In 2014, after Robert Felder couldn’t find shorts he liked at the mall, the University of Florida undergrad created his own. His brand, Bearbottom, which is on pace to do $25 million in sales this year, makes classic khaki shorts with a modern cut and material—a supershort inseam, stretchy waistband and soft cotton twill cloth. Felder has since expanded into polo shirts, hoodies and joggers. “We were primarily marketing to college-aged kids,” he says. “I was in school at the time and in that market, so I put out what I thought I would want to see.” To keep his clothing low-maintenance and comfortable, Felder uses graphene-treated polyester that is quick to dry, antimicrobial, antistatic, cool to the touch and offers UPF 50 sun protection. Before being offered for sale, each new item is field tested by his 20 employees in the office, who wear the sample nonstop for at least a week. Half of new buyers return for a second purchase, crushing the industry average of about 25% return customers. Felder donates a school meal in India (where his factories are located) for each item sold. The company has never taken outside funding.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (gentle music)
00:02 - Robert, thank you so much for being here with me.
00:06 - I appreciate it.
00:07 - So talk to me about your founding story.
00:09 I wanna hear the whole history of Bare Bottom.
00:12 - Okay, yeah, it's a long story.
00:13 So we started about 10 years ago when I was in high school.
00:15 I had the idea. - Wow.
00:17 - I had the opportunity to go overseas with my father
00:19 who's been in the apparel industry my whole life.
00:22 And I saw production and huge factories
00:25 producing for some of the world's largest brands
00:27 and just got that exposure.
00:28 Then I came home to Florida in the middle of winter.
00:31 I needed some shorts 'cause it doesn't get cold there.
00:33 And I couldn't find shorts that suited
00:35 what I was looking for and had a good price point.
00:37 And that's when I talked to my dad.
00:39 I said, "What does it cost to produce these?
00:41 "What's that look like?"
00:41 Got some more information.
00:43 And I said, "How hard could it be
00:44 "to sell shorts online?"
00:46 So that was my idea.
00:47 And then he said, "Yeah, go ahead and try it."
00:49 Not thinking I was serious.
00:50 And about a year later, I went and I interned in Hong Kong
00:53 and learned about production and sourcing product development
00:56 and then built the website,
00:58 got our first shipment of 10,000 pieces,
01:00 and started selling shorts online from then.
01:03 That's kind of the five-minute,
01:05 quick version of our story.
01:06 - You don't hear too many people say
01:09 that they started their company in high school.
01:12 What made you think that you could actually take that dive
01:14 into entrepreneurship so young?
01:16 - I think part of it was I was young.
01:18 I was naive.
01:19 I just kind of thought, like I said,
01:21 how hard could it be to sell shorts online?
01:22 I was very naive.
01:24 But I started it really when I was in college,
01:26 and I think that was a real opportunity for me
01:29 'cause I didn't have too much pressure.
01:31 I wasn't an adult.
01:32 I wasn't looking for jobs.
01:32 I wasn't doing this as a side gig.
01:35 I was going to class, obviously,
01:37 and having my friendship and social life.
01:39 But outside of that, I was like,
01:39 "All right, let me figure out how to sell shorts online."
01:42 - Talk to me about the types of clothes you produce
01:46 and who exactly is your target market.
01:48 - So we produce only menswear right now.
01:51 It's super comfortable,
01:52 like daily clothing that you wear.
01:54 So we have active, we have casual, basics.
01:56 A lot of our customers are people who like to get outdoors,
01:59 who are passionate about what they do.
02:01 So we like to say everyday adventure
02:03 is what we design for.
02:04 Really, whatever it is, our product is made for you.
02:07 (gentle music)
02:09 - There's so many menswear brands out there today,
02:16 both in just the e-commerce and the startup scene,
02:18 like you, but also incumbents
02:19 that have been around for years.
02:20 How are you working to stand out
02:22 and make people choose bare bottom over any others?
02:24 - Definitely, yeah, we try to provide a lot of value
02:26 to our customers in both product quality
02:29 and then customer experience.
02:30 Every single product review we read,
02:32 our whole team reads,
02:33 our customer service team responds to.
02:35 Any review that's not a five-star review,
02:37 I get emailed to me, our COO gets emailed to me.
02:39 We share those reviews and feedback with our factory.
02:41 So we really do care a lot,
02:43 and that's, again, what it comes down to.
02:45 Everyone on our team is super passionate about our product
02:48 and making sure our customers get the same experience
02:51 that we wanna have as a customer
02:53 with any other type of brand.
02:54 (gentle music)
02:56 - Now you're totally bootstrapped,
02:58 which I think is really incredible.
03:00 Have you thought about taking on any outside investments
03:02 or do you want 'em in the future?
03:03 - We've looked into it briefly,
03:05 but we like how we can operate the team
03:07 without having outside influences.
03:09 We have some good mentors
03:10 that we're able to bounce ideas off of
03:12 and network within other brands who are in the same space,
03:15 which is really cool.
03:16 We like to have people who are really competitors of ours,
03:18 they're willing to share and we're willing to share
03:20 with them, so I like that relationship.
03:21 But right now we don't really plan on raising any funds.
03:24 - And talk to me about your sales growth
03:27 over the past few years.
03:28 - Yeah, so COVID was really where we saw a huge spike.
03:31 We've grown consistently since I started the business,
03:33 but after COVID, it really skyrocketed.
03:35 The first couple of weeks were really rough
03:37 and then just was a really steady increase from there,
03:40 and we've been growing ever since.
03:42 - Can you share any of your revenue metrics or anything?
03:45 - Yeah, so this year we're expecting
03:47 about $25 million in revenue.
03:48 - Wow, that's amazing, congrats.
03:50 - Thank you.
03:51 - Is there any advice that you wish you knew on day one
03:57 of founding your company that you'd give yourself now?
03:59 - Yes, definitely.
04:00 I would say the biggest lesson I wish I knew then
04:03 is how important it is to have a strong team around you.
04:06 Once we started adding really good members to our team
04:09 is when our business really started to grow a lot
04:11 and see the success we see now.
04:13 - And one final question for you, Robert.
04:15 What would you like your legacy to be?
04:18 - I think main thing for my legacy would probably be
04:21 that we helped a lot of people along the way,
04:23 whether we helped them grow, our production partners,
04:25 and for every item we sell,
04:27 right now we donate a meal to a child in need.
04:30 So we're gonna soon surpass 1 million meals donated.
04:33 So I think as long as people can remember us
04:35 for doing something like that,
04:36 I think that'll be really awesome.
04:38 (upbeat music)
04:41 (logo whooshing)
04:43 (logo whooshing)
04:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]