Gihan Amarasiriwardena, co-founder of Ministry of Supply, discusses the innovative approach his company takes towards performance clothing designed for the modern professional. With a background in engineering and a passion for outdoor activities, Gihan emphasizes the importance of materials innovation and versatility in clothing. He shares insights into the challenges faced by start-ups, particularly in the volatile post-pandemic market, and how they have adapted their supply chain to meet changing consumer demands. The conversation delves into Gihan's unique product testing methods, including his experiences biking across the country while wearing their apparel. Ultimately, Gihan envisions Ministry of Supply becoming the "Dyson of apparel," driving continual improvement and innovation in the clothing industry.

Gihan shares his journey from a boy scout in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a startup innovator in the realm of performance clothing. Growing up in a college town enriched his love for the outdoors and instilled in him a passion for gear that combines functionality with comfort. Through his experiences, Gihan emphasizes the importance of versatility in clothing, especially for those who lead active, demanding lifestyles. He discusses how his time at MIT studying chemical and biological engineering shaped his approach to innovation and problem-solving in the apparel industry.

The conversation dives deep into the philosophy of Ministry of Supply, a brand that seeks to revolutionize the way we think about workwear by integrating performance materials typically reserved for athletic wear into everyday clothing. Gihan elaborates on how the company was inspired by the Ministry of Supply, a historical entity that provided advanced gear for military operations during World War II. This historical nod symbolizes the brand's commitment to innovation and high-quality materials that cater to modern professionals who require their clothing to perform under various conditions.

Gihan's insights extend to the challenges faced during the pandemic, where the brand had to pivot quickly as consumer preferences shifted overnight. The episode highlights his strategic thinking as he discusses adapting their supply chain to be more responsive to market demands. By focusing on materials innovation and sustainability, Ministry of Supply aims to lead the charge in the apparel industry, marrying style with performance while addressing the increasing consumer appetite for versatility and practicality in clothing.

Takeaways:

• Gihan Amarasiriwardena's journey from dumpster diving for materials to innovative apparel design illustrates resourcefulness.
• The importance of adaptability in business emerges as Gihan discusses pandemic-related challenges and responses.
• Ministry of Supply aims to revolutionize everyday clothing with scientifically advanced materials and designs.
• The brand's focus on fabrics like NASA-derived materials exemplifies the intersection of science and fashion.
• Gihan's experience biking across America in Ministry of Supply clothing tests the limits of performance apparel.
• The significance of a reactive supply chain is critical for navigating current market volatility.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Ministry of Supply
• Nike
• Under Armour
• Starbucks
• Nordstrom
• Amazon
• Dyson

Chapters

00:11 - Innovative Apparel Design Techniques

07:12 - The Origin of Ministry of Supply

11:19 - The Birth of Athleisure

19:41 - Navigating Volatility in Consumer Demand

22:37 - The Transition to Innovation

32:33 - The Vision for Ministry of Supply

Links

Ministry of Supply https://www.ministryofsupply.com/

Gihan's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gihanamarasiriwardena/

Please leave us a review: https://podchaser.com/DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Tech Startup Toolkit (book): https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Startup-Toolkit-launch-strong/dp/1633438422/

Site with all podcasts: https://jothyrosenberg.com/podcast

Jothy’s non-profit: https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Hello, I'm Jaffe Rosenberg, the host of Designing Successful Startups, where today's guest is Gihan Amara Siri Wardena.

We were, what we do is we go dumpster diving and we'd get different materials.

And so first we got some, you know, plastic sheathing and we were using it for, to laminate against some, some polar fleece because we wanted to make a windproof fleece for skiing.

And so what we did is we took the fleece, rolled it out on my friend's ping pong table, sprayed a thermal adhesive on it, and then we ironed it together and we sewed a vest.

Gi Han is co founder and president of Ministry of Supply, an apparel brand dedicated to making clothing scientifically better through innovative design, cutting edge manufacturing, and new materials.

