UNTUCKit: Chris Riccobono

0:02 Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about the about that first batch of inventory,'cause you I mean you say that the shirts were terrible, which is s shocking. I mean I I don't well, it comes off the off the boat in New York, you open the boxes and what, they You see right away that they're not good.

0:28 Well, actually when people started wearing'em and saying that they now used it for a rag for their car, that's when it really, uh But you know what's funny you know it's funny b I didn't We thought through it. And said, you know what, we will one day get them back, we'll keep a list of those people, and I'm gonna lose X amount of customers. I mean, you didn't have a choice. This is entrepreneurialism. You just have to survive.

0:51 Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a guy who knew nothing about shirts rolled up his sleeves and started Untuck It, a brand that seemed like a gimmick.

1:18 Until Started a trend. Some brand names sound like They could be anything. Uber?

1:31 Could be a band. The skincare brand Jack Black? Could be a whiskey. Bull and branch? A law firm?

1:39 But then there are the brands wear their purpose on their sleeve. Fresh pet. Butcher Box Paperless Post you know exactly what you're getting. And that's the direction Chris Ricabona went with his company.

1:53 Untuck it. Just hearing the name you Kinda get it. It's a shirt. Designed to be worn. Unpacked. Simple idea.

2:02 Clever name. Chris has even said it's the best business decision he ever made. But in the early days It sounded a little gimmicky. Late night comedians roasted it.

2:14 Chris even starred in the ads himself. earnestly explaining how he just wanted a shirt that looked good untucked. And people laughed. But here's the thing. Chris was right.

2:26 It was a real problem. So real, in fact, that a few years later, Big brands were copying the idea. But naming a company on Tucket was just the start. To get past the gimmick. The shirts had to be good.

2:41 Chris and his co-founder Aaron Sin Andres priced them like a premium product. around eighty bucks a pop. And slowly They built a brand. Now neither of them had any experience in fashion.

2:54 They made just about every mistake you can imagine, including a disastrous first run of shirts. And for many years, both Chris and Aaron kept their day jobs while running on Tucket on the side. The business was eventually doing so well at one point that it was almost acquired for about three-quarters of a billion dollars. That is, until the deal fell apart. and almost tanked the entire company.

3:22 But today Untrack it is once again thriving. over 80 stores, a growing wholesale business, and a fast growing women's line. And Chris Ricabono? He finally proved that you could build a brand around an untucked, button down shirt.

3:38 Chris grew up in New Jersey, where his dad was a doctor and his mom was a nurse. He was a standout tennis player in high school and at Providence College in Rhode Island. He studied finance. It's funny.

3:50 I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur in college because I was I was scared about Corporation. Got a lot of anxiety and interviews. I I my first interview I ever did at Providence, my The guy stopped the interview'cause he could hear my heart beating. Literally said, I can hear your heart beating, let's just talk now. So I was a very I was very worried about my career.

4:10 And I kept saying in my mind I'm gonna find a way out of this. And that was the way I was always approaching post college. I was gonna get a job. And then I was going to focus on finding my own thing.

4:21 And I got nervous that how am I gonna work my way through up through an organization? I'm not a great public speaker. I'm not great at at Excel or PowerPoint or all the the socializing you need to do to to move up. That just wasn't my thing. I w I I wasn't I knew I wasn't good at it. you knew that you would get to a company and 'Cause I think it was for you would eventually work for General Electric for quite a while. You weren't gonna stand out because you weren't

4:50 the most, I don't know, social and charm maybe charismatic. You didn't have like I just couldn't do it and I knew it, brother, right when I started with G and and it scared me'cause then I started saying, What am I going to do? Like I am in trouble. I need to be successful. I was so into I wanted to succeed in my life. I wanted to do something great. But I knew it couldn't happen in in corporate America. While you were at GE, you already knew 'Cause you would spend how many years total?

5:18 Would you spend there? Probably ten. But you knew already early on that you were not gonna really climb up the ladder there. Yeah, just I I I couldn't get excited. about selling medical equipment. I guess that's what it was. I just it didn't excite me. All these guys who I worked with, you know, and yeah, the sales teams like twenty, twenty, thirty people.

5:39 They all were openly negative about they thought I was a dumb guy. Like meaning they would say he's just not good. Or I didn't work hard. All these different things. But the reason I wasn't good is because I was totally unfocused. I was focused on what I was going to do after that job. Got it. Okay.

5:56 So you're a G E and I think A couple years in You decide to do an MBA. program. at Columbia while you're at GE. So they'cause a lot of business schools have these executive MBA programs that are like eight they take a you know eighteen months or and you take classes on the weekends and one day a week and

6:17 Um, and by the way, the Did you did you decide to do this because you thought Alright, this is gonna help me jump start. Help me figure out how Two

6:29 start my entrepreneurial journey? What was that thinking behind doing an MBA? No, it was very simple. I I knew I had to progress my career while I worked on an idea. And I kept striking out with entrepreneurial ideas because I always tell them entrepreneurs you can't just be an entrepreneur, that's not a job opportunity. You have to create an idea or a company or concept in order to become an entrepreneur.

6:53 So now I said okay, now I'm in Colombia. I'm twenty seven. Атліст Ам прогресси с кар'є. But you're still a G E. It's a study job and it's a it's a paycheck, basically. Exactly. Right? Yep. And I think you were I think you were already married at this time, right? I got married in two thousand nine.

7:10 Right. In college as an undergraduate. Right, exactly. Who's still your wife today? Yep. Okay, so you

7:19 Uh your Still doing your job. It's two thousand eight. You've got an MBA from Columbia. And clearly You want out.

7:28 But you gotta come up with an idea. And uh we're gonna this is a period of time where we're gonna talk we're gonna grind through some of these where Apparently you came up with like dozens of different business ideas and and kind of trying to see w which one would work. And I guess one of the first ones was a

7:46 Wine. Blog or vlog video blog called Pardon That Vine. Which was you would talk about wine. We're gonna get to it in a sec, but tell me how that

7:58 idea came about.'Cause I know around this time I mean I'm I Think a lot of people who know this world might think of like Gary Vaynerchuk. That's an early thing that he did. Yeah, it was an idea it was the only idea I had. So basically put it that way. I and all these other little ideas I tried

8:15 And I also get very bored easily. So g the Columbia MBA got me excited. I was working really hard. So now I'm back doing nothing again, selling medical equipment, no ideas. I said, What do I like? I only like really one thing I'm massively passionate about was collecting and drinking wine. And I would spend hours and hours and hours reading about it, you know, and learning all these things that were never gonna serve me any purpose other than just I enjoyed doing it. Um Gary Vaynerchuk, I bought wine from him when he before he started that blog. I had this little camera and I I

8:46 Wasn't sure what I was gonna do. Because I didn't um I I I was thinking I'll Gary's got a massive following, I'll be a more laid back version of Gary. Um So I taught myself all this wine. I started filming videos. Traveling around the world, tasting wines, interviewing people with this small little camcorder. They thought it's funny, I would go to France and they thought that I was coming in with this big camera crew.

9:06 And I would come in with my mom or my wife with this little camera. And they'd have all these high end Bordeaux lined up for me and I would do the they thought I was important back home. Little did they know fifteen people watched the show. So all right, so you you decide to do this first of all, you you were into wine, it was just a thing you were into. Yeah, that story is I was uh I was a guy who loved, you know, drinking beer with my friends and socializing at college. And I graduated, my wife was still there at the time, or my girlfriend

9:34 And I was So unhappy and my older cousin said come over to have dinner. And I'm thinking, you know, you know, I'm still not I'm a young kid. I wanna be at a bar, I wanna be I said, Fine, I'll come over to have dinner. And uh he says, Go in the wine cellar and pick any bottle of wine. He said, Pick a uh a sparkling wine. So I come up, I bring a sparkling wine up. And he tells me thirty minutes about this wine, where it's from, how he found out about it. We drink it. He said, Go down and pick a white.

