328: Building a $50M Underwear Empire off $20K with Joanna Griffiths from KNIX

Joanna Griffiths CEO Knixwear

CEO of global intimates brand Knixwear Joanna Griffiths sits down with Nathan Chan to reveal how she took $20k to and made $50m in revenue last year. 

In this wonderfully inspiring episode, Griffiths’ discusses how she became an “accidental entrepreneur” with Knixwear. Initially begun as a passion project to create high-quality leak-proof intimates, Griffiths’ put aside her initial goal to run her own media company and instead decided to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. 

In school, her business plan won a competition, and she used the $20k prize to begin chasing her dream of solving a universal problem. After years of trials and errors, including a first-time sample order of 40,000 pairs of underwear, Knixwear quickly found it’s feet and is now a $50m a year company. Knixwear has 85 employees globally, and Griffiths’ still reels at the idea that her company sells an item every 6 seconds. 

Listen in as Griffiths’ discusses the lows and the highs of being a first-time business owner, TV advertising, and why she always chooses the path of risk so she doesn’t look back and wonder “what if”. 

Key Takeaways

• How Griffiths’ original plan to run her own media company led her to pursue her MBA
• How her intimates brand Knixwear began as high-quality leak-proof underwear
• Why Griffiths dedicated her time to solving this universal problem, and why she feels she is an accidental entrepreneur as a result
• Why she chose to take a chance rather than risk looking back with regret
• Griffiths’ discusses her initial business funding: she won a business plan competition at school and received $20k 
• How she used the $20k for product development, launching, and crowd-funding
• Griffiths’ reveals that the first order was the biggest mistake, but she values progress over perfection
• Knixwear has passed $50m annual revenue, and that they sell an item every 6 seconds
• Griffiths’ discusses the early days of wholesale business, and the struggles first-time entrepreneurs face
• How she identified her target market and shaped her product accordingly