A graduate of MIT's chemical engineering program and a tinkerer at heart, Gi Han leads design R and D and product development at Ministry of Supply and brings his engineering mindset to solving common wardrobe problems.

Over the past few years, he has consistently put his designs to the extreme test.

And here is Gihon.

And I tried saying your last name.

You know, the, the people that put the, you know, put a form on a website, they might not bake it big enough for your name.

I know, I know.

It's Gihon, a Marsr.

And when I was taking, you know, like the SATs and stuff like that, they fortunately had 16 characters because that's exactly how many bubbles I had to fill on the tests.

So.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you've got Siri in the, in the middle of your name.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah.

It probably causes people's like home pods to go off too.

So.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Okay, so first thing I like to do is asking you where are you originally from and where do you live now?

Yeah, so I'm originally from Amherst, Massachusetts.

Grew up there, you know, all the way from, you know, all the way through high school.

And then, you know, it's a place where it's college town.

It's very outdoorsy.

I grew up as a boy Scout and so went camping pretty much, you know, every month would go backpacking, biking, or, you know, canoeing, basically as one, you know, one of the three.

And so, you know, really fell in love with outdoor gear.

And, you know, the testing grounds were, you know, the Robert Frost shell that goes, you know, Right by my parents house.

So it was very much a place that like, if you're, if you're an outdoorsy kid, it was a heaven to grow up in.

I went to MIT and studied chemical and biological engineering.

And it was kind of that shift from, you know, kind of, you know, rural, you know, college town to the city that like started making me think a lot about how much I love like my outdoor gear.

But at the same time you wanted to look a little bit sharper, a little bit.

Um, you know, I was, I was also biking a lot in terms of bike commuting and so a lot of those functions of, you know, how do you maintain moisture management, wrinkle resistance, et cetera, started to, you know, kind of get, you know, seep into my brain as I was, I was, you know, commuting to some labs I was working at the time.

And then, yeah, more recently I've actually moved to Oslo, Norway.

So I split time between Norway, where It's been about 3/4 of my time, and then, and then Boston.

My, my wife's Norwegian so we're raising our kids up over there.

I've done the flight as we went to Oslo last September and I just don't know how you do it so often.

How do you.

And I'm, you know, you're a startup guy so I doubt you go first class.

I know, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's always.

Fortunately I'm a little bit like, you know, on the size.

It helps there you get a little bit more room, which is always great.

But my big thing is one bag travel I try to make.

There's no difference between what I carry for a normal day in the office and when I'm traveling across the ocean.

And so I just carry my arc'teryx aero backpack and it's got my laptop, it's always got my toilet tricket, et cetera.

And it just makes it so I'm ready to go.

And so actually yesterday I just flew back, I took a flight through Iceland and there's usually the layover is about an hour 55 minutes and I've got it all timed out so that I can hop out of the airport, go for a five mile run and then come back and I'll do like a sponge bath basically and fly up.

But it's a nice way to break up the flight.

The airport has these really awesome bike paths right next to the airport, you're going through these lava fields, and then you can hop over to the ocean and take a little look and turn around.

But it's these little things that I find that, like, you know, we make clothes that are like, awesome for travel and for work and stuff like that, but it unlocks something like that, you know, like being able to hop out of the airport for less than two hours and do a little sightseeing work.

That's.

That's pretty.

That answers the question beautifully because, you know, you get, you get so stiff and you get, you know, feeling very claustrophobic and, and you need, you need something like that.

But.

And of course, your strategy only works if you've got, you know, full wardrobe and everything on both sides, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That, that, that definitely helps, you know, not having to carry nearly as much.

But, you know, one of the things that our kind of principles is like when you look type of this idea of one week when backpack, actually.

So, you know, I was just doing a trip to a lot of our production partners in Southeast Asia, and I was there for 10 days, and, you know, you're just popping every other day from different city to different country.

And it was much the same thing.

You know, it's like, how do you distill your clothing down to something that can get you through two or three days worth of meetings, right?

