The athleisure market is, in a word, crowded. Upstarts like Alo and Vuori are busy fighting Under Armour and Lululemon for market share. (In an effort to appeal to more men—the fastest growing sector of the $358 billion dollar athleisure business—Lululemon just enlisted seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton as its latest ambassador.) And while Nike openly struggles with its direct-to-consumer business, Vuori CEO Joe Kudla is doubling down on (checks notes) physical retail? Vuori currently has more than 80 stores in the U.S. and five globally, but the company expects to exceed 100 stores in 2026. Venture capital certainly believes in his vision. In 2024, Vuori got an $825 million dollar investment from two private equity firms, General Atlantic and Stripes, bringing the company’s total valuation to $5.5 billion dollars. Still, why go so hard on analog when everyone’s going digital?
It turns out, Kudla’s been making unlikely moves from the jump. The 47-year-old founder grew up in a non-traditional household outside Seattle; his mom led vision quests, his dad was an acupuncturist when the practice was still considered “witchcraft,” he says. Kudla studied accounting in college but ran off to Milan to model. (More on that soon.)
Vuori, founded in 2015, was actually Kudla’s third attempt at apparel. He’d launched a successful (if unfulfilling) staffing company before pivoting to fashion. But, as he tells it here, Vuori nearly went under in its early days. How did the brand go from nearly shuttering to that $5.5 billion dollar valuation?
Over a bowl of chia pudding, Kudla—a surfer and mountain-climbing enthusiast who still serves as Vuori’s fit model—reveals what he learned about fashion from his Zoolander days, what everyone gets wrong about Vuori’s valuation, and why physical retail is still king.
MICKEY RAPKIN: You grew up on a tiny island off the coast of Seattle, your parents were into alternative medicine. I think your mom was leading vision quests in the woods. But when you got to college, you majored in accounting. Was this a reaction to your non-traditional upbringing? When did the entrepreneurial bug bite you?
JOE KUDLA: I think so. Both my parents were very free-thinking people. My dad was going to engineering school at Columbia [to please] his father. He ultimately realized he wanted to pursue naturopathic medicine and become an acupuncturist. It was considered witchcraft back in those days. I felt like I wanted to experience something different. We moved to Bellevue, which is right outside of Seattle. This is at the time when Microsoft was starting to boom. There were a lot of like kids in the neighborhood [who] were coming into a lot of money. I didn’t grow up with much financially. But spending time with other kids and seeing the way they lived was very inspiring to me. I was like, What would it be like to start a business or to have money?
RAPKIN: We’re so used to men’s athleisure now. But the category didn’t really exist back then. What were you looking for that you couldn’t find?
KUDLA: I moved to Encinitas after college, which is northern county San Diego. A lot of people have come to Encinitas over the years for spiritual purposes. It became a yoga capital of the world. Here I was, a guy that grew up a jock. But I’d hurt my back, and I started getting into yoga, and my observation was like, Why is it that this town—that the people in Encinitas—aren’t wearing the big brands? The ethos of those brands, the competitiveness—I will win, I will beat you—didn’t necessarily resonate with this culture. There wasn’t a brand that was building product for our community.
ERIC RYAN: It’s so interesting. I always say that products and brands are a reflection of their founders, and the product is a souvenir of that culture. But for you, the culture is not just of you as an individual, but really the community you were living in.
Early Struggles
RAPKIN: Vuori wasn’t an out-of-the-box hit. There was a moment where wholesale wasn’t really working, the company was running out of money, and you did this Hail Mary shift to direct-to-consumer. How close was Vuori to going out of business?
KUDLA: I mean, we were months. Granted, we hadn’t raised any institutional capital. The capital we had was, you know, maxing out my credit cards and some friends and family. We thought [we were] following the steps of a lot of the women’s brands that were kind of following in Lulu’s footsteps and building ten or twenty million-dollar businesses kind of overnight. We just learned that it was a lot harder sledding on the men’s side of the fence.
RAPKIN: What was the key to the turnaround? Was it one hero item of clothing? What lit the match?
KUDLA: We started listening to our customers, collecting as much feedback as we could. We were getting post-purchase surveys, we opened a little pop-up in our backyard. We’d started by advertising the brand to men who were interested in yoga. What we learned was that customers loved the product. But they didn’t resonate with how we were marketing it. I took the words from all these post-purchase surveys—train, run, yoga, hike, surf, travel, chill—and I sent that to our digital agency. When we started speaking to versatility, everything started to work.
RYAN: It’s so interesting. It’s almost the opposite strategy of what typically works. It’s harder to tell a story about range. You don’t typically hear that as the unlock of a business. Why do you think this unlock worked so differently than other companies who have to hyperspecialize to bring in a new consumer?
KUDLA: I honestly don’t know. If I reflect on my life like, I was a very unique human being. I was a very analytical guy. I started my career at Ernst & Young. But I’ve always kind of thought, Don’t put me in a box.
RAPKIN: Joe, you’re skipping over the best part. The Milan-male-model days!
KUDLA: Yeah, that was a fun chapter. My friends still love to give me shit.
RYAN: (laughing) Because we all wish we could be a male model ourselves.
RAPKIN: You must have learned something in that experience that informed the fabrics, the fits? I don’t think you were sitting around Milan waiting for a tray of coke to pass by.
KUDLA: Without question. I actually despised being in front of the camera. Being a model was definitely not going to be my path. I was probably on a path to becoming a CFO or something along those lines. But being exposed to this creative industry was very inspiring, and I got a confidence, and I got a familiarity with it. I started my first clothing company very shortly after I returned.