9:59 I go down same thing. Then for then three more bottles of red and the storytelling and You know, and and I had an unbelievable night there. You know And I said, Wow, this is amazing. Like this is the j wine is just incredible. Brings family together, bring and I that was the day I became obsessed. I started studying about it, reading about it, collecting it. And that's how I got into it.

10:19 Alright, so you decide that this could be a cool Venture. And you called it Pardon Pardon That Vine. But tell me what was the business model? Was it gonna be ad supported? What did you how did you think you were gonna make money from this thing? I was thinking I could consult. I can go you know, which I did, you know, go consult, go speak at different events, um, you know, people's parties d which I did a bunch of.

10:43 I thought I could build remember that's once again right when Social media wasn't really out there. I guess it's like YouTube was new, was very new, yeah. What could have happened to me if if I was better at it and maybe technology was a little better, maybe the goal I would have been that first influencer, right? Or what you know, it just never I wasn't That wasn't my thing. But I guess that was the build up followers. I remember trying to get followers on Facebook. Um which there was only Facebook at the time, and that's kind of before it all started.

11:12 So I think the plan was there. I just didn't you know Yeah, it's it was tough to monetize. That's why I stopped doing it. This was one of many ideas I think there were s other s sort m more short lived ideas. Like um you had an idea for an online dating service for

11:28 Little people. Yeah. Love for little people. L for L P actually. Register domain. Yeah, I can't get away from this one. Yeah, L L for L P with My cousin. Idea that would basically help

11:43 People who were born uh w with the certain conditions that make them small, that they could meet other people like them. Yeah, and another one that I get. told that I'm crazy for it today because it sounds odd to but back then once again the internet sh like all this stuff is new. I mean an L for L P if followed through would have been a successful business.

12:02 It just You know, never went went anywhere. And that's you know, listen, that's the problem with So many entrepreneurs is following through and actually finishing it and doing it. And a lot of times I didn't do that'cause I was intimidated and I I never did. But there's also the flip side, which is you come up with a lot of crazy, weird, unusual ideas, and that will eventually lead to the idea of the Yeah, and that's a fun it's funny. All these things were happening before it became mainstream today. So I it could have worked, meaning

12:30 I wrote with my cousin four different reality programs, none of them were ever made. But you're right, the biggest thing is it kept me going. It kept me getting excited. It kept me kind of pushing myself to try to come up with that idea. So Basically the blog, the wine blog. or vlog becomes your thing for a while,'cause you would go on to post videos, video diaries about

12:52 Wines and I'm assuming It was you know, you would taste wine, you would talk about the wine How are you And and also travelling. And trying wines. How are you doing that and also

13:03 doing your day job, selling medical equipment. I developed a strategy as a sales rep. I became very close. With my customers. Um, and I was very open with them. It's funny, I would tell them what I was doing, that I was not I was an entrepreneur.

13:18 That they liked me more because of that because I wasn't the guy coming in to try to push them to buy stuff. No one likes a sales rep. I mean I'm joking a little bit, but you know, that's like they they make movies about it. So I was the opposite. I'd come in and they look forward to talking to me. What'd you try to do? Where'd you go? What what's your n latest business idea? So I developed this ability, which my managers I think hated and everyone I worked with. They didn't have to go to the accounts and they still would buy from me. And that's what allowed me to last at cheese so long,'cause as much as they wanted to get rid of me, they couldn't'cause I was hitting my number.

13:48 But But basically spending as much time as possible on on this other project. And and were you mainly like looking for value wines, like talking about wines that people could go buy at this you know, at the Whatever total wine or whatever wine store they were going to, Costco. What I was trying to do was wine was very um Only word I have is like snobby back then. It's kinda changed. Young people didn't drink wine back then. You know, young people let's say without money didn't drink wine.

14:15 I wanted to show people that I could wear a backwards hat. You know, sitting there in a T shirt. And love wine as much as the guy in France does. who's wearing a tuxedo teaching about wine. So I was trying to go after that type of person.

14:27 The other thing I tried to do was You know Golf is thought of as a way to get ahead in sales. Right. That's always been the case. Golf and that's so to me, wine, when I would go into these doctors and I knew what I was talking about as a twenty three year old with wine. They liked me. They wanted to go to dinner with me because I knew wine.

14:45 I mean this is it's it's interesting because the the fact that you were doing this and there was actually In a sense helping you. was something very real, but it wasn't a business. There was no income coming from this. And Now we're coming into

15:01 This next idea, which is Which is shirts, nice shirts that you could wear. Untucked, right? Um because any any certainly guys know that when you get a dress shirt They're long. They're

15:14 Designed to be long because you want to tuck them in and Get them as fitted as possible, and so Tell me about this wrong two thousand ten. You're still a G, you're still Sell selling medical equipment, you're doing the the wine vlog. How does this kinda light bulb?

15:32 Go off in your head. The an idea to make shirts. Well, let's be clear for younger people who are listening to this, this problem doesn't really exist today because everyone's kinda copied and made a f a a fairly reasonably fitting shirt. In two thousand and ten. Every shirt came down to your mid thigh, unless it was an out of spec shirt.

15:52 And I had one of those. I had one J Cruise small, I'm a large. That somehow is out of spec and it fit me perfectly. When you say out of spec, what do you mean by that? Out of spec meaning It was a large and supposed to fit one way, but it fit another way because

16:07 it was out of specifications to what the shirt was supposed to be made. If it was supposed to be twenty five inches, it was twenty eight inches. If it was you know, if you measure ten shirts from most companies in a large same color same shirt You'll see a major variance of two to three inches. uh because cotton grows and these companies don't want to spend the extra money to do the quality control needed to make sure that every shirt fits the same. So if you go into these stores and this is what I used to do to solve my problem, I'd wander in To the J Cruz of the world and try to find the shirt.

16:38 That somehow fit me at a little bit of shorter length than it than the other ones did. Right. There's no consistency. Shirts looked sloppy and were too long. And I would always ask my buddies, Do you have this problem? Do you have this problem? And they all would light up and say, They have the problem and I never would do anything about it, because how in the world am I gonna start a fashion brand? I don't know anything about it. I don't know how to make a shirt, I don't all these things that you need to start this company. And Finally.

17:03 I went to Las Vegas, I was out with my friends, I think it was a bachelor party, wore the same shirt four nights in a row, became a big topic of conversation, um, about everyone's struggle and I'm you know, looking at my friends and ha how silly they look and I said I I gotta find a way to do this. You're wearing this J Cruz shirt that was that you will wear untucked. Were untucked because it was a small And because it was a small but somehow out of spec, the length of it fit

17:28 Much shorter than A large would have fit. Yeah. So ba basically you guys are talking about this with your friends. And

17:36 Uh And you were like, Hey I want a shirt that fits sort of like a well fitted T shirt, but that's a With a collar and button a button down, basically.

17:47 Yeah, you know it's funny. Shirts designed to be worn untucked. Everyone laughs at that. That's so simple. No shirts were designed to be worn untucked. There were not even the ones. Well, that style shirt, yes, but that's not what we were making. You know the oversized you know, cut off that which are also too long.