And maybe know you've got two pairs of pants, you know, three shirts instead of workout gear, and a lot of that can compact down quite small.

And so I, I usually just travel for, you know, 10 days, two weeks with just the same backpack.

And yeah, it allows those little opportunities where you can just hop out and go for a run.

And I think it's a, it's a, it's this test that like, really forces you to still like, your price down to this.

Their essentials and think about all different use cases, whether it's going for a hike or run.

But at the same time, you've got presentations that you're doing, you're also in the factory.

So these are all different use cases that kind of show the need for versatility when we're traveling.

So it's something that we really try to use as a source of inspiration.

Okay, so your company is called Ministry of Supply Desperate, which is an interesting name.

And so tell us about the name and what it is and why you started it.

Yeah.

So if you've ever watched James Bond movies before, there's usually the scene early on where Bond is figuring out his new Mission.

And after he's been given his mission, he goes down to go see Q, and he goes into some underground lab.

And Q, who is the designer of, you know, all the gear and gadgetry for Bond, is based on this real person named Charles Fraser Smith.

And his cover was the British Ministry of Supply.

And he created, you know, gear and gadgetry for the British Special Forces and operations teams in World War II.

And he's, you know, this agency, the Ministry of Supply, has really become kind of like the inspiration for us.

Right.

It's that, you know, inventing and creating, you know, gear and products for people on their daily missions.

And.

Yeah, it was actually recently made into a movie called Operation Mincemeat, and it's all about the Ministry of Supply.

There's really a movie that we should go see now that.

Exactly.

That's all right.

All right.

That's awesome.

You make all kinds of clothes, right?

Yeah.

And you've personally done a lot of the work on it and you've done some.

Some pretty outlandish things to test some of the clothing.

Like, what did you.

You got a Guinness World Record?

What was that about?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, so, you know, like a kind of summary of Ministry's play.

What do we create?

We create performance floods for work.

And you can kind of start to get a sense of, like, you know, a lot of our passion comes from being athletes ourselves.

Right.

And experiencing, you know, this change.

When I grew up, you know, when I started running cross country track, we were still wearing, you know, cotton, you know, jerseys at the time.

And so you just sweat through these, you know, shirts, and you'd be completely soaked.

You'd go on to another race, you'd be either cold or hot.

And it was.

It was just not a.

An effective way to run, you know, carrying all this extra weight on you of all that sweat.

And, you know, this is just about the time that, you know, Tri Fit, Under Armour were coming about.

Right.

And so personally, I kind of witnessed this transition to a lot of the performance materials that were happening and experience myself how that allowed me to run longer, run farther, further.

And I'm also a avid cyclist as well.

And so those are my kind of2.

My three hobbies are basically, it's like running, cycling, and then now cross country skiing as I'm living in Norway.

But I have a tendency to just go forward.

I'm not so good at the lateral sports.

But, uh, yeah, they're.

They're all instances where, like, the gear that you have makes a huge difference in your endurance.

And so, you know, what we create is clothing that takes a lot of those same principles of moisture management, four way stretch, wrinkle resistance, machine washability, all things that are kind of innate to performance clothes, but bring them to what people wear every day to work.

And one of the interesting things that's happened is over the past few years, you know, maybe 10 years ago, people were just starting to understand what, you know, polyester was or nylon, all those performance fibers.

And it was, you know, something required convincing.

People were maybe aware of like, you know, leisure suits of the 70s, but they hadn't experienced all the innovation in these fibers that had happened in the past several years.

And so it wasn't really until, you know, I'd say, like past six or seven years really where athleisure really blossomed.

And people started themselves, you know, taking all these, you know, their running shirts and joggers, for example, and wearing them casually on the weekends.

Right.

And this is the birth of athleisure, you know, to kind of 10 years ago when it was really starting to take off.

And that built awareness around how comfort allows you to kind of stay in the moment, right.

And not have to think about, you know, what am I going to change into?

We launched on Kickstarter with a performance dress shirt that uses NASA phase change materials in it.

And it was something that was the most fun fashion project at the time.

