Today we’d like to introduce you to Ron Wilson.
Ron, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have been an entrepreneur for a long time and started my first business in grad school. A classmate and I designed and developed and earwarmer that wrapped around the back of the head. While at first, this was an oddity to our other Wharton School classmates, we eventually had almost 20 of them invest and we ultimately grew a business based in Baltimore, MD that achieved over $5o million is sales at its peak. While this was an interesting business, I was fascinated by emotive brands, many of which were based in California, where someone’s emotional connection with the brand would generate the desire to wear a tee shirt with the brand name on it.
In 2012, I decided that I wanted to create an active fitness lifestyle brand and sell directly to the consumers, and more importantly bypass traditional retail. I teamed up with my co-founder, Matt Paulson, and we produced one style of cross-training shorts as the start of HYLETE. Frankly, if the first 1000 shorts that we produced to launch our business had not sold quickly, we most likely would have moved on to a new endeavor. Fortunately, we caught the direct-to-consumer market (for apparel) at and early stage and at a particularly good time for social network advertising (Facebook had just gone public and more importantly began several advertisement initiatives). With early product success and social networking on our side, we achieved rapid growth month over month and became a million dollar business by the end of our first year of business. Since 2013, we have continued to leverage our digitally native mindset and our product innovation, while coupling these with crowdfunding that has given us almost 3,000 passionate “investomers”. Today, we have sold well over $25 million in products to over 120,000 customers and have our sights set to be a publicly traded company by 2020.
Has it been a smooth road?
I don’t believe I have ever heard of an entrepreneurial venture that had a smooth road! 🙂 We have and continue to face obstacles in our pursuit of success. Early on, we faced the most common issue of lack of capital. In 2012, the financial community was largely suspect with respect to any company pursuing a digital only strategy. Most investors continuously inquired on our “retail strategy” and as a result, we never received a “large” investment from institutional investors. However, we were able to obtain a significant investment from a local angel investor in Solana Beach that allowed us to garner significant in 2013 (shortly after, we had started the business). As I look at our current obstacles, which also happen to be our best opportunites, we are entering into a new world of brands and financing opportunites via the Jobs Act (Reg A and Reg CF) that have opened up a new frontier for entrepreneurs. The struggle (and upside) is that we are one of the first pioneering companies that are journeying along this “digital meets crowdfunding” path to success.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
HYLETE is a leading digitally-native fitness athletic wear brand that specializes in bringing innovation and performance to our community without a high price tag. While we were originally known for our best of class, men’s cross-training shorts; we have gone on to tap into our creativity to produce an exceptional line of women’s performance apparel (shorts, tights, sports bras). Just recently in late February, we launched our first footwear. I am especially proud that we were able to not an only produce a quality cross-training shoe but introduce an introduce an innovated set of 3 interchangeable insoles system that allows one shoe to be a weightlifting shoe, cross-training shoe and a run-training shoe.
If you had to start over, what would you have done differently?
If I had to start over, I would focus even more on what I truly wanted to work on every day as an entrepreneur. Early on, just being an entrepreneur and making products was enough. However, you quickly realize that you are spending your life on the pursuit you find yourself in, and working on a product/service/business that truly inspires your passion is much more fulfilling. With that being said, that is if I “had” to start over, given the “choice” to start over, I would not, as my failures and missteps define who I am today; and in many ways makes this entrepreneurial thing far easier these days.
Contact Info:
- Address: 560 Stevens Ave Solana Beach, CA 92075
- Website: HYLETE.com
- Phone: 858-225-8998
- Email: pr@HYLETE.com
- Instagram: trainHYLETE
- Facebook: HYLETE
- Twitter: trainHYLETE
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