18:05 But you're right. I would have to deal with many people's negative feedback a about that existing. But a nice dress shirt, if you will, or a fl plaid did not exist. And it was never designed that way. And therefore

18:19 Because you didn't need it to wear it on tucked, these companies not like going back. I know the specs, I'll bring it up again. It was a big thing because Companies didn't factor in length. They didn't care thirty one inches, thirty three inches, thirty two, thirty five, don't worry about it. You don't even have to qu Q C that. It doesn't matter. They're not gonna notice. Because you're tucking it in. 'Cause you're talking it in. So you're on this trip

18:41 to Vegas with friends and you start to talk to them and they're validating your your j idea or your problem, they're saying, Yeah, that is annoying. You can't uh they're saying the same thing. They're validating it but with excitement. And usually I'm used to them. When I bring L for L P to them, they say, Not gonna work, are you You're out of your mind. a video wine blog they say, Chris, you don't know enough about you know whatever it may be. This one

19:04 Wasn't oh here he goes again. This was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. And the perfect the best example was My partner from Columbia Business School who I brought on, Aaron Sin Andres, we would talk about ideas every day at Columbia, every day. And he'd hang up the phone ninety nine point nine percent of the time while I was pitching the idea. This one, he's in an airport in Boston. He sits down he remembers this, he's told the story eight hundred times, but

19:28 He sits down, he said, I'm in. You don't have to tell me any further. I've been I've had this problem since day one. This is Aaron S San Andrus, right? Um he's your you you meet him at you had met him when you did your degree Columbia and he I think was working it. Pricewaterhouse. PWC. Yep. He was a partner at Pricewater. Uh Pricewater Scoop. And he so he was a an accounting. He was someone similar to me in that he would also pitch ideas. We always wanted to think of ways to to start a company. He's somebody that you just tell m what why why was he somebody

19:59 You saw it. would be the right fit to start a business with. Aside from the fact that he had a bunch of ideas. W what was it about him that you thought Could work with your Personality. He's just incredibly smart and w always asked the most questions at Columbia.

20:13 Very inquisitive, very good at multiple things, you know, like all I knew that I needed someone I couldn't put together a beautiful PowerPoint to go raise money. Just wasn't my thing. I couldn't put together a detailed financial model. And many times there's a guy who can put together a detailed financial model and then a guy who can put together a great power point. Aaron was very versatile. He could do all that stuff. Бо вона колдома не син і вас сидит.

20:37 Um that was the other thing because I finally found someone who believed in this idea. You didn't know about how to design a shirt. You're not a fashion. You didn't go to a fashion institute or of whatever Um Aaron is a finance guy. So let's just talk first about

20:55 you know, in a lot of industries, if you don't speak the language, they don't take you seriously. Like if you don't know what a hem is, or I don't even know the language in apparel you know, uh in this kind of apparel, but They have language, they have a code that they speak in that you now know, you know, twenty years later, but then you didn't. So how did you Eventually find somebody who who who agreed to like make a prototype for you.

21:19 Well, you're right. Um Like I wanted to make sure I went into the fashion district. I wandered in and out. I brought my one J Cruise shirt. I I asked them to make it. They said I'm crazy. That's not the way it works. I said, Please make it. I was meeting with button manufacturers and You're talking about the garment district in New York City. That looks like this.

21:47 I figured that was the first step. I mean what w I didn't know what else I was gonna do. I didn't know a factory or how to I didn't know anyone in the industry. So me going in there I think they were like, Who is this guy? And you know, what is he talking about? He wants to make a shorter shirt. And they'd say. No, you cannot make the shirt that short. That's not the speck of a shirt.

22:12 And I'd say, What are you talking about? They're like we have spec, right? If you make it twenty inches across, we then make the length thirty two inches. I'd say I don't want it thirty, I want it twenty eight point seven five inches. So the length, by the way, twenty eight point seven five. That's my favorite number in the world. That's uh Yeah, on a on a medium from the I shouldn't probably be telling people that, although I guess they can measure it. But twenty eight point seven five. And then they I was just working with these people. They some people told me they can't do it, some people told me they could do it. through each person I met someone new and met someone new. It was really that type of story. So I just learned it was like

22:48 I was taking my time. I had a full time job. There was no rush and I was learning how it took a you know two years to get to market. Um you know, to finally get that right shirt. But that that that was the hardest part is finding how to Make the shirt.

23:03 Alright, so Already in year one. I mean, you're kind of doing this R and D. Aaron is working at Price Waterhouse Cooper's, but he's on board. He's like, I am in. I will I want in. So what was he doing? He was helping you kind of craft the power points and build a business model? Yeah, he was building the'cause we had to raise some money.

23:21 Um We had to build out a website. We had to uh you know, start to think about how to market. So he was doing he was doing a lot of the financial side of things at the time. I was doing the shirts. Um but I'll tell you things like

23:34 Untuck it. That name? I came up with that and then agonized it over a year of all these people telling me not to use it. You know, shirts to be worn untucked, that took a year. I'm you laugh at this, but you realize why some of this marketing stuff means something. You know, you want to rush it, oh it's shirts worn to be made untucked or whatever.

23:52 That took a long time. So we were working on things like that. And then uh Raising money was impossible. You know, you go to people and tell them you want to make you're a medical sales rep and you're gonna go make a shorter shirt. Right.

24:04 No. What are you talking about? How's that how No, it's not a good bet. It's not a good bet. Not at all. But but before we get to the money side, just just going back to to you what you and Aaron were doing. Were both of you living in New York City at the time? I was living in I just moved to

24:21 And Aaron was living in New York City. So how often were the You how often were you meeting? We meet at a diner, you know, two times a week in the city on Fifth Ave. And we just uh

24:32 Лисен, я невер болівд. that this company it was a shorter shirt. This wasn't technology. This wasn't I started a an I'm gonna work on an Uber app, right, and I'm gonna design and I'm this was I'm making a shorter shirt. А на мене тратит фаши. You never think it's possible. When we come back in just a moment, Chris and Aaron get a crash course in how not.

24:57 to make a shirt. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Roz. So it's 2011, and Chris and his business partner have put together about$150,000 to start a new brand of shirts designed to be worn untocked. And now? Chris has to get them made.

25:38 I connected to this guy. From Poland. who had an office in New York City. And he Show me a bunch of fabrics.

25:47 Look at hundred fabric, so these are the ones I like. Um he said I'll make them for you in Poland. No process, you know, no You know

25:56 Now yeah, you do are you're supposed to do tech packs and big order forms and this and everything automated. I told the guy I don't know this is all I got. It's me and my partner It was a such a different time, so they were willing to do this today. There's thousands and thousands of people launching crowd brands every day because of the ease of doing it now, you know, with the ability to to grow. So back then it wasn't so that's a benefit. I always say I had a I was lucky at the time I did it. If I was five years later. It wouldn't have worked out, I don't think, the way it did. So this guy is a Polish guy in an office of New York and he had uh what he had his own factory in Poland or he had connections to the factory? He was the broker for that factory in Poland.

26:36 And that was gonna be cost effective to do in Poland at the time. Yeah, it wasn't gonna be the cheapest. I just had no other contact, you know, in Asia. So And the shirts are gonna be made out of cotton, I'm assuming. Yeah, it was all Cotton.

26:49 Basic stuff. How many shirts did you order that first? Only a thousand. And and how much did that how much did it cost you? Probably uh twenty thousand, somewhere around that. And you were gonna sell them for like thirty bucks or something?

27:03 No, no, we were more than that. I think we were like s seventy eight, eighty eight. Okay. So there's gonna be a premium sort of Premium shirt, right? The funny thing is We made terrible shirts in the first year. Like I I never really got there until year four of making a really nice shirt because I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't even know you had to pre wash

27:24 A fabric to take out shrinkage. No one told me. Some of the fabric. We didn't test the fabric, so the arms on our first plaid grew really big after washing and the rest of the shirt shrunk. So uh tell me about the about that first batch of inventory. the shirts were terrible, which is shocking. I'm sure you you sink all this cash into it. You don't have a lot. Well it comes off the off the boat in New York, you open the boxes and what, they You see right away that they're not good. Well, actually when people started wearing'em and saying that they now used it for a rag for their car, that's when it really uh But you know what's funny you know it's funny b I didn't

28:01 I thought we thought through it. And said you know what, we'll one day get them back. We'll keep a list of those people. But we'll get our cash back. They'll buy the shirt. They're not gonna return it, right? Uh they're gonna And I'm gonna lose X amount of customers. I mean, you didn't have a choice. This is entrepreneurialism. You just have to survive. You had to sell those shirts even though they weren't. You had to sell them. Yeah, that's the point. And today you wouldn't do that.