But over the years, we've continued to kind of evolve our product line.

And so we like to kind of think of these classic silhouettes, a dress shirt, a suit, and re envision the materials that go into them.

Thinking about, first, how do we make a best in class dress shirt or best in class, you know, suit, for example.

And so for our suiting, we use this special material.

It's, it's.

The fibers are shaped like a slinky, so it had an inherent stretch and resiliency built into them.

And so we were, we were able to do that because, you know, the clothing, you know, didn't restrict us.

Right.

You know, it felt as comfortable, it stretched as much as any athletic gear because it's actually made out of a lot of the same fundamental fibers.

So these are these instances where we like to really kind of push products, kind of to their limit.

We understand people aren't going to, you know, run to work in our clothes, but the fact that they can, right.

Like, it means that, you know, if you're late for a flight and you're running across the airport, that one, you can stretch and not have to worry about blowing out a steam.

And when you get to the, to the gate, instead of like having pit stains, it's actually quickly wicking away and quickly drying.

Right.

Uh, it's.

It's called our Apollo Polo.

It's made of this facial change material that it's.

It's built.

It's really good at temperature regulation.

So, yeah, and it helped me through, you know, the, you know, the Nevada deserts, the kind of hills and heat and humidity of Kansas.

And yeah, it was tested over, you know, over 3,000 miles.

And, you know, again, long people aren't going to bike, you know, 3,000 miles or shirts, but they can bike, you know, the three or four miles to work.

Right.

And these are these kind of extreme tests that we like to show our products and kind of the real environments.

How does this, how does the material not retain your body odor?

Yeah, no, that's a really good question.

So, you know, one of the fundamental, you know, causes of body odor is bacteria growing on the fiber.

And so typically what happens is, you know, for bacteria to grow, it needs two things.

It needs heat and humidity, and then it needs also food.

Right.

And so what you want to do to create a low odor environment is make sure that you're mitigating the growth of those.

So what we really focus on is, is how do we one, you know, reduce the heat and humidity.

So that's allowing airflow in the fabric.

So our polo fabric is 19 times more breathable than a traditional cotton shirt would.

So it's allowing that air to flow through.

So both you stay cooler so you're not sweating the first place.

And when you do start to sweat, that humidity is dissipating.

So again, I'm lowering that kind of that climate for.

For bacteria to grow it.

But then the second part, that bacteria starting to grow typically is on a lot of the skin oils that, you know, will stick on the fibers.

And this has sometimes been a case with a lot of Your traditional performance fabrics, we look at a variety of different techniques.

In some cases we're actually embedding carbonized coffee in our fabric.

So we take coffee grounds from Starbucks is in Taiwan.

Our suppliers think tex, what they do is they actually wash out the oils and that's what gives it flavor and aroma.

And you're left with this carbon sponge essentially.

And it's run through this process that basically dries it out and then blended into the fiber.

And we use this in our socks actually.

And what it does is it acts like a Brita filter for odor molecules.

They're essentially attracted to the carbon because they have very similar structures.

There's an aromatic compound that's kind of, you can think of like a hexagonal ring of carbon and it's attached to, it's attracted to other carbon atoms that way.

So what, what happens there is we're able to kind of blend that odor control directly into the fiber so it lasts the life of the garment.

In some of our other products we actually use materials like merino wool.

So the shirt I'm wearing right now is a merino blend.

And so we actually like that for a lot of our next to skin layers, a lot of our next skin shirts and base layers which is really good for travel.

Hi.

The podcast you are listening to is a companion to my recent book Tech startup Toolkit how to Launch Strong and Exit Big.

This is the book I wish I'd had as I was founding and running eight startups over 35 years.

It's like a memoir of my entrepreneurial journey.

I tell the unvarnished truth about what went right and especially about what went wrong.

It's for the founder, the CEO and wannabe founders of tech and non tech startups.

You could get it from all the usual booksellers and also from the publisher@banning.com I hope you like it.

It's a true labor of love.

Now back to the show.

