The Founder Hour

Joe Kudla | Innovating Athletic Apparel with Vuori

Jul 30, 2024

Joe Kudla, the innovative founder and CEO of Vuori, shares his unconventional journey from fashion and accounting to creating a transformative activewear brand. He highlights a prophetic encounter that steered his entrepreneurial spirit and his passion for yoga that sparked the idea for Vuori. Joe discusses the impressive investments that fueled Vuori's growth, along with the challenges of maintaining quality while scaling. He emphasizes the importance of community, personal values, and resilience in building a meaningful brand.

01:04:35

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Episode guests

Joe Kudla

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Quick takeaways

Joe Kudla's unique upbringing on Vashon Island fostered an adventurous spirit and resilience, crucial for his entrepreneurial journey.

The significant market gap for men's activewear inspired Joe to create Vuori, focusing on versatile apparel that blends fashion and function.

Vuori's growth strategy emphasized community engagement and direct-to-consumer models, allowing for authentic connections and refined product offerings.

Deep dives

Early Life and Family Influence

The speaker reflects on a unique upbringing, growing up on Vashon Island, where rural life shaped his adventurous spirit and connection to nature. His family background, influenced by alternative values, including a mother who led women's spiritual groups and a father who became a naturopathic doctor, fostered an environment that emphasized personal exploration rather than conventional success. This upbringing instilled confidence and a sense of freedom, crucial for his eventual path as an entrepreneur. The speaker credits his childhood experiences for developing resilience and the drive to pursue a non-traditional career despite societal pressures.

Intro

4min

A Journey of Self-Discovery

10min

Building a Brand from Scratch

9min

A Transformative Encounter and the Path to Personal Growth

6min

Personal Values and Brand Identity

21min

Funding and Resilience in Athletic Apparel

12min

Navigating Quality Control in Scaling Brands

3min

Joe Kudla is the visionary founder and CEO of Vuori (pronounced VEE-YOUR-EE), a brand that's redefining activewear. Joe's path to success is anything but ordinary, including a career in fashion and modeling that took him to the fashion capitals of Italy and also, accounting.

However, his entrepreneurial spirit led him back to the U.S., where he faced the challenges of launching his own business ventures, including two failed clothing businesses. Interestingly, the second one was Vuori, but not the Vuori we know today.

In this episode, Joe shares a fascinating story about a random encounter with a lady who predicted his future life and business success with uncanny accuracy. This bizarre yet prophetic moment set the stage for Joe's next steps.

Around that time, Joe took up yoga. When he developed a passion for it, he saw a gap in the market for high-quality, versatile men's activewear that seamlessly transitions from workouts to casual wear. This insight catalyzed Vuori, a brand known for its premium, innovative apparel embodying the active California lifestyle.

Joe talks about the significant milestones in Vuori's growth, including a $45 million investment from Norwest Venture Partners in 2019 and a staggering $400 million investment led by Softbank in 2021, which catapulted the company's valuation to $4 billion.

Beyond the numbers, Joe delves into his core values of clarity, well-being, and the power of the mind, emphasizing the importance of community and how Vuori aims to bring people together. He also shares his belief that "product is everything" and how this philosophy drives every decision at Vuori.

Tune in to hear Joe Kudla's incredible journey, the lessons he's learned, and how he's building a brand that stands for more than just clothing.

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