28:23 I loaded my third bedroom up with all the shirts. I brought up UPS printer And we grew from there. I mean, we shipped I ship though every night.

28:33 Um from my apartment. We remained positive because when the guys got the shirts. The excitement we get paragraph emails from customers who found out about the brand. Thank you so much. I've been looking for this. I can't believe I didn't do it myself. This has been a problem in the industry. No one writes paragraphs to clothing stores, you know, one after another. Every day. There'd be Paragraph emails. By the way, kept going. The next line that came out

28:58 We had I got the first shirt. I I'm measuring it out. I see a little thing on the button. I pull the button up. And it falls off. I do I look at the next button and the same Yeah, the same thing, it pulls off.

29:09 Next one pulls off. I take another shirt, the factory forgot. To tie on the buttons the right way on this machine. The machine was broken on every single shirt they made. So we sold'em. We followed up with an email to everyone that hey We're reimbursing your account five dollars. There was an issue with our machine, you know, take your shirt to the dry cleaner and get'em

29:30 Put back on. By the way, these were all being made in that factory in Poland. They were all being made in the factory in Poland. And and and not to knock Poland,'cause p pol I mean, Poland today I think would be prohibitively expensive. It's it's a you know, it's an industrial you know, power and it's it's got uh manufacturing and it's a EU country and but I'm I my obvious question is why would you keep working with that factory if the shirts they were making sucked? First of all, you didn't have a choice. Like there were it's much harder than you think as a company making a thousand shirts or whatever the shirts we make. Like They just don't they don't even pick up your phone call for a thousand shirts. The other thing is it wasn't really there. I'm supposed to be submitting this.

30:11 Tech pack that has washing instructions, fabric testing, testing buttons. I'm sure they were just they had a thousand shirts, making no money on it, taking a chance, they're making the shirts and they're sending them over. I just I'm just trying to figure out why is this so complicated. I mean I'm I'm wear as you know I'm wearing one of your shirts now. I wear lots of button down shirts. What What's so hard? What why is it so hard? There's a reason why I found out that people do not make shirts designed to be worn untucked. Our shirt has to be

30:39 In spec Every time. If it is a Inch too short. You can't wear it if it's an inch too long, everyone else has it. You have to hit it.

30:47 Each time cotton grows. You know, you could pull down most shirts an extra inch if you just give it a little tug. It shrinks, it moves, it the heat effects it, all these different things. So we had to implement this crazy quality control process where we're washing each yard of fabric, where we're rejecting it if it doesn't hit spec. W I rejected a shirt an inch out of spec the first time. And they said, That's not the way fashion works, Chris. They're not gonna work with you. The factory will not work with you. And I said, Then I don't have a business idea. When you make a sh when your name is untuck it, shirts on anymore untuck it and you're you're Talking about this perfect length. It has to be perfect.

31:23 I guess the reason why it's not perfect every time is because shirts are still there's still a lot of human hands involved in each shirt, right? It's not a machine that's making every shirt. It's not like it's going on a a factory line and it's just a machine that's just cranking it out. It depends now. It's there's some three D technology and printing and stuff but you're saying it was still there were humans with, you know, sewing machines in their hands and they were doing the hems and the the they were Stitching the stitches and everything and that

31:51 That was Right. If we're making fifteen thousand white medium shirts, which we do. In they put them into a washing machine, a one a massive tank. Right, and they dry'em and they wash them and they heat'em. If one's too close to the heat and one's a little further, or one's that's the other problem. When you're scaling

32:11 It's very hard to make that same shirt. at the same length every time and you have two different people making it and all these different things. And your promise was, Hey, it's gonna look great. As an untucked shirt. If it was slightly off, or shrunk too much or

32:28 You know, it's a the whole thing is gets thrown off balance. And there's no difference. And then we blend in with everyone else and the idea goes away and we disappear. Okay, so again I go back to my question, if that factory in Poland sucked so much, why did you Keep working. I guess the answer is you had no choice. There was the only they were the only ones.

32:47 Yeah, we did we had no choice and we quickly fixed our pro that I think that that's and listen, this is now fourteen years. But I do know we I so I don't have the exact timeline, but I do know we pivoted quickly um and improve the shirts because they got really good in like the you know, the third year. How did you do that? How did I mean did you were you flying to Poland to that factory, or did you basically at a certain point imagine you just stopped working with them? I stopped working on it but I also found this uh

33:12 Swedish guy named Bjorn, who's still with me today. Older guy teaches at the fashion institute. How did you find him? I was working with a freelance guy who was not very good. Bjorn walks in for a meeting with him and he throws on the shirt and he says, What do you think of this shirt, Bjorn? And Bjorn destroyed the shirts as the worst made shirt I've ever seen. And then he contacted me outside that meeting because he thought there was something there. Now the good news is

33:38 The the good news is. We grew Unbelievably slow, іноді тазендар. Uh three hundred thousand dollars, five hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, then um

33:52 you know, three million fifteen and and up from there. So that three to fifteen. was a big difference, but the great thing was we always say this. If I started a company today, untuck it, I would go raise five hundred grand, right? You'd go out, you have your marketing plan, you market, you you ship all your shirts. If they're bad, it's over, right? Now a paid social, social media, all these people. Back then, luckily, we had no money, we've had full-time jobs.

34:19 And we weren't marketing. So we learned all this. Okay, your shirts suck. Okay, we lost six hundred customers. Keep keep their names though, because one day I'm gonna send you a letter and explain that I agree our shirts were terrible, and I wanna send you a new one on us, which by the way, we did that. The only reason we survived is because those years we were so small. So we were able to perfect the Sher before we became known. That's what Allowed us to go. And by the way, that was across.

34:46 One of the reasons I think Aaron and I were successful is we did things completely different than they did in fashion. We didn't know what we were doing and we use that to our advantage. Like you launch spring launches spring in on March first, but it's thirty degrees. Why do they launch spring on March first? I guess because they've been doing it for a hundred years. You know, it's snowing out and they're showing past so we were very comfortable with We are not just following this blueprint of fashion, right? We're gonna create our own way. And if it works, it works, and it's gonna work because of that, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. The the you had no office, right? The office was your apartment in Hoboken, is it right?

35:25 Yep. It was uh And we did that for a long we probably did that till two thousand fifteen. We were very frugal. That was my plan. I didn't want to fall into the trap of an on many entrepreneurs of Looking to get this big office hiring all these people. Yeah.

35:39 So you're doing half a million by year, three and All online, all direct to consumer sales. Three years in you're talking about two thousand thirteen. So you didn't need to raise any more money at that point. You were still able to kind of take the just operate the business through cash flow. But

35:56 Imagine as the demand increased and You know, you had to order more stuff, so how are you handling. the money. Were you getting loans? Were you Well what happened in fourteenth.

36:07 No, w we had a line of credit, little bit of l small line of credit, but it happened in fourteen was we said, we we can't keep going like this. We'll be here forever, you know, growing slow and Let's go market. We gotta market. We had twenty one grand to spend in marketing. And we called uh Boomer and Carton New York radio show, the only one we could afford. It's a sports radio show. They said you need um.

36:31 like three months and a hundred grand to see results. And we said we have three weeks and twenty one grand. So um We did it and I remember sitting in LA in a hotel room, first read comes out, I have my Google Analytics up. And within now people are driving, they shouldn't be going to the site, but within Twenty seconds. There's a thousand people on the site.