What has been the most challenging period of time or, or event for your company since you started it?

Yeah, you know it's, it's funny, I was, I was, I was looking at our like month over month sales and I was doing this charge of kind of understand like what our demand volatility was because we're trying to do some forecasting.

That's what happens in the ecosystem.

But your pre pandemic, you know, our sales maybe go up or down, you know, 25% month over month.

And we do a lot of direct marketing.

So it's, it's, it's a little bit more volatile.

But it went up to 57% month over month post pandemic.

And we're just in this time right now where there's, you know, changing consumer demand.

You know, things are normal.

I think people are, you know, going back to the office now.

Travel has rebounded, but like the styles that people are looking for, there's a lot of variance there, you know, and there's interest rates have been changing, which is changing your consumer palate.

So it's resulted in a very volatile climate right now.

And that's really hard for a brand that makes physical products because when we design a product, we're usually designing it, you know, 18 months out.

And when we decide to purchase the product, it's usually eight to nine months out.

And if you can remember, you know, especially, you know, two or three years ago, the world looks so different, you know, every two months.

Even whether it was, you know, a change in, you know, the strain that was out there, change in, you know, policies that were happening in terms of, you know, back to work control restrictions and yeah, it sounds like we've been, it's been two years since that.

But there's a lot of knock on effects because of all that volatility.

So it meant that, you know, inventory built up over time because you're trying to predict, you're basically trying to, you know, drive a semi truck, but from the rear axle.

And so it becomes really, really hard.

Right.

And so what we've started thinking is like how we be much more agile and that's meant, you know, rethinking how we produce our products in particular.

And it went from being this thing where there's frustration around, like we can't predict what's going to happen right now.

Right.

And it would create a lot of, you know, friction in our forecasting, kind of even just like team planning.

Right.

But maybe about, you know, nine, 10 months ago, we kind of changed the mentality which was much more around.

Okay.

The world is in this state right now where there's a lot of volatility.

How do we actually create a product and a production supply chain and distribution channels that can absorb this volatility.

Right.

And that's been a lot of what I've been focusing on the past year has been different forecasting or moving away from forecasting actually to much more creating a reactive supply chain.

I guess it's, it's not the same Thing it's.

But it's related is what have you learned about product market fit for your company?

Yeah, you know, one of the things is like, we think of product market fit.

Your product can be broken into many different layers.

And, you know, pre pandemic, our core business was like dress shirts and suits.

And so we were really struggling to figure out what do we do next.

Right.

First it was creating masks.

For example, we had a supply chain that could do very fast on demand production here in our Boston store.

And we have a knitting machine, computerized knitting machine that can just spit out basically 10 masks an hour, and it could run all day and all night, and we could send these design to our manufacturers.

And so we learned through that was our expertise is actually around materials innovation, materials development, product testing, and manufacturing innovation.

That's kind of what we were really thinking about where we focus on and we apply this to soft goods, products that people are using.

So I think, you know, through the pandemic, what we kind of realized in the post pandemic recovery was that we can't predict whether someone's going to want, you know, an oversized shirt versus, you know, a cropped top, for example.

Those style changes will happen in especially even now, where there's a lot of demand that's just being generated, you know, you know, via social channels.

And trends are moving very quickly.

That's hard to anticipate.

But we can predict is that, like, what has been stable is people love our fabrics and they love the color.

Like, our color palette is one of the places that we've de risked.

It's like, it's blues, grays, neutrals, and we still have like, you know, our Merlot in there, our ochres in certain places.

But for the most part, we've really said, you know, our differentiator is our materials, our fabrics.

And we spend a lot of time in research and development those.

And we can basically position materials in our supply chain so that we have, you know, undyed fabric, you know, ready to go, and then we can actually dye it into some of our core products.

And then if, you know, we need to create.

They were, you know, especially relative pants because everyone was wearing shorts, you know, on camera, and we wouldn't have known.

But.

But you start to see this, right?

And so you start to think, like, okay, how do we divert Our demand, you know, and our production to, to meet where demand is.