RYAN: Do you consider yourself to be a creative person now?
KUDLA: I do, yeah. We’re a very fabric-led company. My favorite trips are when I get to sit with our mill partners and develop textiles, and then just translating those textiles into clothing and telling stories. I’m an analytical brain that actually prioritizes creative work.
Going All In
RAPKIN: Vuori is your third apparel company. What went awry in the first two? Why did this one work?
KUDLA: I needed to cut the bowlines and jump in with two feet. It was a tough time for me, ultimately, on this third go to make that decision. I had started a consulting and recruiting company that was actually pretty successful. We had a couple hundred employees, I finally had experienced what it was like to have some money in my pocket. But after eight years, I was showing up to the office uninspired, and this clothing thing just kept running like a loop in my mind. I’ve always felt like life is incredibly short. That relationship with how impermanent our time is here has been really healthy. I said goodbye to my other company, my career. If I had tried to build Vuori on the side, as soon as we were running out of capital, it probably would have been over.
RYAN: It’s such a common theme in entrepreneurs, that sense of urgency, and the scarcity of time. And the realization that you only have so much time on this planet to make a difference.
Why Vuori Is Opening So Many Stores
RAPKIN: Last year, you got a big investment from two venture capital firms, taking Vuori’s valuation to $5.5 billion dollars. What’s the plan for all that cash? Is this to open a ton of new stores?
KUDLA: It’s a bit misunderstood the way that it’s been reported on. But essentially that was all secondary. We facilitated an opportunity for our early shareholders to sell stock. The capital didn’t come to the company’s balance sheet. But I think it brings up something which is worth noting. When I talk to entrepreneurs, they’re often very focused on raising their Series A, B,C, D. And what I relay is something that was a piece of advice that was given to me early days, which is, if you can archetype the right supply chain, you actually don’t need that capital.
RAPKIN: How so?
KUDLA: I sucked at raising money. Thank goodness for my male modeling career because I had gotten familiar with rejection. But it was very hard for me to get money in those early days. We didn’t have some proprietary tech that made us stand apart. We talked to all these venture groups, and everybody was like, What is the thing? And we were like, “Well, we have a vision for product that we think people will use in their lives, that’s gonna add value to their lives, it’s gonna be really good product, we’re gonna build a great culture, we’re gonna take really good care of our customers.” And that that was very much out of fashion.
RYAN: (laughing) A lot of the fundamentals of building a great business.
KUDLA: Yeah. And so I went to my supply chain partners—our factories—and I started treating them like investors. I started presenting the business to them, the vision for where we were going, the market opportunity. And ultimately I got them to believe, to where they gave us incredible terms really early. We built a supply chain where I was able to get my product to my warehouse, ship it to partners, collect money, sell it online, and then pay for the inventory. Ultimately, we only raised a couple million dollars of capital on our balance sheet to build the company that we’ve built. The company put about $2.5 million dollars on the balance sheet, and we’ve returned about $1.2 billion dollars to shareholders.
RYAN: Amazing. Especially since you’re still very, very early into this journey. Where do you see the future of physical retail?
KUDLA: I believe very much in physical retail. And I think if I was to bet on where will it be—where the importance of physical retail will be in five years—I would double down. Because I think the world we’re living in? Already it’s like people don’t understand what’s true. We are fed so much in our feeds every day—
RYAN: Wait until AI just layers on top.
KUDLA: Once AI comes into the picture, like, what’s real anymore? I think the one thing that will be real is interpersonal relationships, and service, and having a physical experience in the real world. And that can be a strategic advantage. We put so much energy and love into our experience in our stores. And so I think that just becomes more and more important in the future.
RYAN: I’m right there with you. I love physical retail—that experience, the energy of walking into your stores. I’m doing the same thing with Cast. You go back to community, and the importance of building communities? Physical retail is a part of the experience.
KUDLA: We have an inherent challenge at Vuori. Because a lot of our product is pretty simple and effortless. Coco Chanel was famous for saying the hardest thing to design is the simple black dress. And we really resonate with that here. Because the magic of Vuori is not in some loud logo. It’s not in these loud details that identify you as somebody going to the gym or working out. It’s in the subtlety, and in the textiles, and the fabric. You really need to go in and experience the product physically.
The Competitive Spirit
RAPKIN: A big report about the athleisure market found that Vuori’s existing customers are spending more of their money at Vuori. And that Vuori shoppers are spending less on Nike. Where do you square your yogi background with that competitive spirit? Where do those two paths intersect?
KUDLA: I don’t think necessarily that our competitors have to lose in order for us to win. I don’t spend that much time thinking about that. I want Vuori to be the best version of itself that it can be. I think it’s really important that all entrepreneurs do take a look in the mirror. My first journey to a successful business left me feeling pretty isolated and lonely. And just a little depressed. I was in a pretty tough place. Because I recognized that all these things that I thought were so important—making money, having financial independence—all these things ultimately weren’t going to be fulfilling to me. And so I think it’s important we just take care of ourselves on the journey of building a great business. Continue to invest in clarity, and having whatever those practices are that keep you centered in a healthy place, and you’re going to be a better leader for your team. You’re going to stay connected to your why, and the reason you built the company in the first place.
RYAN: What’s that challenge that’s getting you out of bed as you continue to scale this business?
KUDLA: You know, we brought in these new investors which we’re really excited about, and they have deep consumer insights that we’re tapping into. And one of the things we’re learning is that for, as great as this journey has been—and as successful as we are—we have very low awareness still. I feel like I’m in inning one of this book.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. If you liked this story on why Vuori is opening so many stores, click here for more episodes of Cereal Entrepreneur.
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