36:50 Well. And Sales going up, sales going up. And they read the end. Yeah. And were they like, Hey dude, do you ever have that problem where You like want to wear a shirt untucked, but it looks so stupid and and the other guy's like, Yeah, I hate that. It's annoying. Well now there's a tr was it like that? Was it the absolute back and forth. And it would and it would end very strong. Shirts designed to be worn on Tucked, Untuck It dot com. And people were like, Must have been, what the heck is this? You know, because the people would just fly to the site.

37:16 And um then we booked airline and magazines, spent fifteen, made forty five, and we could track this very closely because we weren't that big. You spent fifteen thousand dollars on airline magazines. Yep. Okay, let's just pause there for a sec,'cause I actually think that's a Brilliant. Idea, and sadly they don't exist anymore. Most airlines don't don't produce magazines anymore. But what airline was it? Was it It was everywhere. The Delta United South West, we were everywhere. And the only competitors in that magazine at the time were watch companies and fragrance companies. So when people saw us in there, I think they thought, Oh my gosh, this company must be taken off.

37:50 Which by the way, that Opinion from a consumer makes them convert when they feel that you're bigger than you are. and you're targeting guys like you like sort of twenty to fifty year old guys.

38:02 Initially. When I launched the company, I thought we were gonna be fashion forward twenty to forty, guys who are actually gonna take the time and say, Oh, I also have that problem. It ended up being our current demo today and it's fluctuated over the years, but it's twenty five to seventy years old, evenly distributed. So pretty much every type of guy, rich, poor You know, taxi drivers, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConahe to athletes to Конструкці, секері гард.

38:30 That's been why we became who we were. Well that's the thing, like for forever and ever wearing a shirt untucked was seemed sloppy. It was like Who does that, right? And There was a shift, right, that began. Around this time. Or you start to see people, you know, wearing untucked shirts, or you saw

38:50 A lot of people who Uh we're wearing blazers. Jackets over untucked shirts that that didn't look stupid. No, I mean I like

39:00 Not arrogantly, but there's no question we played a role into the casualization of the United States. I mean it's not We you could wear our shirt into Laberna Dan in New York City, Leberna Dan being one of the you know the the nicer restaurants. Three star, yep, one of the greatest restaurants in America, yep. You could wear it with a sports jacket, and no one is saying I can't believe that guy's shirt's untucked. Right. And that's what we started seeing. Guys were wearing are shirts everywhere and people weren't looking at them being sloppy. Fast forward today, now all these golf clubs across America in their guidelines say you can only wear an untuck it shirt.

39:34 you know when you're in the clubhouse, you know, if they allow shirts. So it started to become acceptable to wear our shirt to work, to wear our shirt th nice restaurants, weddings, whatever it may be. Okay, so You guys are growing steadily over the first three years and then the real breakthrough is when you have some money to go on this the the Boomer Sun show.

39:58 And I imagine that you pick that show. very specifically because it was guys it was gonna be guys listening to sports radio, and that's who you thought Hey, this is this is this is gonna be our target audience. Yeah, sports. to this day has become one of our main areas, whether it was the Masters or Sunday night football.

40:17 So we started there and by the way, then we went to Howard Stern very soon after that. How did you how did you afford that? I mean that's a Because had buy. It's to keep in mind. We raised About a million.

40:30 Three call it. Right. That's not exactly Mostly from friends and family, not professional investors. No, all friends and family and only about fifty three million. The equivalent I'm not gonna name brands was had raised about two hundred million. The only reason we were able to do that is because if we s and the reason you say about Stern, we weren't even nervous. If we spent on Stern, it returned. If we spent on Sunday night football

40:54 It returned. It always returned. This is back then, by the way. Everything's obviously more challenging today. And was it just intuitive, like hey, I listen to those things, I like those things, your maybe your partner Aaron listens to those things. And that was it, or did you do like some research to find out, hey, where where should we go? Back then we were big testers. Test it, move on, test, move on. Podcast became the next thing. Test it. You know, he we were in the journal, the USA Today, New York Times. No one was doing that stuff. They were just doing page social at that time. Because that's where the world was going. Thirty billboards around the country at one point.

41:29 No one was doing a billboard, but we had this tagline on Tucket. Shirts designed to be worn untucked. That's all we had to put. We didn't even have to show the clothing. So it was a v it wasn't you gotta think about this, it was almost like it wasn't a a a clothing brand, it was a concept. Yeah. D let me ask you about the name.

41:48 Um I think it works great. It tells you exactly what it is, what it does. You have to explain it. It's one word. Untuck it. But there were people who were like That's a stupid name. G give it a n like you have an Italian last name. Give it give it your last name. It'll sound Italian and kind of fa you know, Italian fashion and and premium. Yeah, we had most people hated the name. I came up with it walking out in my front of my

42:15 Parents uh Shorthouse and I had not launched the brand or even started it, and I said that is why I'm doing it. Because I came up with that name. I'm going forward with this. Because I love it. Untuck it. Like untuck it is the reason we took off. I really believe that. And by the way, the reason it wasn't sophisticated, that's what people would say, and they're gonna think that the product

42:35 And that is that. Is the reason I said we've gotta make the greatest shirt you've ever worn. It's gotta be perfect. It's gotta you gotta because you're when you open that box. Your mindset's gonna be this isn't a super high quality product because it's a gimmick, right? That's what That was my fear. So I needed you right away to say, Wow, this is an amazing shirt and it washes well and it holds up.

42:59 because of the name. That was the negative of the name. The positive of the name is now if anyone's wearing an untucked shirt, people call it an untuck it. Period. They just you know, it's like a Kleenex and a tissue and a Xerox machine. Um and that that's that's a great moment as a brand. And by the way, it annoyed so many people in fashion, which is Right.

43:17 No, I get why they would be annoyed, because you're not cool. You're not part of that crowd, right? And there's a There's a a snobby kind of elite factor there. Like they're not gonna invite you to fashion the fashion week runways necessarily. And they intentionally didn't all those years. G Q wouldn't write about us and stuff like that,'cause they were annoyed that you know, a non fashion guy came up with this name that's, you know, not fashion y and You know, people

43:42 Liked it. So that really the the the kind of the turning point really was starting to do these ads and then Stern and then airline magazines and I mean, with just a million dollars raised, you're five years in and You've you're still working for GE, I think, at that point.

43:59 Right, you still are actually on And Also um How are you just m coping personally? I mean running a

44:11 Start up is a full time plus job. It's a it can be a hundred hours a week. And You were still even when you hit three, four, million dollars in sales, you were still nervous. You still you still mitigated the risk and held on to your job because

44:27 You're still worried that this could all unravel. Oh my gosh, it was so hard giving up that job. I had a car, I had a job, you know, like Yeah, your parents, you know, say y your wife, you know, are you gonna le like I was scared to say, Okay, I officially don't have a job. I am now an untuck it employee. Yeah the worst part was my It got bad at Gee where it would bother me. It started bothering me that I'd say most people didn't like me. Now, by the way, they didn't like me, not'cause I was a bad guy. They didn't like me'cause I wasn't

44:54 doing the e I wasn't going the extra yard doing a quote, right? I was leaning on people. I was I wouldn't go to the meeting'cause I was now like you said, I mean I'm I have a business now that by the way is not doing a lot. It was doing I could think exactly during that period of time, let's say was doing seven million, six million. And I was like, but there's a chance here. So yeah I left in two thousand and fifteen.

45:16 And I was flying to our sales meeting, which I did not have time for'cause on Tucker was now really really taking that next level. And in the magazine was a big picture of me, shirts designed to be worn on tucked, you know, founded by Chris Riccabono. And uh when I got there I guess all the people saw it on the way to Phoenix to the sales meeting. They were on the plane, they saw you in the airline magazine, your face. Yeah.

