A Strategic Partnership Helped Us Hit $3.6M/Year [Update]

Robert Patton

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Published: September 23rd, 2024

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Robert Patton

Founder, SHEATH LLC

$300K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

SHEATH LLC

sheathunderwear.com

from Woodland Park, CO, USA

started February 2014

$300,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Discover what tools Robert recommends to grow your business!

Discover what books Robert recommends to grow your business!

Think and Grow Rich (Think and Grow Rich Series) Napoleon Hill

📗

Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, And

Want more updates on SHEATH LLC? Check out these stories:

1. Updates And Plans For Our $3.6M/Year Pouch Underwear Brand (2023) ➜

2. Despite Cutting Our Ad Budget By 50%, We Had Our Best Year Ever And Hit $3.6M ARR (2022) ➜

3. How I Grew A Men's Pouch Underwear Line To $1M/Year (2019) ➜

4. On Growing Our Annual Sales To $1.3M (2020) ➜

This is a follow up story for SHEATH LLC. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 5 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

Hello, my name is Robert Patton and I run SHEATH. That’s right, we finally bought SHEATH.com after 10 years of having sheathunderwear.com. We paid 30k to buy SHEATH.com at the end of 2023 because we had just signed a Deal with the UFC.

We wanted to be able to have SHEATH.com in the octagon rather than sheathunderwear.com which might have been more confusing.

This is our 3rd or 4th Starter Story. Here is a link to the first one.

SHEATH Underwear specializes in selling high-quality men's and women's underwear, with our flagship product being the SHEATH 4.0 dual pouch men's underwear.

This design offers unmatched comfort, support, and anti-chafing benefits, making it ideal for men who prioritize functionality. Our target customers include those with active lifestyles, athletes, and individuals seeking everyday underwear with superior moisture control.

In 2024, we proudly became the Official Underwear of the UF C , a major milestone in our journey. With more inventory than ever, we are prepared for a significant boost in sales as demand grows for our innovative designs.

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Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?

Since we last talked, SHEATH has been growing steadily though due to some economic factors as well as a rise in competition in the Pouch underwear market, our growth isn’t as robust as it once was. We are working on getting to 30 million a year to ultimately generate over 1 billion in revenue over the next few decades.

We are proud to celebrate our 10-year anniversary with another projected 10% revenue growth this year. In October 2023, we partnered with the UFC, running a successful test that led us to become the Official Underwear Partner of the UFC for 2024.

This partnership has significantly boosted brand awareness, reaching millions of viewers through UFC events and social media, setting us apart from competitors. We've kept our organization lean, leveraging AI to optimize operations and reduce expenses.

While we haven’t added many new marketing channels, we continue to maximize efficiency on SHEATH.com and Amazon.com despite increasing competition in the men’s pouch underwear market.

Here are links to a couple of press releases in 2024.

Colorado’s SHEATH Underwear Releases New Product Design

Colorado’s SHEATH Underwear Named Official Partner with UFC

It is only those who don’t quit that succeed. Stay the course. Burn the boats giving yourself no option for retreat and if you have what it takes, you will be successful.

What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?

SHEATH’s biggest challenge came during the COVID-19 outbreak when our 3rd party logistics provider couldn’t ship online orders for nearly 30 days, putting us in a critical situation. In response, we brought shipping in-house, giving us more control over operations and improving our ability to serve customers.

This move allowed us to handle shipping more efficiently and provide real-time support. We also established an in-house customer service team to manage all customer interactions directly, ensuring a better overall experience. "Now we can help our customers in real time," said Patton.

I hired a motivational coach this year to keep me in a positive mind set. After watching the Jake Paul documentary on Netflix and seeing him say, champions do champion shit. I thought about how fighters have coaches to make them better, so I hired a few coaches for fitness, motivation, as well as a business consultant.

In order to be the best, you need a team around you to push you to your absolute limit. This is how champions are made. I also can’t stress enough the importance of meditation, whether it’s running or trancendental meditation, those two practices not only help clear the mind but also help solve critical questions that have been lingering in my mind.

