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From Iraq Prototype to Millions: Sheath Underwear's Story · Honest Ecommerce

• speaker-0: universe is challenging you. It's not just gonna give you open the doors to the kingdom ⁓ without a few tests, if you will. And but never in my mind did I say, I'm giving up. This is too hard. You know, a lot of people would quit at that point, you know. And and I had a lot of people telling me, you know, just it was good run, you did you did great, just get a real job. speaker-1: Honesty Commerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow, and scale an online business today. Honesty Commerce is proudly produced by Electric Eye, a Shopify Plus partner helping e-commerce brands sell more with strategic design and development. Visit electriqueye.io for more information. Hey everybody, welcome back. To another episode of Honest Ecommerce. Today I'm welcoming the show. The CEO of Sheath Underwear, Robert Patton. Robert, welcome to the show. speaker-0: Thank you so much Chase for having me. It's an honor. speaker-1: I'm excited to to dive into this. So for folks that are unaware, ⁓ what c what types of products do you guys bring into market over there at Sheath? speaker-0: It's mostly men's underwear, but we also have women's underwear and we have some ⁓ accessories like hats and hoodies, socks and neck guards, base layers, things of that sort. But the main product is our men's pouch underwear, which is I could show you real quick. So it looks like regular underwear on the outside, but on the inside there's a pouch for the boys and it isolates everything from your inner thighs to keep You're from sticking and chafing and it's rather comfortable. speaker-1: Absolutely. ⁓ and now take me back in time, where did the idea for, you know, the flagship sheath underwear come from? speaker-0: All right. Well, it's a unique story. I served two tours in the army. I did six years. ⁓ I was a sergeant. And on my second tour, as you might ⁓ in Iraq, it's very hot. And our kind our generator had gone down, the water wasn't working, and we couldn't shower and ⁓ and and it was just really hot and I was uncomfortable and you know, the ⁓ male anatomy is one of the hottest parts of our body. and I was just very uncomfortable and it was one of those necessity is the mother of invention type things. I was like, I need to separate the situation downstairs. And I I immediately I just went into my where we lived and and I grabbed a towel and just kinda like separated everything with a towel because it was just that bad. And I'm s I mean, I don't know if guys have experienced it to that extreme. But I know guys have experienced it to some degree. but in that moment, I also had this like light bulb. Like, what if there was a pouch on the inside that just isolated everything? And I actually immediately got started while I was in Iraq. I ⁓ we have what's called a PX post exchange and it's kind of like a little mini Walmart. And we I went and grabbed some underwear, I grabbed some pencils and paper, some scissors and started drawing out my what I was seeing in my head and ⁓ but we also have tailors in the army, so in case you need to tighten up your uniform. So I go I draw out this design, I take some underwear and and yeah, and the drawings to the the tailors in Iraq and I I was like, I don't need you to tailor my uniform. I need you to tailor my underwear and they they snickered at me. They thought it was kind of funny. But they did it. And I I mean, I I went back a couple of days later and picked up this pair of underwear with a pouch in it. And it the pouch was very small and and the initial prototype, but the concept was there. And I remember j I have like a picture of me in Iraq holding them up. One of my fellow soldiers took a picture and that's where it all started. speaker-1: That's hilarious. ⁓ so w what'd you say was like the time between you having this kind of aha moment in your head and you having essentially the first prototype in your hands? speaker-0: Honestly, it was less than a week, I would say even half a week. And just to backtrack a smidge, right before I left the ⁓ to go to Iraq, I had watched this movie called The Secret about like manifesting. And one of the principles was just like act fast, do not hesitate. The universe likes speed. So when you have an idea, don't wait. Start moving towards it. And there's so many different success principles that suggest that, you know, just take the first step and you have to have faith that that it's gonna like unfold in the way that ⁓ the universe sees fit, I guess. but I that was all kind of like in my mind fresh while I was out there. And I had read Think and Grow Rich many times before and and just like, you know, you have to like I wanted something more than just to be in the army. It was great. I did love the army. It was actually quite fun, except being in Iraq and like dead people. But like the basic training and the playing shooting guns and obstacle courses and land navigation and and just they give you so much training and and I really enjoy you know, you're