into a deal like that? Right? Like nowadays 2022 influencer deals, sponsorships, endorsements, like things are so different today with, and we'll get into that in terms of how you guys, you know, the playbook today. But back then, like what was, you know, the structure? How are you thinking about it? Was it celebrity first? Were you even thinking about creators? When did that transition happen for you with, with social from going to, you know, athletes and these, you know, A list level celebrities to then creators. I think to modernize, you know, this conversation and to really draw the line between, you know, the A list celebrity endorsements to the creators today that you guys work with. I'd love to just hear some of the parallels that you've seen and you know, really what the angle was back then versus today.

Yeah, I mean, I, I, it's funny. I Get this question a lot about, like, man, how do you get all these athletes? You got everybody, and all the best come to you and. And whatnot. And I'll tell you, you know, the one thing that we. We've always said about our brand is, like, people have always liked our stuff, so we didn't really have to sell, you know, when it was about the designs and our movement, yeah, they always liked it. And so when. When. When you start looking at athletes or celebrities or somebody that's just, let's say, a higher level than you, you know, from a branding standpoint or whatever they are, you know, you gotta have something to offer. And I think one of the things that we've done, you know, right in that first phase of building the brand is, you know, we created value of. Of they just liked it. So they say they liked it. So you kind of. If you don't have the money to buy, to pay them, and you don't have any value other than they're emotionally connected to your designs, that's really the floor. So if you have them emotionally connected to designs and your movement and your brand, that's phase one. Now there's a lot of phases of you got to get through, you know, family members and agents and lawyers and financial advisors. I mean, so there's a. There's a lot of education along the way. So we didn't go zero to Kyrie. I mean, I actually, I always. I appreciate this now. And I'm actually friends with Sam, Stevie Johnson's agent, but he kicked our ass. I mean, in my first deal ever, I got raked over the coals. I mean, he did a great job at taking advantage of a young brand and really, really having to do, you know, keeping his. His talent, you know, protected, which is their job. But I, I would say, like, you know, I always. I always bring this up like, you got to appreciate the journey and the education and what you're learning. And I always say, like, every time we got our ass kicked on something, we would look at and go, man, next time. And we would instantly go back into next time. Now we know, or there's an angle or there's some language and. And having that kind of good old boy, you know, upstate New York, you know, handshake still meant something. When you're that naive, you have to get your ass kicked along the way, because then you start to figure out, like, man, I can't just rely on the handshake or people's words. You gotta. You gotta protect yourself a little bit. But you Always have to be. I always say you always have to be cool with the talent, because if they don't care about you, it really will never work anyways. If you're taking the contract out of the, out of the desk drawer, it's over before it even started anyways. So there's, there's not much you can do. And I'll tell you, you know, so we, we really started cutting our teeth with, you know, what level were we on, so each phase of the brand. So we started with, like, bands on the band's Warp tour, so it was like Mayday Parade. And back in like, the, you know, that kind of punk music era, we started cutting our teeth with like, little bands before they made it big or, or college athletes or high school athletes. So we didn't go zero to Kyrie Irving. We had to, we had to learn who we were and what we were doing and how to navigate what these deals look like. And also, we never paid anybody. So that was the big thing that, like, we took a stand. Well, actually, we didn't have any money. So it was kind of like once you remove money from the scenario, it makes you better. You know, you've got a better relationships, better product, better distribution. You just got to be better if you don't lean on money. Because we didn't come from money, you know, we never had that kind of, you know, you know, trump card of just, just hammer down and pay them, you know, because they, they'll do it for the money. And so we had, we just made sure that we were always, you know, the, the brand was always cool, they always liked us. We had a, a real organic relationship. And I think that's really what goes far, that Nike Kyrie scenario. If he didn't believe in us and like us as much as we did or our brand, him to go, I mean, he's gonna make a $300 million with Nike. He's gonna go in and tell Nike, I want this deal, you know, like, so we really had to create that one. But I'll tell you, by the time we got to Kyrie, it wasn't flawless. But, you know, we had deals in and out and, and we've learned, you know, we learned through some of the, the, what we need from a person because the way that the deals originally looked like, we were like, we were the guys. And I, I, I, I, I laugh now thinking of myself then versus now, but I was the guy coming in going, I want 24 posts on your Instagram feed. You know, a year. I Want two in store signings, a photo shoot. I want, you know, you to connect me with all your athletes you train with and all this stuff. Knowing that it just. It's almost comical now where now we look at it. We're like, we just. The plan is to get X and Y and move the product for the collection. So I only need, you know, you to announce on the launch and be there for the in store if you want to. And we became almost like the brand that needs very little from the talent. And what was. With a lot of upside, because it was cool, we were able to do a lot of things for them. And so I say the deals definitely, you know, kind of organically changed through education as we. As we navigated through and even. Even beyond. So from Kyrie to John Morant all the way to Bronny James, who LeBron actually did the deal for him. You know, I'm going up against the guy that's seen a lot of deals and a lot of millions of dollars and. And we. And it was amazing deals. Actually, one of the. I said the easiest ones to do because we've seen a lot of it, we've had a lot of case studies and whatnot. But I'll tell you, if somebody's like, brand new and they're just like, how do I get to athletes or how do I get to influencers? I mean, there's. You got to start at the bottom, really, and work your way up. You never go from zero to Kyrie Irving and you kind of prove your way. Just like with podcasts and who you get or retailers, you always have to prove your way. And I always remind, I would say, the young entrepreneur, that nobody owes you anything, you know, so. So you have to kind of earn that respect. And then. And then as you prove value, you know, whether it's psychological, they're just excited for the brand or money, which is now people make a lot of money off, you know, with us, you know, with. With the true partnership. So it's definitely changed to. To, like I said, Brian.