And a lot of that can be done when you save a ton of time on the materials production and the dying process.

And so it's helped us distill, you know, what are people coming to us for?

They're coming for convenience, comfort, durability and our sustainable materials and all that's at the material stage.

And so we really try to think through that.

We can predict and forecast and then the style is something where we, you know, we want to have a very clean, modern aesthetic, but we're not developing brand new silhouettes.

That's not what we feel our role in this ecosystem is.

What we do think our role is to lead in terms of manufacturing innovation, in terms of materials innovation, and then also how we pull that together in terms of sustainability.

And your model has always been that you're selling direct.

Are you, do you have any resellers that sell your brand but in their stores?

Yeah, we've been predominantly direct to consumer.

That has been though.

We've got our physical store here in Boston.

We're also online and we do now have some other channels where we're selling through Nordstrom, for example, and Amazon is another seller.

So we are expanding beyond just our four walls literally here.

Yeah.

And are you starting to see more volume pick up through those other channels, through the resellers?

Yeah, I mean, I think what's been exciting is that especially in channels where people are going to them for search, that's where it's really helping is with Nordstrom, for example, people may be looking up, they're looking for best shirt for travel, for example.

And that's where having this kind of search intent we do really well in channels like that.

Amazon, very similar, a very strong search orientation in terms of their merchandising.

So we tend to do better there than perhaps let's say a traditional Instagram ad where you're just mindlessly scrolling and you just kind of see our products up here.

Not to say that meta isn't important to us, but you know, our, our customers are coming to us because they're looking to solve a problem in their, their day to day commute, their kind of daily wardrobe, or you know, even their, their travel.

Just a sort of a personal curiosity.

Yeah.

Does your dress shirt survive like rolling it into a ball and stick it in your backpack?

Exactly.

It totally does.

In fact, yeah, it's, it's very much designed for that because it has a special property to it which is, it's, you know, thermoplasticity and so what that allows it to do is as you wear the garment, your natural body heat is going to cause wrinkles to come out, which isn't the case with like cotton, for example, where it needs heat and steam specifically, you know, at a very high temperature to relax the fibers.

So one of the ways that you can actually, you know, wash our, our shirts is I do it all the time in this hotel sink.

I throw our, you know, our white arrow zero shirt in, throwing a little bit of the shampoo in.

You know, you can wash it and hang, dry it overnight and it's ready to go the next morning.

And one of my techniques for the kind of quick drying is you just roll it up in a towel and you do this, you know, kind of the wringing technique.

And it, even though it looks like it's adding a bunch of wrinkles at first, they come right out, which is awesome.

And, and same things true with our suits.

You know, I was flying once and I had taken my blazer and I normally what I do is I just roll it up and I just put in the seat back pocket.

So it's just handy there.

And a gentleman who had been flying a lot had told me, hey son, you should really put your laser up there in the overhead bin.

And I was like, oh, don't worry, it's going to come out ready to wear.

And when we landed, I took it off, gave it a shake and put it on.

So I think he was, he was pretty surprised to see that that could happen.

You know, you got a new customer right then.

Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You had a card ready, I hope.

Yeah, yeah.

Always in my.

You're always in my blazer.

So yeah.

This has been your baby since you basically got out of school, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean it was really interesting.

So my co founder Mon and I, we met Ashley at MIT because one of our professors was seeing that we were working on the exact same concept.

And we were taking this class called how to Nuts and Bolts of a Business Plan.

And basically what we were doing is pitching the same concept.

We were coming to class, we were in different sections, but with our prototypes.

Aman, my co founder, was basically cutting Nike dry running socks and selling them to Goldo Dressbox.

He was a consultant before applying to the client site every week.

And you know, his thing was, you know, on Thursday evening, you know, when you're flying back, you want to take your shoes off and just kind of relax on the plane or at least, you know, at least, you know, take the shoes off, and he's working a lot on the plane.

But that sensation was something you could do because you're worried about, you know, what people are going to think about with any odors or anything like that.