45:39 And uh my boss came up to me who I had a good relationship with him. Not the people above him, and he said, I think it I think it's time, Chris. This uh it's gonna be a tough one to explain. That was very scary to me and I um I waited till the I got pushed out. Like it was Um you're forcing me out of here. And it got to the point I never forget, I was walking to Dunkin' Donuts like I do every morning and I said and it hit me really hard. I said

46:01 I this business has to succeed now. I'm thirty years if this doesn't succeed. I'm married and I'm th like I have nothing. When we come back in just a moment. Untuck it grows to the point where it's about to be sold for a huge pile of money.

46:20 Until all of its suitors Pack up. Go home. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So

46:45 It's around twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. A time when two really important things happen for Chris. The first is he walks away from his GE job for good. And the second is Untucket opens its first brick and mortar store. In Soho, in New York City.

47:03 I worked every day on the floor. And We they I saw this reaction to people that this was something special this brand. I was able to pay myself a small salary. And I felt really good now. You know what's funny?

47:16 I actually thought okay, if this doesn't work out, I think I could go get a job in fashion at least. I could maybe go get a job as a Yeah, that was the big thing that I I could fall back and now become, you know, an operator in fashion of some sort. 'Cause you now understood the language, you could speak the language, you understood how the industry worked a lot better. I mean, now you're probably Almost as much of an expert on the on on on shirts and and and apparel than you were on wine. Right. But I also felt pretty confident at the time. That store did so well in Soho that one year. In three months.

47:50 That I said, we're now gonna open this, that's another X million of dollars of revenue. We're gonna open five more And then we opened ninety stores in I think two and a half years. Well. But I I I'm curious. In in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen

48:03 You know, most brands are starting to move online, right? So so why did you guys decide to open up Physical stores. The reason I went into brick and mortar was because people always say, Why did we do it back then? Even though all these people were yelling and screaming about it going away, I had Seventy percent of my email's were I'm not buying you until I touch and feel your product. Part of that was'cause of our older demo, but we had to do it. It wasn't a if we wanted to be along around and and exist.

48:28 We had to open a store. I that's when I started hiring more people. But who was doing all of your before that? Who was doing the website and who was designing who was dealing with like uh fulfillment, for example, who was doing that? I I had one guy shipping in the storage unit and I would go there an hour at the end of the day. It's funny, I was ironing through

48:50 fifteen I ironed every shirt that c I would come home. I w the worst part of this whole journey for me The entire untugged journey was coming home. After being out to dinner and seeing seventy five boxes in front of my apartment door and having to iron them and repack them. In the middle the right up to the middle of the night, iron, clip'em, hang'em outside if they But we didn't hot we were very lean. That's the me and Aaron did almost everything until

49:15 The orange? And then In fifteen, on the way to fifteen million, we quickly hired. Like that's where it turned on quick. Wow. Uh l let's step back because you officially launched a store in Soho. It's doing great. And I think the next year finally Aaron, your co founder

49:33 uh partner you bring him on to be the full time CEO I'm assuming you're just like, I'm done. I don't wanna be doing the CEO job, I want to move to another role. Focusing more on maybe like Product and creative and other things.

49:49 Yeah, to be honest with you, I recognize that he had a better history. To be a CEO, you know, as a partner of P W C that would give him a lot more credibility. When we were gonna have to eventually do a big fundraiser or sell the business. I wanted him sitting there as a CEO. But I I wanted I thought that was uh and I think it ended up being a great decision.

50:09 It just made made sense to the business. And you probably didn't have any management training, right? I mean management is a skill that is developed through training, largely. It's very rare when someone's just a natural manager. I agree, and I am not. I you know, I I kind of if you think about it One of the reasons I left corporate America was to be alone now it's gonna sound weird, was to be alone working hard, right? I told you I didn't like feel comfortable in those power point presentations in those cocktail hours and those smooth like

50:39 I just like to be working, you know, so It was never my Far's does most of the talking in in those scenarios because I he's just better at he he kind of went through that Pathway to his career.

50:52 Let me talk about about m ads and marketing for a moment, because One of your ads is a uh it's an ad of you walking through Soho and it's you're very serious and of course you're wearing an untugged shirt and you're saying I had a problem And then I solve the problem and I don't think I need to tell you. I I think it's a good ad. I mean you're an entrepreneur, you're talking about this idea you had, but it there's something about the ad that's polarizing.

51:18 which I actually don't think is a bad thing,'cause it got more attention than it probably would have gotten if it wasn't polarizing. Like it was a YouTube ad. I mean this ad has been parodied I'm Colbert. It's It was in so I have

51:33 Um Letterman and and Seinfeld, Seinfeld, you know, saying I just hate that Untucket guy, you know, walking down the street all smug Then Letterman's first Letterman's first appearance back after not having been on after leaving His first line, Where have you been, Dave? What have you been doing? I've been looking to find a shirt that look good untucked. You know, that's what then you have Kimmel Colbert, Jim Gaffigan has an entire thing in his skit, a very funny

52:00 You know, thing about the untucked shirt. All of that That is amazing that stuff. It helps you You're right, everyone would pick their head up. Everyone would pick their head up and say, What is this lunatic talking about? Why does he care so much about his shirt? Alright, it's two thousand seventeen.

52:16 Up until that point you you could not actually get any professional DC money and and this is a time I should mention. We've done these sh on this show, we've done Stitch Fix, we've done Bonobos, we've done many of the brands that you've mentioned, but also just apparel brands too. That did. We're able to um attract money from

52:37 outside investors. Um Tell me a little bit about before twenty seventeen. Trying to I mean, I think it's a good thing. How hard did you try to get money from from venture capital?

52:47 Firms. We were able to grow. Without raising money, which was very odd. So we were trying to avoid it at all costs. You know, I look back, I don't know how it was possible that we opened up thirty, twenty five stores without having raise money from that initial fundraise. It really was just refunding the business. And we took some we took some debt. We did take some debt.

53:11 Um. Our first big fundraise was we're fur we went out in two thousand sixteen to venture growth funds. And And Kleiner Perkins. They do not invest in

53:22 Untuck it type companies. I mean they invest in Uber You know, m billion billion dollar tech companies, right? That's what Then they were looking at us more like a marketing tech company than a Harrel company. And they I'll never forget they said the reason they invested

53:38 Is that they thought we'd be the next uh great American brand. I just never forget that. Um we raised eight million dollars from them. That's that's all we put on to bring us to our what would have been our sale in two thousand and uh twenty. We would have had eight million dollars raised. Nine million dollars lifetime.

53:55 So I thought that was pretty cool. So Claire Perkins put in you said eight million? Yeah, a little more they put in more, but it was secondary, you know, went to shareholders. But in twenty seventeen I I think you raised a total of thirty million dollars. From Kleiner. Eight went on the books.

54:12 I see, okay. So Essentially you were able to take some money off the table for the first time. Yeah. So you had worked

54:20 Up until that point But you presumably wanted some security at that point,'cause you had been grinding and always nervous about where this is gonna go under and finally You could take some cash off the table and put it away.

54:35 Pay wire. Yeah. To be able to do that. It was a deep sigh really I mean it was one of those uh You know, there were moments that you don't forget. But it was more not cause of the money, it was more the achievement. Wow, this this really happened. I got something out of this. I I got something. I started this

54:53 You know, silly idea and and I was able to monetize it and say uh that it worked. All right, and now they were a minority investor, minority owner. Yeah. Alright, by the time you know, Kleiner Perkins is putting money into the brand and you're hitting, you know fifty million a year and you're starting to really build out stores.