Yeah, no, I mean, that's so cool to hear. Just the evolution of that and, you know, from that process. Like, when was it when you and your brother really felt like you were getting your footing, you know, from a sales perspective, really crushing the direct to consumer for E Commerce. You know, you guys started in 2007, right? Like, when you think about launching your brand today, there's a roadmap, there's a blueprint, right? Oh, you can go to Shopify, you can launch your Store. It's. Things are very carved out. You guys started at a time where, you know, the economy's going through interesting times, very similar to today in a different context, and you had to just hustle. And it was completely different approach than, you know, the tools that are so readily available today. When did you guys really start to feel the E Commerce wave and latch onto that and spend, you know, a lot of time and effort taking advantage of this new digital era with social and E Comm and everything in between?

Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, just. Just even saying 2007, you know, seems so long. It's like, man, we've been doing this for a long time, but a lot of people don't. They feel like last couple years they've really found out about the brand, you know, so I think, you know, the main thing for, for us was, you know, through the, the. The education of growing a brand. You know, we always said we don't want to one thing to change our dinner plans. So we have to be strong foundation and have, you know, a diverse portfolio, whether it's talent, designs, distribution. And when everybody. Phase one was everybody saying, you got to get to wholesale, you got to be able to sell these retailers. That's the only way. That's the only path. And then midway through our career, everybody pivoted and said, forget all these wholesale guys. They can't pay their bills. They always going to the malls anymore. Go ecom. And we kind of stayed in that steady where we maintained great partnerships with wholesale or we had to gain them the hard way. And then we nurtured them. And then when E Comm was booming, we kind of chased that and we made sure we were doing enough to be dangerous, but not putting all our eggs in E Comm. I mean, one of the things, I mean, you look at last six months is the first time anyone's questioned that E Comm might not be the future or isn't only the future. I mean, I've had a lot of brands that were stood up in the last three years that are now trying to get into brick and mortar when we had both. And so I, I think that, you know, the pivoting moment for us was when we started to really figure out, you know, what. What's the, what's the wholesaler looking for? So that was kind of, you know, a business plan of itself. They want a marketing plan with talent or they want to. How can you drive traffic? Can you, can you fill a box that they can't do with their current Brands. So that was kind of taking care of a wholesale and then ecom, you know, we looked at it like a completely different business plan. It's our true organic following. They're coming there because they already love us. So we, what product needs to be on there? What was the price point? What experience did you have to give them? And then, you know, so we kind of had two plans going at the same time with that overarching still under our brand, you know, kind of DNA, you know. But I'll tell you one thing that changed my mind probably four years ago was, was a Black Friday. All of a sudden we went and I go back to like what you call viral or what that big moment was. It was like the. Maybe it was five years ago. All of a sudden we went gangbusters. It was a couple million dollar day online and we're like, whoa. Like, wow. First off, it broke our system. We didn't have all the product. Our phones were ringing off the hook. But we saw that movement where we were really cool in stores, we were cool on the road, we were cool on social media. We had a lot of amazing talent and product going. And it was the first time that everybody kind of zoned in to go, oh, this is the brand I'm buying, no questions asked. And when we kind of broke the Internet and set that bar of a couple million dollar day, I looked at it, I'm like, man, look how much, how hard I'm working for this retailer. And look what I just did in one day. And I like a little bit more of this. And so we pivoted also. We staffed up a little bit. I think at that time I had like seventeen hundred dollars invested into the E Comm program. Like as far as the website we were running, we were running a pretty, pretty old school program. But it did wake me up to say, okay, we need to chase this beast, we need to feed this beast. And we started slowly, put together ad spends and build a team. And I build a team that is really a lot about character. Rather than resume to where it's like, I'm in beast mode every day, I'm going to the moon. So you got to be with me and we got to run through all the walls together. And so we really started when we pivoted to wholesale and ecom and, and really identifying that you could do both in a healthy way. You know, we really started building our team to be kind of legendary. Next step, you know, team to take on both. So I would say about five years ago was that Pivoting moment when we could see the reaction when an athlete or an entertainer could drive traffic and convert, and then we were that brand of choice. So, you know, it's been a few years.