like repelling out of helicopters or maybe jumping out of airplanes. I mean, it was so cool. The army is awesome and it's a great launch pad for young men. to go from adolescence to manhood. I feel like a lot of men should ⁓ join the ar military. And the the unfortunate part is that you might die or or get severely injured or have some kind of post traumatic stress ⁓ after seeing things that normal people don't see. But ⁓ It's it's kind of like an initiation into manhood and and and I was twenty six when I joined. So I was I was a little bit late to the game, but I was still pretty immature. So I've really felt like after basic training, which little pat on my back, w you know, they they y you you're competing against your fellow soldiers, at least in basic training. And physical fitness is one of their main categories of determining if you're if you want it bad enough, you know, if you want to be in the army. And and I beat everyone in our battalion in the physical fitness aspect, you know, and push-ups, sit-ups, and running was the main thing. ⁓ but that it gave me this like little bit of confidence, like, whoa, I can actually compete against my peers and and excel. And and it pushes you to a level that you wouldn't otherwise not be pushed to unless maybe you're trying to fight in an octagon or or maybe playing sports is is a similar kind of analogy. Yeah. speaker-1: Do you know what's going on with Clavio? When is the last time you explored what it can do? 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I'm familiar with ⁓ Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. So going in to your time In Iraq, you had already had kind of the seeds planted for an entrepreneurial kind of mindset. When you got back this first prototype, obviously sizing was a bit off, but it hit the nail on the head as far as like this is this is what I envisioned. ⁓ you know, how many iterations did you go through there? ⁓ you know, did you have to wait until After your tour to get started on the actual business, you know, what what what kind of were the next steps from there? speaker-0: Great question. I initially I was just making it for myself. So I wasn't even necessarily doing the entrepreneurial thing at that point, even though I had all this background and but yeah, there was there were some components of this could be something, but also it was initially for myself. And ⁓ so when when I got home, I had to wait until I got home. There was really not a lot I could do while I was in Iraq ⁓ other than what I did. But I got home, I bought a sewing machine, and I just converted all my underwear. I went to Ross, I bought a bunch of, you know, cheaper underwear, started making prototypes to hand them out to friends and other soldiers. And I remember we were on a field training exercise where again it's like really difficult to shower and explaining the concept to fellow soldiers, they were like they totally got it. So they they were getting it and then, you know, I told my younger brother who was really excited about the idea. And you know, I was in the army though, and it's it's like y you can't really start a business while you're in the army necessarily and I had I was when you're s kind of in a job, i it's kinda hard to like break out of the matrix of of what you're you're programmed for. ⁓ but with a lot of prodding, he just influenced me to decide to t to turn it into a business. And that took it didn't take too long. Like I said, I was it was two thousand eight. The first launch was actually in two thousand ten. so in between two thousand eight and two thousand ten, I'm like trying to figure out how how do you even make underwear. I don't I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know, you know, how do you find a manufacturer? So you're googling. I went to a ⁓ website, I found a website called MFG dot com, which I assume meant like manufacturing dot com. I took a little video of myself with a prototype and submitted it and then within a few days I had about twelve different companies responding with offers that they ha you know, for with cost and ha and and whatnot. But This guy from Pakistan actually called me and he spoke really good English and he he I explained I didn't know what I was doing. He was like, No problem. I'll basically hold your hand through this whole process. And so I went with them and ⁓ it was five thousand dollars, which for the first production we we were we purchased ⁓ one thousand pairs, a thousand white or a five hundred white, five hundred black in various sizes. And you know, I s so I sent them the prototype. They sent me back a prototype. I was like, this is pretty good. We need to make a couple of adjustments. They sent me an adjustment and then I was so excited that I I I rushed the production, which I i I should have actually gone through a few more iterations of the prototype because I get these thousand pairs. The pouch is too high. There's kinda like it's called pilling, but the ⁓ the fabric was shedding on the black pears and I'm handing out these pears to my my neighbors and stuff and they're just like, ⁓ it's it's all right. It's all right. They don't want to be mean. But ⁓ and I was kind of in denial. I was like i I thought it was good enough, but ultimately I couldn't sell them. I mean I sold probably I sold a few pairs, but ultimately came to the conclusion that this is ⁓ this is not the proper launch. So I actually ended up there was a tailor in town, a Vietnamese tailor named Tony. He was the man. And I I asked him, I said, if I work your counter for free, like just deal with customer service stuff, will you help me kind of like revise this and teach me what I'm doing wrong? And and He was a he was very suspicious at first and he had these these kind of older Vietnamese ladies in the in the back room and they w they thought I was trying to scam him or something 'cause they were like, What is this guy doing? But ultimately he agreed. We and we had a great friendship w over the couple of years I was there and ⁓ came up with a a new prototype and it was two thousand thirteen or two thousand twelve ish. But when when when Kickstarter came out. Mm-hmm. And I assume you're familiar with Kickstarter. So that of 'cause I didn't have any ⁓ you know, I had spent my last five thousand dollars and now I'm out of the army and I'm working like cleaning golf carts, delivering Chinese food. Just I was going to school also. I ended up getting my bachelors and my masters like over the course of the next five years. And ⁓ but In twenty thirteen, we did a Kickstarter and you know, for those that don't aren't familiar with it, it's just like you present your concept to the public and they decide whether or not they want to pre-order your product, knowing that you're gonna pool all of their money together and make a purchase and it's gonna take six months for them to get their product and but it was successful. You know, we we got about three hundred people that pre ordered and we were able to make our first production with a new company. Cause and I'm s leaving out a lot of details on why we went to a different company. ⁓ and there's there's a lot of stuff that happened in between. It's like a long I could write a book, right? But we had a f ⁓ we were successful and we got the product, we sent it out. It was so exciting. Like that's like some of the most exciting times ⁓ of the journey is like that very beginning when you're just like you get that first successful moment and you're like this is happening you know because then so check this out so we get it everyone's happy we sell out and I go to reorder more with all the proceeds and I wasn't even paying myself because you know it's like just trying to grow everything. speaker-1: What is the next big idea that could change your business? A pricing change? A new bundling strategy? Adding subscriptions? Tweaking your shipping offer? Most brands make these decisions based on gut feel. They roll out the change, hope for the best, and have no real idea if it helped or hurt their business. IntelliGems fixes that. 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That's intelligiems.io slash audit. Intelligence dot io slash audit. speaker-0: The second production that I got from that same company was botched. So I get ten boxes of underwear that I again can't sell. So now we're like back at ground zero and I'm like, dude, what is going on? So the but this is like back to the secret. The universe is challenging you. It's not just gonna give you open the doors to the kingdom ⁓ without a few tests, if you will. And but never in my mind Did I say, I'm giving up, this is too hard? You know, a lot of people would quit at that point, you know. And and I had a lot of people telling me, you know, just it was good run, you did you did great, just get a real job. my older brother in particular, which is is funny. ⁓ he still tells me to do that. He's that's like fifteen years later. But I didn't want I I wasn't gonna give up. But then what do you do? Okay, you don't have any money. ⁓ you don't have product and so what you so what do we do in that situation? Well, my my great idea was let's do another Kickstarter because I didn't I had the it worked the first time. Let's try it again. But I need another manufacturer. And this is where I I I feel like by me not quitting, the universe sent me a gift and that gift was I got an email. from a manufacturer and that wanted to produce for us. ⁓ her name is Annie. I mean w we're still working with her ⁓ twelve years later. But she's ⁓ I sent her a prototype, she sent me one back, and I'm telling you, they it was better than what I sent her. It was so good. And there was this downtime, you know, in between two thousand thirteen and two thousand fourteen where again I'm still I'm cleaning golf carts, I'm delivering ⁓ Chinese food and obviously there's anxiety, like, is this gonna you know, is this next Kickstarter gonna work? It worked once, but it's not guaranteed to work again. ⁓ and I would be laying in my bed riddled with anxiety just at night, you know, just like freaking out, like th what am I doing? Okay. But when that would happen, I would go into my closet and I would grab that