So that was the inspiration for our Atlas socks, the ones that have the coffee grounds in them.

And for me, I was, you know, I was commuting a lot, you know, through the city, but bike commuting, and so I ran cross country track.

So I was actually cutting up my running shirts and basically sewing dress shirts out of them for.

For my commutes.

And we were both bringing our samples in and like, you know, this was a time when all of our friends were creating apps and we were the two ones hacking clothes instead of code.

And it was.

It was really awesome that, that and fortuitous that we were introduced, you could just take the.

Those, you know, cut up materials and you could sit down at a sewing machine and create a shirt.

Yeah, yeah.

So I've been sewing clothes since I was about, you know, 12 years old because, yeah, as a Scout, I used to make my own climbing gear.

I mean, climbing camping gear.

So everything from, you know, rain jackets, sleeping bags.

I fell in love with REI and ems, and I used to go to their racks and just look at all the hang tags.

That was my favorite thing, learning about Cortex Polar Tech Scholar, for example.

And all these materials were things that you could see the innovation that was happening at a materials level and experiencing that weekend how that impacted you.

And so some of my friends who were scouts at the time, we were.

What we do is we go dumpster diving and we'd get different materials.

And so first we got some, you know, plastic sheathing, and we were using it for.

To laminate against some.

Some polar fleece, because we wanted to make a windproof fleece for skiing.

And so what we did is we took the fleece, rolled it out on my friend's ping pong table, sprayed a thermal adhesive on it, and then we ironed it together and we.

We sewed a vest.

We broke my friend's mom's sewing machine in the process.

And.

But we tested out that weekend and we learned it definitely blocked the wind.

It also did not breathe at all.

And we were just so sweaty and wet in it.

So it caused us to learn the second thing, which is how do you create breathability?

Right?

It's not just about protecting you from the outside, but also allowing your body to expel heat and moisture.

And so learned that, you know, Tyvek Home Wrap was a great alternative to Gore Tex, much cheaper.

And you could get it from.

Yeah, like construction sites basically.

And yeah, we were, that's, that was our like, you know, our dumpster diving was really driven through that.

Yeah, that's amazing because we, we know this, that startup people have, have grit and, and you've, you hinted at it in a couple of the comments that you've made, but tell us more about it.

Where do you think your grit comes from?

Yeah, I think I'm an engineer at heart and so I love problems and I love two things.

It's building new things and fixing things.

Both of them give me kind of equal joy.

And so what I've found is at different points in the company experience, in some stages you'll be in building phase, but when things go left, the market goes in a different direction.

What you can oftentimes think of is, okay, these are external forces, can't do anything about it, or you actually turn into a really fun problem.

And I think that has been something that motivates me personally is the thrill of defining these problems and trying to fix and create a solution around them.

And it's just like kind of like engineers mindset.

But it's something that's I think really up through a lot of these kind of, you know, dark moments and kind of companies experience in history.

But we come out on the other side and you get to, you get a feedback loop right, as part of the engineering process.

You design, you build, you test and you continually improve.

And I think it's that, that, that search for kind of the new improvement opportunities.

As long as you're progressing, it allows you to feel like you're moving forward.

I actually had to have to sneak one more question in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's the ultimate goal for you with Ministry of Supply?

Is it to sell it to hopefully an innovative garment company or do you stay independent and do an IPO or, you know, or a third alternative that I haven't asked about?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think for us, like, you know, where the home ends up or, you know, whether it's our own or with others, I think our vision has really become the Dyson of apparel.

And what that means is, you know, how do we drive innovation in so many different levels of the design, the materials and, you know, even the manufacturing of the product, but through the lens of apparel that people wear every day and particularly when they have to get work done.

And that as long as we are pursuing that vision, I think it can be in any place whether it's on our own, independently or within a larger organization.

Well, thank you very much.

This has been fascinating.

Absolutely.

That's a wrap.

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This is Jothy Rosenberg saying TTFN ta ta for now.