Absolutely. It's so cool to hear, like, you know, everyone, there's. There's always moments along the journey. I don't think there's always, like, the moment, but, you know, being. Being able to transition and see things as they're evolving. I mean, you guys have done that so very well. I'd like to take a step back. You know, you as an individual, Kurt, throughout this business journey, like, what have been some of the hardships and challenges that you've had to face as an individual when growing this business that, you know, have really changed your perspective on business and what it takes because, you know, to get to a level where you guys are from the brand, the recognition, the celebrities, the revenue, whatever it may be, it's very challenging. And I think me being 22 and in this game of entrepreneurship the last five years now, it's. I see it more and more and more versus my naive thought process when I was just getting started at 16. Right. So for you, like, what were some of the. What have been some of the hardships that have helped you understand, like, wow, like, we really just got to keep pushing, and this is just hopefully a little bump in the road, but let's keep it going. Yeah.

I mean, I think. I think when, you know, we were. When we were traveling over and, you know, we started to get that through that first phase where we were actually a brand, you know, I started having, you know, more friends that were in the business when we were just in the bus, head down, it was all about, what do we sell today? Order it. Is there enough gas in the bus to go to the next event? Like, are we eating ramen noodles? You know, kind of thing. And then we got to a point where it was actually a business, and we were. We had an office and we moved to la. You know, it was one of those things where, you know, we. We.

You.

You started to think that there was this. I would say, like, this white unicorn or like something that somebody was just going to have the secret sauce to come in and either fund you or fund you to the top or. Or there was just this lever to pull that was like this easy lever. And those early years, you know, we were just. We always thought that there were. We were just around the corner from this easy button or this easy person that we ran into that was gonna change our lives. You know, kind of like when you hear the music industry, when somebody's like, oh, I just got discovered. I was a waitress or a waiter or whatever. And then with what we were, it was. You kind of wanted to believe that. You know, we run around LA and Hollywood and Orange county, whatever in New York. And I think the first, you know, the first lesson was when you start to get let down, when you're like, oh, this person's gonna, I need to raise money. And you go and see what it takes to raise money and how hard it is and what you need to do. And then when it doesn't go through or when you do raise money and it's like the kiss of death, all of a sudden, you have another person to talk to or distribution. I mean, we went full door split locker way too early. Our product fell off the hangers and we shit, showed an entire national campaign. Now I'm better. So I would say thinking that there was kind of the easy button and now knowing that it is 100% problem solving every day, and it is. That's part of the journey. And you got to control your own destiny. I think that's still to this day, no matter how amazing my partners are, my employees, athletes, celebrities, whatever, influencer, whatever we're doing, licenses, it's still, you know, you got to control your own destiny. There's not that easy, but. And when you think that next phase, you know, you get one more PO or one more factory or one more athlete, you know, whatever it is, it's kind of. There is no easy button. It's just a different part of the business you have to solve for. And so we might not be solving for, what event are we going to and how are we plugging our bus into, how we paying our rent to, how are we paying payroll to, how do we. How do we do an ra? Because it didn't sell because we were way too early to underwear or whatever it was. You know, you're just kind of always considering to solve. And I think once you kind of accept that, where you're just like, yeah, you put a plan together, but just plan for it not to go to plan. And as long as you're kind of waking up with. And I always say just in beast mode of just, you're charging it every day and you're applying what you learn and what you don't know, you know, I think that's. That's the key is just is. Is. Is man learning. Learning from what you're. You're doing. And then. And There is no special. There's a great team, but I don't think there's no one thing that's the easy button to get to the top. If you raise $10 million today, yeah, it'll solve one part of that business. Now you won't have to worry about, you know, paying your light bill or you know, or, or maybe payroll for a few years or whatever it is. But it doesn't solve for sell through or it doesn't solve for people liking your brand or whatever it is. And so, so I think that was the big part of just, just learning that you're in control of your own destiny and you gotta be.

I love that. And speaking of raising money, have you guys raised money?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's probably my.

What is, what's been. Okay. What I'm curious is like, because for my startup, um, we raised just friends and family around 1.5 million. And that was only capital that we raised. And just going through that process was, you know, you see all these funding rounds and it's all relative, but you know, people raising 50 million, 100 million. For me, it's, we raised 1.5. And the, that the learning and the journey of that was life changing in terms of understanding that process at 21 when we raised it. And I'd love to hear from you, like when you were going to raise money and you know, the round of funding, how you thought of it, just the story, the narrative, like, what were some of the challenges in raising capital and then outside of that, you know, raising capital in this market, in this environment, like how would you potentially do things differently if you were raising money right now? Yeah.