prototype and I would put it on and it was so good. I get emotional sometimes because it was like it would I would just like be like like a a warm refreshing kind of like All of the anxiet anxiety would would fade away when I put that pair on. I was like, I know this is gonna work, then they're gonna love it. It is so good. They were so comfortable. And so we just kept moving forward. We did another Kickstarter and it was successful. We doubled the revenue from the previous Kickstarter and and then it was like off to the races because from t in 2013 we made $30,000. based off of a few s like the sales from that original batch and the and the Kickstarter. In twenty fourteen we did sixty. Twenty fifteen we did a hundred and fifty. Then we did two fifty. Then we did a half a million, then a million, then two million, then four million, and you know, and it was just like d doubling revenue every year. And it was it was actually quite easy. It was almost too easy because we were one of few pouch underwear companies at the time. ⁓ now there's over a hundred different pouch underwear companies. So it's not quite as easy to double each year as it was, but that that makes it fun. You know, you gotta be get creative and just and now we're in like AI. Well I mean we we came up with this idea for a new launch for ⁓ twenty twenty seven and it's called the Black Collection. And with we made all five pairs And and during a Monday morning meeting, you know, like the we came up with the designs for ⁓ this this soap this new ⁓ collection, which is we're excited about. speaker-1: Are you saying that using AI allowed you to rapidly kind of compress the timeline that it originally took you to design these concepts? speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. I mean it would take you'd have to draw it out, then you send it to your graphic designer. And we used to have three graphic designers. Now we have one. And he and he's all so awesome. Roel shout out because he when when AI kind of started coming out, he just was very excited about it and and kind of like took the lead and spearheaded that whole he's our AI guy now, where he was doing Amazon before. ⁓ he was just he just ran our Amazon part of the company and now he heads our AI department and he was able to just whip up five new designs in the mat in a matter I mean basically we told him okay do a dragon scale, do ⁓ topography, do the fingerprint and these various kind of patterns and just they whipped up and ⁓ that one's a little bit funky, redo that. And ooh, that one's awesome. You know, onto the next one and it's It significantly compresses the amount of time it takes to create a a new design. speaker-1: Prepped all year, and all that hard work is paying off. Your store is converting, the ads are working, and this is shaping up to be your best holiday season. But your 3PL can't keep up. 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I do need to go back and ask a follow-up question though. ⁓ you have the successful second Kickstarter launch. ⁓ and then obviously the brand does 30, 60, 150. You know, you are seeing traction. You're as they say, you're getting product market fit. How did you get customers outside of Kickstarter? I know there are entrepreneurs out there that are at that phase of where I believe in my product, I'm getting good feedback from the people I know, but I don't know how to get it in front of people I don't know. So how did you make that shift and how how did how'd you find other customers? speaker-0: Great question. Okay, so first of all, my brother had been d r ⁓ running people's Facebooks for them ⁓ for quite a while. So he would manage their Facebook ⁓ platform and and do adver you know posts and so he w he had been doing that. So he's doing our fa our Facebook pages and X and stuff. And he and he also is a a videographer. He is a part of a couple of different documentaries and ⁓ so he did he made a lot of our content and so of course you use all of the traditional platforms for social media. But growing up, for me, my dad used to just listen to talk radio all the time. Every time we got in a car, it'd be like Rush Limbaugh or some right wing conservative talk show, which was awesome. I always loved listening to that for for for whatever reason. And of course, this is around the time Joe Rogan came out with the you know, the Joe Rogan experience and I I was listening to it all the time. So I I want at that point to sponsor Joe Rogan. So what I do is he comes to Austin for a ⁓ comedy show. And my great idea is to go to the comedy show and when I find the right time, I'm gonna throw a pair of underwear onto the stage. He's gonna pick it up and he's gonna say, I want to work with this company And ⁓ and and the rest will be history. Well what happened was I threw the underwear on the stage, he picks it up, be and it was like the perfect toss. It was like it landed right at his feet. And I was way up in in on the bleachers in the crowd and and he we were in Austin, so he he's like, What is this? An Austin is weird shirt? So he picks it up, he's like, Sheath. And I at the time