55:12 You know, the other established apparel brands, especially men's apparel brands. Clearly. I've noticed you. In the first couple of years I had no idea who you were, didn't care. now you're starting to see, you know, the b the the Brooks brothers of the world and the Vineyard Vines and and some other brands start to make Untucked.

55:31 Dress shirts. It's funny. A lot of times people ask me, what's been the greatest moment that kinda sticks out for you? And It was The day which you think it would have been a depressing day, but the day that it clicked, that every single competitor Vineyard Vines J. Crew Banana Republic

55:49 Just go on. Everyone led their two thousand nineteen spring campaign with shirts to be worn on Tuck. Now Two of them led with two of the big ones led with shirts design we want to talk to we Everyone амір ван сеп а секшен ір стор. They're known to be tucked in shirts more than any brand you've ever had, right? Like shirts that are preppy and tucked in.

56:10 They had a untucked section in their store. It was it was kind of a feeling of accomplishment that I started this. Kinda a little idea to Hoboken. And now The whole fashion world, the whole those billion dollar brands that have been around forever. Are now changing their strategy because of us, and I think it drew even more attention to the untucked shirt.

56:32 And what more do you want when your name's on Tucket? Right. So It ended up propelling us in nineteen, you know, to having, you know, w our best year we we had ever had by a long shot. At this point you guys are

56:44 going beyond shirts. I mean you're doing uh you're starting to get into other parts of the apparel world, right? And today, of course, you do sport coats and and trousers and uh you know all kinds of things and you've got um you know, clothing for women but you know, by any account you're a really successful growing

57:06 player here. And you know, you're on par at this time, uh or maybe even m more so the with the bonobos and the you know, the stitch fixes and you know, these big brands that are really kind of emerging um in apparel. And There is talk about an acquisition. Right. This is about what, twenty nineteen you start to talk maybe. Late twenty nineteen.

57:29 Two nineteen. Okay. And Tell me the story about the acquisition kind Who is the acquire, what's the story, how does it start? So We just decided in late twenty nineteen we were growing so fast and we had so much growth ahead of us. We went into uh England

57:44 We had been doing very well in Canada. We had expansion plans across Europe and we had a growing women's brand with zero marketing. We had a growing pants brand with zero marketing, all these amazing things. And we just decided to go test the waters and We had fifteen letter of intents. Coming in

58:01 You know at a very, very big number. You this was a good opportunity. You felt like okay And I should mention the first couple of years you were profitable, but you were small. Now that you're growing and you're investing in growth, you are no longer profitable, which is normal. But now you felt like okay, this is maybe a a an opportunity to get acquired by a bigger

58:23 brand, you know, one of these big conglomerates or or or something because now then they can take it to the next level. Yeah, and there's two things that I've always wanted with this. I wanted one to make good money and two, I wanted this to be a brand that way outlives me. That's very important. I wanted, you know, just to be a brand that's here for the next fifty, sixty years, right, or whatever. By the way, I I want to thank you for saying I wanted to make money because And I I think that's disingenuous. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying I did this to make money, I wanted to make money. So many people say, You know, money wasn't really an issue, it was about the mission or it was about the community. And I'm just like, come on. Yeah, for me it's not it's not it' the the money is not only because of the money, the money's because to me that's the

59:07 If this were to end right now And someone sees me next week and said, Congratulations, Chris. You did an amazing thing on Tuck it, uh, I would be like, uh I didn't really. I never re like so it that mu sale with the money is like I did it. I built a brand and I sold it for a lot of money. Like that's That's what I s say about the money, but Um but also I do want the brand

59:30 And the reason I say that is I really believe that this is gonna be a billion dollar brand. I still do. You so you guys went and worked for the bank and put sort of hung your shingle out there and you had seventeen letters of intent. Potentially about fifteen. And and we knew the number that we were requiring Which was a a very big number. So over a billion dollars? No, close to it. You know, north it's probably north of seven fifty, somewhere around there. You know, you probably have an outlier, you probably have a real low one, right? And not unr not an unrealistic number with so many letters of intent, because you could get into a bidding war. So basically in my mind I'm there. I mean I'm sitting there, you know, weeks away.

1:00:08 you know, I'm I'm dreaming of the the coast of of France and and I was uh like it was it was real. You know, I was um And Yeah, I bought if it was done a little earlier. We shut it down because of COVID, obviously. Uh shut it down.

1:00:24 Everyone like we're everyone reached out to us. Yeah, we're not gonna do a deal. Like it's all of the potential acquirers pull up. Yeah. Or or I don't know if it was pulled out. I can't it was more of a we're not giving you our letter of intent right now, where the world is closed. We're gonna think the world's time, okay. Yeah, I think it's shut w when did it shut down? March. It was in March. It was in March of twenty twenty. So so So these all of a sudden all of these potential acquirers are like we're gonna just

1:00:49 for we'll take a beat here because we we don't know what's gonna happen. Right. But you were that close to maybe getting acquired for Three quarters of a billion dollars.

1:00:58 I mean so close. And I owned, by the way A lot of the company because we When Kleiner put on eight million. They were very adamant, our main investor, to say, This company's doing well. Do not dilute, like let's just raise with debt. So we took on debt because we we had a plan.

1:01:15 Um But we had very little cash, you know, in comparison to what you need going through COVID. So that so the bad news was that was shut down. The worst news was that You know, now all of a sudden you're scrambling. You know, wha what's our accounts payable? What's our debt? What's this? We are I realize okay, we have some significant cash issues here.

1:01:39 And they're happening fast, right? Like because okay, now they're closing our stores. Well that's um You know, I d it's a big number, big numbers a month. What did you see like percentage decline from March to April of twenty twenty? Do you remember? Like more than twenty percent, thirty percent? Uh Probably like forty, fifty percent.

1:01:59 Just trying to Yeah, because it was as so we would get my investor would call us and say, I don't understand. Everyone else is doing good online. And we're like you don't understand because everyone's buying Theori, right? Everyone's buying. Non and by the way I'm still doing Decent amount of revenue with non shirts.

1:02:17 The problem is When you have, you know, forty, fifty, sixty million less than revenue, you're you're it's the math is very simple. You run out of money. So we got on the phone with a bankruptcy attorney. And he's like, You have to declare bankruptcy, you're the y y this is why bankruptcy exists. Your lawyer saying this in w when in Mar in April April. April.

1:02:37 Wait. How much debt did you have, by the way? Like Tens of millions, hundreds of millions? Yeah, well no, we had like thirty, forty million, but that wasn't the point. You couldn't get new debt. So my that that's the bigger you couldn't go get money.

1:02:50 Because you had thirty million in debt. You could get money. And your lawyer, even though you had this national brand and what ninety stores Your lawyer was saying to you you gotta declare bankruptcy. So we had to pay Or

1:03:05 Monthly payment to the stores. We had to pay that number. We had to pay all the time. No, it's a lot of money, and then we had to pay all of our employees. We had just grown too fast, too many employees, paying ninety ninety stores, a big office, all these things that we needed our money to be coming in. And by the way, Our factory accounts was huge because we were bringing in product for that year. that was gonna allow us to do massive volume. We had already ordered it, it was and we had to tell them We can't take the product.

1:03:38 And they're like, Well you owe us thirty million dollars or whatever the number is. So So the guy g I said what is bankruptcy? You know, what do you what is ex I of course everyone knows high level what is bankruptcy. I mean I didn't Know that

1:03:52 You know, oh bankruptcy, what is it? We you know what I I probably keep most of my equity, we kinda and then we'll just re uh Like well you own nothing, zero, and you're not gonna get paid a dime because they're gonna kick you right out. And you know, there's gonna be with us there'd be a bidding war, so it's even more painful. Yeah, but why was your lawyer I I guess your lawyer was saying, I'm not sure. It wasn't my lawyer, it was a lawyer they brought on who was a bankruptcy lawyer attorney. I see. Okay. And he was saying look the only way to save the brand is to and that meant that you wouldn't you know, all this debt would go away, but then

1:04:24 And you could walk out of there having banked some money and and very, very, very little. Like they would have, you know They've gone after you two, probably. Yeah, it would have been wouldn't have been great. I I I cannot imagine. Even when that was brought up.