First off, 1.5 on your first raise. That is huge. And I say unheard of.

Thank you.

I can't even thank you. I'm trying to think of 10 people I know that raised 1.5 on their first one. And that's, that's amazing. So congrats on that. My first raise was $25,000 from a guy that owned a machine shop that my dad worked with in upstate. You know, he actually was in Pennsylvania and it was to fund a po. I mean, basically like, so we had a different mentality back then, you know, was I didn't, you know, my grandpa always said don't lean on people because if you lean on people, you owe them something. Don't borrow stuff because if you break it, you have to fix their stuff and then you don't own it, you know. And so, so we kind of always had this like, make the brand stand up at all times. And so we always looked at it like the only time we would need help, a credit card, a line of credit against my house or the RV was was get make raising money last. And so we looked at it like, make it a PO problem, like a purchase offer problem. Get a PO look at how we can't fund it. Take that PO and go somewhere and have. Get a line shark loan, get a line of credit. So my journey was getting someone that just believed in my family, not even about me. It was more of a family loan of $25,000. And then I had to go back to them a couple months later and go, can I get another 25? Because we're growing a little bit more. But I always put it on the brand growing and I could show them. And then one thing I did that kind of changed, you know. You know, my raising is my second round. I looked at it and it was a couple hundred grand and our bus was worth 80. And I was like, listen, okay, he didn't, he was starting to waffle on, man, I don't know. Me and my financial advisor, I have the money, but my financial advisor saying no. And my lawyer's saying, hell no. And I looked at, listen, our bus is worth 80 if we have 50 in inventory. My bus is 80, I got one X. And you know what? If, if we only if we sell this next order, I'll give you my bus. I'll sign the bus up. And the guy literally was like, listen, if you're willing to give me your bus, I'm just going to sign on down lines. I'm going to give you it because you will die before you don't pay me back. And so I really learned early that a lot of times that first investment is about the person. It's not even about the brand. It's about like, can you protect my money? Can you return on it? Do I believe in you and what you're trying to be about? And so when I took that mentality of like, it's about me, when I'm not signing up, I'm not selling the dream of my brand and the journey, it's more of like this guy knows or this girl knows or this group knows that I will do everything possible to make sure that they, when they bet on me, they win. And so, you know, that was my, the first phase. But we have, listen, we've raised a few million dollars, but it was always for growth capital. And the early years were nobody wanted to fund you because you had Very little value and there was a lot of risk. I would say the first phase was they had to really believe in we were going to be the next big brand that just came out of nowhere supreme or whatever it was that we were just going to be that they had to believe that we were going to be the next big brand. And we had some momentum. And then, you know, phase two became that we were able to just show the growth, the analytics and that. I would say that was kind of easy money. And I'll tell you, my thing was always don't take it to be comfortable. So one of the things my strategy was I wanted to barely be able to live on salary. I wanted to be the first paycheck to cancel if we couldn't pay payroll. And that really went a lot, really far with whether it was athletes that wanted to invest or, you know, traditional money, whatever it was. Because when they looked at it, they're like, this guy's living off of nothing. He's his whole life is this. He's spending nothing. His whole, his whole, you know, payroll is underpaid but over promised. I mean, we kind of had this mean team where it's not about today. We're not going to take the money dance today. We're going to put it all in here. We're going to believe in it. And that really made my personal, you know, raising, you know, journey differently because it was, it was kind of easy once they went under the hood. But also I was learning as I was getting no's, I was learning what to chase. So I had, you know, how do I, you know, I remember one was like, oh, you don't have enough emails. You know, you got your econ business. You need more emails and you need more time on the website, you know, or whatever. We're like, all right, well, let's go sign people up. So when we signed like Ninja, the E gamer went before he was Ninja. Ninja.

That's great.

We could drive traffic. And so we did our contest. He drove like 300,000 email signups in one day. Now that was before he launched Red Bull and all these other stuff. But we took. Instead of trying to sell underwear, I checked that box, all right? Now I got, you know, millions of emails. And then, you know, I had a guy, you know, one time, he was going to sign, he was signing up for, for a good investment. We had a good run. We were getting that next phase. And he sends me the article of stance socks that they now are getting into underwear. And he goes, you're Done. You'll be out of business in six months. These guys are taking over the world that well, look what they did with socks. And I remember, you know, it didn't even phase me. It was like, hey, man, no, you know, appreciate it. I disagree. And it kind of was one of those, like, I love those chip on your shoulders where it's like, I'm going to make sure that this guy reads the headline someday. And he kind of regrets that he, that he didn't get involved and it wasn't like a negative towards him personally, but it just kind of like, what do I need to chase now? And so what we, we then focused on was how do we make sure we build this brand so strong, our consumer is so loyal that Calvin Klein can't come down and play with us stance, can't pivot and come play with us. And so we, when you look at our roster and you go, why do you have so many top athletes and celebrities and NASCAR drivers and influencers, and how did you become the number one brand on TikTok in the world? Well, it's because we safeguarded. So when next time I raise money, I don't have a guy trying to poke holes or a girl trying to poke holes, saying, what happens if fashion changes? What happens if people stop wearing underwear? You know, we've heard it all. We kind of hit all those, all those, you know, you know, those questions that why somebody won't give us the money or won't fund it or they don't believe in it, or the why their financial advisor won't sign off on it. We just hit them head on. And so the end of my, my journey, where I'm at now, it makes it easier because, you know, you kind of hit all those things on. But, you know, time is the key. And I think going back to education, that's why I say, like, you must have a great team and a great story because, you know, 1.5, that's amazing. But it is the new world too. I mean, you have a better way.