the packaging described what it was. So he's like reading a pouch in your underwear. What do you need a pouch in your underwear for? You trying to smuggle drugs? What are you doing out there? This has got to be the stupidest idea I've ever heard of. And that kind of crushed me, but then immediately after he said, or a billion dollar idea. And that and the second part of that statement was actually true because it is a billion dollar idea. And I know I know that pouch underwear is generating billions of dollars. But also he kind of like blacklisted me from working with him. He was like, whoever your marketing per ⁓ advisor is is giving you bad advice. This is a horrible way to ⁓ market a product. So but of course, back to first principles or whatever, you don't give up. And what do you what do you do? All right. I'm still a fan and I actually met him not too long ago, which was awesome. But I'm like, okay, so what do I do? Okay. There's other podcasts. And and and a lot of them would go on his show. So when I while I'm listening to his show, the people that I found the most interesting, I decided to reach out to them and sponsor their podcasts. And in that was the very first podcast we sponsored was a guy named Kevin Pereira. I forget the name of his podcast. I don't even know if it still exists, but We spent two thousand dollars, you know, on and we're gonna we're gonna blow up. But he put us at the very end of an hour long podcast and just did a very poor ad read. I don't think we made very much money, but again, you don't give up. ⁓ and since then, I'll name a few names like Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, Tony Henchcliffe, and like the ⁓ this all of his c comedian friends, we've essentially started sponsor Michael Malice, Dave Smith, like all these guys, we started sponsoring their podcasts. So we were basically what I called we were under the Joe Rogan ⁓ umbrella and that helped us promote our product and and it was really cool because you know we're selling pouch underwear, maybe it's a little bit weird. It's n you know you're talking about male genitalia or or something and How's this going to work? But the fact that they were willing, I guess ultimately to take our money and promote our product, you know, that that was another like sigh of relief. Okay, like these these guys are willing to promote us. And a lot of them actually really like the product. In fact, Michael Malice, who's not a comedian, but you know, he's a best selling author and ⁓ just like a a political pundit, he he was on Fox News about two weeks ago. on the Greg Gutfeld show and he had modeled for us a few years ago and the host brought up the fact that he he was a underwear model and and they show him, you know, in the underwear holding the American flag and and he and he really ⁓ went to bat for us on ⁓ in that at that moment. I don't think it was planned. ⁓ and he just you know he talked about the product, how he wears it every day, he's wearing it right now, you know, and I text with him. The only thing he wanted after the fact, he he was like, Did I earn an exotic plant? He's into these plants and so I I bought him a a very unique plant off eBay for like three hundred and fifty bucks. He's he's really cool like that. And we've been working with him s for almost a decade at this point. So Essentially podcasts and YouTube have been our our main staple of advertising that helps k you know reach new audiences because like this, you know, people are listening, we're in their ear, they respect you because they're listening to your show, you've built trust with them, and when you do an ad read, they assume that y you're giving them, you know, good advice or whatever. I mean that they know that they're being paid, but also you can tell when a post does a good ad spot. We've had so many where they're just reading off their phone, very monotone, and it's I'm like crushed when that happens because sometimes it's a really big like sugar son O'Malley is is a very big ⁓ MMA fighter in the UFC. I don't think he's a champion right now, but he fought on the White House card and a lot of people probably know who he is. But we sponsored his show and his co host just did one of those types of ad reads. And of course when they do that, we don't re up with them. But when like Dave Smith or Michael Malice or Mark Norman do their ad reads, you can tell and and w when they're and when it's a genuine ⁓ ad read or when they really actually like the product. So we stick with those guys and ⁓ and that's that helped. speaker-1: Hey everybody, just a quick reminder. Please like this video and subscribe if you haven't. We're releasing interviews like this every week, so don't miss out. Now back to the interview. Two things there I want to respond to. And I'm the it could be a rabbit hole, and I don't want to go down it, but I have recently learned how insane the exotic plant game is and how like eBay, it's I went down a YouTube documentary Rabbit Hole about rare plants and how you can buy these ⁓ trimmings or or or what have you on eBay. ⁓ so it's just funny to see you learn