1:04:42 Because you're not a lawyer. You don't you know most of us aren't lawyers. We don't when a lawyer says that, I think a lot of people take it seriously like, Okay, well I gotta consider this. It was The hardest thing to re and but the problem is you're also dealing with this Covid stuff, which right in that period of time was scary for everyone, right? Like you're sitting, you know, you can't leave your house. You can't And by the way, that's not a small thing. I don't mean to everyone goes to

1:05:05 Everyone went through something with Covid. So many businesses were lost. So I'm not the only one. It just so happens I was days away from selling it for such a big number. That's the only f you know that it was that kind of Super high to super low. So I got on the phone with my partner. We didn't really know what to say or do. I mean you don't You didn't know when covert was gonna end. That's the problem. That was what made this so bad. So

1:05:28 We called our uh All of our landlords one by one we called all of our Factories. Some were great, some we had threatened back and forth with lawsuits, this and that. Ninety percent of them said we think you're gonna be an um unbelievable brand post Covid. We're gonna hang with you no matter what.

1:05:46 Well so we we built up this massive accounts payable. I don't wanna say the number Just to survive. We raised some money. At a very low valuation'cause you had to. Did Kleiner

1:05:56 put m more money in during during this crisis. They did. They did. Okay. So they and they probably got a good deal. They did get a good deal. I I cannot I

1:06:05 I just cannot imagine the level of stress that you were under because First of all you're dealing with just declining revenues, you've got to figure out a quick way to get Cash infusion. And I believe that

1:06:17 You guys had like Three kids in quick succession around this time. Like over a two, three year old. During Covid I had uh I had four in um Yeah, six years.

1:06:28 Yeah, all that was happening. It was um It was we were there, we made it to a point that it was now You know, hanging by a thread. There's really only one person I could talk to about it was my partner,'cause I didn't want to bring in my my s my wife and my dad. I didn't want to get them nervous. You don't want to talk to your wife or your dad about this? I didn't it was it was so bad, by the way, if if the company went bankrupt

1:06:51 I couldn't I don't want to give too much of my personal life, but I couldn't have afforded my you know, I had just sold some of the company, I Had built a house and now it was It was an ego hit. I hate to say it.'Cause now you have no money, and by the way, you're not making money and you're not getting a job over covet. Like r it's just hard. And you have four kids. It was uh crazy, and it was uh not because of anything we did wrong.

1:07:21 That's what bothered me about it. And there was no solution. You wanna know why I didn't tell my wife in Father because there was no solution. But you you kind of start to emerge from COVID. And we had stories like this in a show with other apparel brands where Covid ends

1:07:37 And they're brands that weren't really fit for Covid. Like they're really more You know, things that you would wear outside to just look good. And then after Covid they just explode in growth. And I I imagine that once people start to emerge from Covid, not necessarily going back to work, but even going out, people start to buy the clothes again. Now we had no cash.

1:07:58 Right, because we're coming out. Um so we really didn't know what to expect. What happened was we did we were able to take on some debt to get us through it. That's how we solved our bankruptcy problem. We solved some with cash and some with debt. We cut back inventory. We do good in two thousand twenty three, our most profitable year ever in twenty three.

1:08:17 Not the growth year where we wanted it to be. Now Long story short, I wanna make sure I'm very clear about this'cause So we solved the the problem in twenty four. And we are now having a tremendous twenty five and we are beginning our wholesale growth. And I can get into that in a second as it's the the final phase, but we are um

1:08:37 It just took four years. It was a four year hamster wheel that we were in. Um, all right, so you You recover from Covid. And back now again to are you guys getting close to profitability?

1:08:51 No, we're profitable. We're profitable. Okay. the year wasn't what we wanted'cause we didn't mark and twenty four we were profitable and this this year's an exciting year. Alright, you are now I think for the first time recently have gone into wholesale. into Nordstrom, into Macy's, um, Stitchfix and and a few other places.

1:09:16 Um Tell me a little bit about that decision. Well, like I said, I wanna be I want to be a massive brand, uh uh you know, a brand that fits all demo men's fathers, sons, kids. You have to go into wholesale eventually if you want to scale to that level to a billion dollar brand. You know, we j we're opening in Mexico City later in the year, like just so many exciting things.

1:09:38 So tha that's the one area that With low hanging fruit because Customers want us, we know that, so they're gonna want us where they shop, and that's a huge opportunity. And it's definitely part of the long term plan. So I can get back to north of where we were.

1:09:53 You know, in in Covid. Pre COVID. Um You know I'm wondering

1:09:58 Now I mean here you've gone been through Uh certainly trial by fire. Um a lot of highs and a lot of lows. in building this brand over since two thousand ten. Um

1:10:12 Here you are now. Almost fifteen years into this thing. You're obviously super experienced. How do you see your own role? I mean I guess

1:10:23 I I imagine that at some point you'd like to hope Hopefully. Try to see if you could get acquired again, maybe. Right. I don't know, maybe go public, which is risky too.

1:10:34 But I imagine there's an there's a a point at which You do exit this thing. Yeah, no, I I will definitely want to get acquired or and sell and and kinda make this a an ultimate now it's become I I need this now to get over this, you know. You don't wanna be the person who's gonna sell for something and then sell for nothing or sell

1:10:53 So now it's like I'm back in that dude. Listen, I'm more stressed now than I was ever. I there was this little period of time in nineteen and twenty when I wasn't Because I need this to happen. I'm You know I am This these three years have been very draining and you know, and as Aaron would say the same thing, like we have to see this through.

1:11:13 But I'll tell you that any deal that I do, I'll still be here, you know, helping grow. I do believe I when I say I think this can be an international brand. I really believe it can. I wanna be there for it. I don't wanna you know not be there for the some of that exciting Parts of it. Chris, given where you are now, I mean y you even admit that when you started this idea

1:11:34 it was you know, one in a million chance of working of succeeding. 'Cause apparel's hard. It's really hard to build an apparel brand. But it did. It did succeed. And I wonder how much of

1:11:45 where you got to now, where you are now, and when you reflect on it, how much do you attribute to The work you put in the grind and how much do you think had to do with Luck. So I'm a big believer. I'm not someone who denies luck. Luck is so important in every area of life. There's not one successful person who didn't get luck. I think there's a massive amount of luck. I say luck,'cause I launched it at a period of time where I think it allowed me to make mistakes and to still take advantage of paid social.

1:12:11 You can make an argument that isn't luck, that's strategy, that or whatever, but I think it's a blend. I think there's no question The hard work. the my vision and pushing through and just doing it. I would say just doing it. How many people just don't do things, right? That's It's crazy. It's draining to be an entrepreneur, I guess is all I can say, but I think it's a mix of luck and a mix of hard work.

1:12:35 You need both. That's Chris Ricabono, co-founder of Untuck It. And by the way, remember Chris's wine vlog, Pardon That Vine? He stopped doing it years ago, but the videos are still up on his YouTube channel, and in the last one he posted, way back in 2012. Chris is reviewing a Syrah from New Zealand and what he's wearing?

1:12:59 An early version of an untuck it button down shirt. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show, and sign up for my newsletter at guyros.com or on Substack. This episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Ramteen Ara Blue. It was edited by Niva Grant with research help from Carrie Thompson. Our audio engineers were Patrick Murray and Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Cather Seifer, Carla Esteves, Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, Andrea Bruce, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to how I built this.

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