Yeah.

Improving your journey.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was, it was a game, though, you know, like 37 angel investors, 25k checks, 50k checks, rolling clothes. But we got it done. And it took time, but yeah, it was definitely not an easy feat. But now hearing that, it's so cool because just knowing how you guys, you know, you guys are filling the holes, right? Like you have a bucket and let's say someone starts pouring some water in it and they're saying, oh, you don't have enough emails, and that's a little hole in the bucket. And you guys are just patching up the holes as you go. And that's, you know, a very. It's a phenomenal accomplishment to be able to do that with such certainty and drive. And I want to talk about something you said. You said number one brand on TikTok. What does this mean? And, you know, everyone is. There's this TikTok craze the last couple of years. I've been on since 2019. But just. That's a huge statement. I'd love to hear what that means and really how you guys did that.

Yeah, I mean, so. So to fact check this, try to find any brand that has more than 4.6 million. I think we have in a billion views of an actual brand, we are the number one brand. And one of the things, you know, every now it's funny because when we became that we made that statement and it was actually verified. We were, you know, we've been on this run, you know, for. For a couple years now with the TikTok thing, but it was kind of. I always. Everybody wants to know the secret sauce. How did you do that? How'd you get there? I mean, because I go back to the education and on the road, you know, we cut our teeth on Facebook. We were there in the trenches on Twitter. We were there for Snapchat, we were there for Instagram. We were there for all the rules changing to now you can pay to play, you can buy check marks, you can. You can buy advertisement. So. So all of a sudden, money came in there because we didn't have money again or we didn't apply that money to. To, you know, the. The marketing side of it. You always had to just make sure your brand was better. And so as we were getting our brand better, our contacts are, you know, just. Just continue to take market share and be disruptive. You know, we, you know, my marketing director, you know, Rob came in and he goes, listen, there's a new platform coming, and I think it's gonna hit. Like, I think I really believe in this thing. And, And I also go back to. I always like to tell you the story is like, I was always the guy. I'm the first in, last out. I'm gonna bury anybody every day. Nobody's gonna work harder than me. But I also recognize that, like, as I grew up, that I wasn't. I didn't, you know, when gaming started, our intern told us about Ninja. I didn't know about Ninja. He's like, man, this kid's wearing your underwear. And he's the biggest thing in egaming. This is before E gaming. People believed in it. So we were kind of always adapting and listening and keeping our ear to the ground through other people and just staying relevant. And so, anyways, my marketing director, Rob, came in. He's like, listen, this is the platform, and here's what I think. If you want to support this thing, we can go hard. And one thing we learned is when we saw Instagram change the rules where you couldn't. If LeBron said, go follow PSD underwear right now. You used to be able to gain millions of followers overnight. And. And now that they change the algorithm, you can't do that anymore. It doesn't matter, LeBron. It doesn't matter who says it. You keep. You. You're gonna. They're gonna crank it down because they want your advertising dollars. And so we realized there was a lot of brands that got ahead of us on Instagram from doing that. Paying to play, Dwayne, setting, whatever it was. And so come insta comes TikTok. We're like, there's no regulations. We can go viral overnight. We can. We can. If Charlie D' Amelio wears this thing tomorrow, we could have 20 million followers. Let's roll. And so I poured it on him. I put the support in. I'm like, let's go. But here's the program. Don't stop. Not one second of the day. Double shifts, seven days a week. Cash in on our relationships, cash in on our. Everything we've learned. And we literally obsessed about it early to understand it, to who the influencers were, how they were talking. And because we were a brand, though, that everyone loved, it wasn't like we were going out and paying. It was more of, like, you get out ahead of a couple people that are setting the trends. And then everybody was just buying it. They were just honored wearing PSD on. And also a platform of dancing. And because the pandemic had everybody at home, people were dancing in their underwear. So we weren't. It wasn't like we were a backpack company dancing in backpacks. You know, it was like, this is a relevant platform for our brand, the timing and what it was doing. And so we hit. We hit it hard early on and got so far ahead of Everybody. I'm talking 3, 4 million people before underwear brands even signed on or apparel brands even signed on to TikTok. And, you know, by then, sometimes the winner is first. And. And because people like our brand, you Know, it just continues to snowballs. And so we don't pay for any content. We don't pay for anybody to wear it and dance on it. They give us the rights to it and we, we've been on a terror. But I contribute to all those years of all those other platforms and then the same mentality of we are going to bury anybody that tries to get on this thing because we are going to outwork them and we have the team to do it. And so that's really the journey. And I always say fact check because things change every day, obviously, and it can go viral. I can tell you there's no brand that is bigger and better than us on TikTok.