about something and then you're hearing about it the next week. so that that's super interesting that that's what that gentleman ⁓ was excited about to, you know, to to get ⁓ rewarded with. ⁓ but yeah, just obviously we do ad reads on this show and I go into it. It's like I want to talk to you on the phone. I'm only gonna support products that A, I think are good. And be like resonate with our audience too. It's like I get a lot of interesting emails and I'm like, I don't like this is cool, but like I don't think this is the right fit for like the people that are listening to the show won't care about this, right? ⁓ and you know, I think it's you should always go into it in a mindset of like, you know, of a of a longer term partnership. And I don't I I don't just want to take people's money to to make a few dollars. It's like, no, I'd rather they re up and they continue. And so that's the way I go into it. I Definitely can see people phoning it in and other types of content that I consume out there. ⁓ and that's unfortunate. And it's, you know, hearing from a you know, from someone that controls the purse of buying sponsorships, it's like, yeah, when you do that, you you definitely lose any any any additional revenue that could come from that relationship. It's, you know, it's it's good to hear. now, Robert, we talked so much about. what you've built over there at Sheath, is there anything I didn't ask you about before we go that you think would resonate with our audience? speaker-0: Well, for people who are trying to start their own company and maybe if you wanted to ⁓ follow my lead in terms of ⁓ marketing with podcasters or YouTubers, what I would suggest is send like what you said, maybe have a conversation with them but or send them the product beforehand. Make sure that they actually like the product or at least are willing to be very convincing that they like the product. Don't just pay them, you know, send send them a sample. So that they have an idea of what they're getting into and and then based on that feedback, you can and make a decision rather than just sending them a check right off the bat because that is what has worked mostly for us over the years. We found that that is ⁓ very helpful in in finding good advertising partners and you know, there's so many things we could get into, but you know, save your money. For a rainy day, because it it you know, those hundred percent annual growth every year years don't always last. You know, when you when you're successful, you're gonna get a lot of copycat competitors so and they're gonna try to undercut you at price. And so just be aware of that and be prepared. That's one thing I always just put like all my chips back on the table and rarely saved money. It's only actually a y last year with the tariffs that really forced us to re ⁓ think our entire structure of of how we were doing things and and one of those things being just saving ten percent of your daily sales. And it's actually quite fun. Every day, you know, I'll set aside you know, if we if we make ten grand, I'll put a thousand in savings and you just seeing that grow, it grows really fast. And and then you can use that for production, which again is the most important part. Like having a great product is number one. Number two, great customer service. You know, you want to take care of your customers, treat them like they're the only one because that is who feeds your bank account and you want to take care of them and and just I guess at the end of the day, try to have as much fun as you can because it's a blessing to be able to do this. and and get and I I you know, get out there and tell your story. Like Gary Vee, you know, get on social media, tell your story directly on social media, try to get on a podcast and and and because there's The component of of like the story behind the brand is intriguing to customers. I mean, 'cause a product is is great, but having some additional context behind the product adds a little bit of extra incentive for the customer to support you. speaker-1: Absolutely. And real quick before we go, obviously the whole topic of this conversation was built upon this amazing product that you built. And so if I'm curious about the product and I want to go check it out, potentially ⁓ support by b picking up a pair, where should I go? What should I do? speaker-0: Thank you so much. ⁓ you can follow us on ⁓ that's at Sheath Underwear on most of the platforms. Of course and our website is Sheath.com, which we purchased a few years ago. We were originally Sheath Underwear. So both of those, Sheath Underwear and Sheath.com. And ⁓ if you use promo code Honest Ecommerce, you can save twenty percent off of your purchase. We have a hundred percent money back guarantee on the first pair, so if you don't like it, you don't even have to send it back. We will just refund you for your order. That's how much we believe in the product. And we hope that you will give us a shot 'cause it's really good. speaker-1: Awesome. Bobby, thank you so much for coming on the show today. speaker-0: Thank you, Chase. Thank you, everyone.