Everyone has their own thing to bring them peace, but if you don’t I highly recommend mediation. Most of us already work out, but most of us don’t meditate. It is a life changing experience that you get to do two times a day. It will recharge your batteries and evoke ideas that will certainly help you in your business and personal life.

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

We have learned a lot this past year, especially in recognizing that the foundation of our success at SHEATH Underwear comes from trusting the marketing strategies we initially put in place. Instead of overhauling everything due to economic shifts like inflation, we’ve found that staying patient, solidifying our organizational structure, and maintaining consistency in our efforts is the key to thriving in uncertain times.

While we tested new marketing strategies, many didn’t offer the return on investment that our original approach provided. This reinforced the value of sticking with what works. However, we also believe that exploring new opportunities, like our successful partnership with the UFC, has been one of the best decisions we’ve made.

This collaboration has brought SHEATH worldwide recognition, aligning our brand with the leading combat sports organization.

As a team we are learning that we don’t know everything and have hired consultants to help not only motivate us

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

Some of the plans for the next 5 years are proprietary and still in development and in the TOP SECRET phase, but overall, we have a goal of hitting 500,000,000 in sales over the course of the next 20 years while hitting 1 Billion in total all time revenue.

There was a time where I was at a Joe Rogan comedy show, and I threw some SHEATH onto the stage. Joe Rogan said “This has got to be the stupidest idea, I’ve ever heard of, or…a Billion Dollar Idea”. I tend to believe it was the latter end of that statement considering we have already grossed over 20 million in sales since the inception of SHEATH and we have no intention of stopping.

We are hungry, humble and smart and have a burning desire to be Champion of the Underwear market. If we shoot for champion and make the top 15 in the rankings amongst the best underwear companies on the planet. I think that will be a solid achievement.

Over the next few years we want to get back to doubling our growth and we will stabilize around 30 million a year in annual revenue which would afford our team to be wealthy while still maintaining a hunger to inspire others through positive messaging and action in our community. We create art through our advertising campaigns as well as in the designs of our underwear. We are very grateful for the opportunity to serve the public by providing the best underwear comfort available taking care of each and every customer that blesses us with their business.

What’s the best thing you read in the last year?

"Think and Grow Rich is the best book ever written, and it played a significant role in the inspiration behind SHEATH Underwear, the leader in pouch underwear innovation. SHEATH started as a single pouch underwear and has evolved into the industry's best dual pouch underwear.

We are excited to announce an upcoming product release that will revolutionize comfort and performance, thanks to a new partnership. This breakthrough is partly inspired by re-reading Think and Grow Rich, which fuels my creativity and motivation. Meditation, especially Transcendental Meditation, has been crucial in helping me stay consistent and focused, allowing me to recover mentally throughout the day.

With this practice, I’ve been able to manage stress, maintain a positive mental attitude, and push SHEATH forward, ensuring that we continue to deliver the best in men's underwear."

We have a goal of hitting 500,000,000 in sales over the course of the next 20 years while hitting 1 Billion in total all time revenue.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

My best advice for entrepreneurs right now is to Read Think and grow Rich over and over again. Listen to the Napoleon Hill lectures over and over again. Mediate and listen to the universe when you get an inspirational gut feeling. Ask the universe the questions you want answers to.

You will receive answers, but it is what you do with those answers that will make or break you. Most people quit at the first obstacle. Be ready to face many obstacles. It is only those who don’t quit, that succeed. Stay the course. Burn the boats giving yourself no option for retreat and if you have what it takes, you will be successful.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We have so many people wanting to be a part of the SHEATH organization, we are beating them off with sticks. We are trying to maintain a lean organizational structure to prevent excess expenses while maximizing our teams capabilities with the aid of AI from graphics, to video, to data analysis.

We are keeping our Customer service 100% human. Customer service is our biggest priority and the biggest department in our company.