That's so cool. Talking about striking when the iron's hot, right? I mean, you guys just took full advantage of this and that kind of leads me to asking you, short form content, social media, building a brand. You talk about your customers loving the product and having that brand loyalty that all these different underwear brands can't even touch you. The stances, whatever it may be to you, what does brand loyalty mean and how do you build that?

Yeah, I mean, one, the brand loyalty, you know, from, from my eyes is, you know, somebody that feels like they're part of the brand. Like they feel like they're part of the journey or your messaging. So they actually have a legit connection with your brand. You know, they wear it with, they're proud of it and they like what you're doing and your messaging and who you're working with. And you know, so the brand, you know, the brand loyalty comes from when the consumer thinks you're authentic and they really believe in who you are and what you're doing. And there's kind of that brand personality. It's, it's not a cold product. It's a warm. They want you to send them emails reminding them of a new collection. They want to like your content and they share it, you know, so they, there's this really, the brand loyalty and I'd say most of the time now in the new era, you can do it faster, but there still is that time of getting someone on board and making them feel good about your brand and having that true following. So I think that that's really, you know, phase one, you know, of, of. Of the brand loyalty side.

I love that. I mean, it's so cool to hear that from you and just how you guys have done that over time with social since way back in 2007. When it comes to managing work life, how have you done that over the years. Like you talk about the seven days a week, show up first, leave last. And that mentality has, coming from a sports background. I played hockey for 10 years, lacrosse, played football. So I get it right, like coming from a sports background and having that mentality since I was 4 or 5 years old. But in the work environment with your team, with family, whatever it may be, how have you managed work as you're now raising kids and just living your life as well?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, listen, in the early years and if again, I always go back to, you know, you start reading a lot of successful people's stories and a lot of them have the same, you know, mentality but you know, it was, it really is, is that there should be nothing else going on in your life. I mean, I played golf, you know, up through high school, college and sports and you know, basketball, baseball and all that stuff and. But when it came to, like when you, when you start taking people's money or you're on a journey to be successful, I didn't feel right playing, playing sports on something. When I, when I was either raising money or I had it, I was on, I was trying to make something and the failure rate was so high I almost looked at it like I felt guilty doing anything other than business. So, so as far as like those first seven, eight, nine years, it was, it was 24, seven. It was nothing else. It was nothing personal. It was all about the business at all times. The more people believed in you, the more you had the responsibility to, to, to live up to what they were believing into the more money you took and the more distribution and the sell through. So I say like, you know, if somebody wants a day off, they need some peace of mind and they got to go relieve some stress. You know, you're soft. It's looking at like that's not me. You know, it's almost like that, like, like I hope my competitor needs a day off. Like, I go back to it. I say that all the time. I hope they want to go play golf. And again, I, I enjoy golf now. I'll take a client out and play golf or I will, I will go with a buyer or a supplier and I will forward my business playing golf. But I'm going to go out and clear my mind. I don't need to clear my mind. I know what I'm doing and I know where I'm going and I know I need everything every second of the day. So I would say phase one was just that Obsessive mentality of we were so out of our league that we had to work every single second. And because we knew that, that, you know, there was money chopping at new brands and new stories every single day, and the world was pivoting so quickly that we just, we could not stop. There was a fear of stopping because, you know, it was so hard to win. And then I'll tell you, you know, the second phase of that work life balance was, is my first base, my first employment and staff. I was the youngest guy. I mean, it's probably like you too. I mean, you're the youngest guy, so you have to earn your keep. So I was first out and, and I was continuing to, you know, I was hiring people that were out of my league, you know, their resumes, that they were legends in the industry. And I just had to continue to prove my, my value, my worth as the fearless leader and whatever it is. And, and I, as I, as I get wins like that, it kind of brought us together as a team, you know, and so that, that kind of phase two was, you know, just continue to keep the bar of, of what we're trying to do together. And, and, and when you have an opportunity to actually be disruptive or, or create a movement, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's the, it's the main priority. And I'll tell you the, the other one is, is I, you know, I would identify certain things and I look around and I read people's stories or I'd see a certain, you know, job. A guy that built a company, sold it and then consulted. I'm like, is that me? Or, you know, built a company, went through the ups and downs, they've owned it for 25 years and they had no money to. Money to, no money again, passed down their kids. And you start to see, you can kind of, you pick out what, what's out there and how you want to see it. And if you're reading what's going on, you know, with your brand and what you enjoy. And so as my mentality changed because as I mentioned, I've got five kids, you know, six years old and younger. And so I say, like, I gave up my 20s to the business. Not a second was wasted on anything else other than the business. And I, and that's, and that's what, that's why the brand's here. But, you know, I got to the point where when I had two kids, I was living in, living in la, in Santa Monica and I remember I'd leave it six in the morning and I wouldn't come home till seven. And all of a sudden I started to get that dad. Get where I was either bringing him to the office in the warehouse and feeling bad, or I was leaving home feeling bad. And so I identified what the problem was. And I'm like, hey, I either need to build a badass staff that I can trust and work and manage to so that I don't have to be the guy first in, last out, or I've got to be able to sell it, or I got, you know, there's. There's a couple paths. And so as I kind of mine came together and what it was, I realized that, you know, I. I could get a good team together and I could rely on them. And when the time was right and I wanted to eventually be to where I didn't need to be the first in, last out, but I was the decision makers and I was. I was still in the weeds. I still know what was going on, my company and what was going on. But I empowered a team that put together a badass team, which took years to do.

Yeah.

And so now I'm at the point where actually it's better for me not to be in every single meeting, because if I'm in a meeting, people go from zero to me. If I'm not in the meeting, they go through the process of procedures, the management and the protocol and the things we put together of the system to make sure that I wasn't the guy. And so. So I'll tell you, you know, for me, I work as hard on my family as I do my business, but it's a different. It's a different part of the journey because I'm not on an island with my family letting my company run itself into the ground, which is, you know, sometimes when a business gets big and stable and you don't have money problems, you know, you get soft. I'm not soft in any way. I'm. I'm working my family as hard as I'm working my business. But I've got the balance to where I know that if I am at T ball with my son, that my company is not losing any ground. And I'll tell you so there is that balance. But I tell you, if you want to be the best and somebody I interviewed the other day with, you know, Brand, you know, kind of was coming, you know, want to make a movement. And I said, if you want to be the best, here's my to the Moon program. And that is meaning give up your friends, your family, everything you have, everything you do, and this is that. But if you're not that and you're softer than that, then this is probably how long it's going to take. And what you're. You have to raise more money, you're going to pay more people, you're going to get taken advantage over here, you're going to miss ship over here, you're going to be out of touch. But. So this is the Beast mode plan, which I'm on at all times in my life. And then here's another way to get it. And there's no right or wrong way. But. But there is a different level, and I'll tell you that. So. So my level might be just different than everybody else's, but it's. It's not right or wrong. But that's worked for. For me. And, And a healthy balance is if you take money from someone or you're trying to get somewhere, you better obsess about and do it until you're there. And then if you want that second chapter, you set yourself up for it in the first chapter.

Absolutely. No, that. You're giving me chills, man. This is. It's. It's so real and so raw, and I, and I totally relate, and I love how you are articulating this, so that. So badass. Couple more questions before we wrap up here, Kurt. You know, there's a lot of young entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast. We're going through a very interesting economic time right now. I think that, you know, the, the idea of starting a business for some people has gotten scarier and scarier over the last couple of years. If you were to go back in time and give your younger self advice of starting a brand today in this environment, I mean, you guys started in 2007, so you guys have already been through these chapters. What advice would you give to yourself and why?

You know, I think I would. I would, early on, you know, value the journey like I do now. I would. Early, early on, I would, I would probably. If you started today, if you came to me and said, hey, let's start a brand new business, you know, zero funding. Let's just, let's just go, let's do it. I would do a hell of a whiteboard session, and I would start with best case scenario, worst case scenario. And it's one of those things where you start to look at your life and you're like, I always say, pre kids. So if you have no responsibilities and you're early, early early 20s, you have a great idea, you're energized, you want to take on the world. Because that naive. Not being out there yet is part of the blessing, you know, that you don't know what it's like at the top. So, so you got to kind of go through the steps, you know, I would say understanding, you know, what, what's phase one? What is getting on base, what is, what is second base and third base. And you know, what is, what does it look like? And know that there's going to be that you got to go through the failures that know. But, but if you, if you're writing the plan with knowing best case and understanding worst case, it's probably going to be somewhere in the middle. And if you're, and again, if you, if you're just working harder and even if it's studying, it doesn't have to be like working hard just to put in 7 to 7 or 7 to 10. It's not about just hours. I'm talking about like, like actually like studying or understanding, whether it's listening to a podcast or reading a story or going in comp shopping in a mall, whatever, whatever. I'm just saying in fashion, whatever it is, you know, as long as you're bettering yourself and your positioning and you're learning along the way, I mean it's, it's. And if worst case, like I always said, the worst case is going to work at the post office, man, if I had to, if I had to. Actually I used to say McDonald's because I worked at McDonald's, you know, and I remember looking at it going, man, this place is well oiled machine here. How do they get all these people, you know, But I am working way too hard for way little money. So if I looked at it and said, you know, if my bills were X, but I'm willing to go back to McDonald's if I have to pay those bills in order to continue to, to front, you know, what I need to do on my second chapter, wherever I'm going. So I think there's, there needs to be like that, like there should be no level of work that you won't do to kind of get to that next phase. And then if you break it out into phases and understand that certain phases take certain time to get there and you start, you just start somewhere. And as long as you're starting somewhere, the next phase comes in and whether it was good or bad, you learn, you adjust and you go again. And I always say, as Long as you're not, you're honest and you're not hurting anybody else or you don't, you're not starving your kids or whatever it is. You know, you can make different, you know, adjustments. But man, I'll tell you, the good old fashioned hard work though, is what it takes. New era, old era, current times. I mean, like I said, right now where the world is, is kind of similar to where it was in 2007. And instead of looking at like a curse, I mean, I heard somebody the other day say, well, you know, Covid, we grew and with all the economy, we're down like everybody else. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't say everybody else. I'm not down. I'm, I'm striking, man. I'm eating everybody's lunch right now. And you watch what I do Q1 and Q2. And so I kind of look at it like the mentality of, you know, that killer instinct. But, you know, the, the, you know, man, work hard and strategize, but just get on base sometimes. Understand that it's going to take some time. And if it doesn't take time, great, because there is certain people that, that don't. But you know, even looking at you with going back to you raising 1.5, that's not your last. Your next round is going to be way bigger than 1.5. That's just the starting point. I mean, we talk in a couple of years, I guarantee it's way more than 1.5 and where you're going. And so no matter where you start, you just got to start and you're going to learn and you know, and you got to enjoy that journey because the screw ups and the mistakes are kind of what makes you so dangerous, you know, as your career goes on.

Absolutely. Last question before we wrap up here, Kurt. You know, there's a lot of content out there. You know, whether that's books, podcasts, movies. I want to get a content recommendation from you. Where do you spend your time consuming, whether that's books, podcasts, movies? Just leave us with something that you found, maybe some inspiration in that you'd want to recommend to the listeners today.

I'm, I'm actually. It's funny, this is probably going to be something brand that you've heard. So I'm not a big book reader, I'm not a big podcast. Not that I don't enjoy. I don't sit in L A traffic as much, so I don't do the audible, but, but I'll tell you for me, I'm a reverse engineering kind of guy. So I look at it and go, if I want to learn, I go into the. I'll go into a store and go, what's Echo Story? I'm gonna go backwards on that. Here they are at Macy's. When did they get to Macy's? How did they get to Macy's? Was it the original founders? Was it the design team? Was it the athletes or the celebrities? Was the movement? I'll go into Target or, you know, Hibbets or Footlocker Champs, and I'll. I'll reverse engineer stuff. And even with talent, I'll go, man, I see Serena Williams with. With Mission Towels. How did Mission Towels get this? How did you. How did a towel company get this? And I reverse engineer it. So I'm. I study differently because. So I'm a reverse. I see the destination or the. The finish line for things, and I just go backwards. Do they meet in high school? Where do they get their funding? Was it from a fraternity? Was it from a. A friend, A family member did it? Was it a. You know. Cause there's a. Different journeys. And I try to. Yeah, I try to study the journeys of people that have already been there to know when I have to pivot. Because I'll tell you, pivoting is half of the. Half of the key. So I would say that that's my kind of secret sauce of how. How I. How I read or how I study is. Is reverse engineering someone that's already made it.

I love that. Well, Kurt, I just want to say this has been such a pleasure. I've not only learned so much, but I've truly enjoyed this conversation. And for everyone that's listening, where is the best place that they can check out psd, learn more about the brand, follow you, and just get familiar with the community. If they aren't. If they aren't already.

Yeah, I mean, so we're. Hey, 50% of our business is online, so. Psdunderwear.com and then, man, we got some amazing retail partners. You know, champs, hibbits, snipes. You know, we've got some good ones. Tilly's, pacsun, Zoomies, you know, we. We got them all. We've got a really good partnership. So, you know, I say anywhere in the mall that's got good retail, you know, you can find us. And. And, you know, hey, Casey, I'll leave you with this. You got to take pictures along the way. Take a picture of what you look like today, who you're hanging out with, because I'll tell you, you'll appreciate that from 17 to 22, from 22 to 27, you know, we've got some funny pictures along the way and what we were doing at that time and how we were thinking. So, you know, definitely enjoy the journey.

I love that. Well, Kurt, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it, brother.

Yeah. Thank you. Look forward. Good luck with everything.

Thank you.