Stay Informed
Sign Up for the TBL Newsletter Today!
Every once in a while you get a founder who genuinely wants to make an incredible product — just for the sake of doing good things for others and being true to themselves.
We have such a guest on today’s show, Nate Checketts, Founder of menswear brand Rhone Apparel. Nate joins us to talk about the crux moments in his life and the philosophy behind this incredible men's fitness brand of his. Nate gets into the entrepreneurial spirit he had as a child and the successful businesses he started before founding one of the best menswear brands, Rhone. He then speaks about how he found a gap in the market for a direct-to-consumer men's fitness and menswear brand that focused on making high-quality products. From there, we talk about some of the ways Nate is building such a strong community around Rhone by associating the menswear label with issues like mental health, gender equality, and healthy masculinity. Our conversation moves to focus on how this authentic approach stems directly from Nathan’s character and personality, and he talks about some of the influences on this, Benjamin Franklin and his parents being major ones. Wrapping up for the day, Nate gets into his biggest motivators, lessons learned, and challenges overcome, recounting a story his dad told him that helps put seemingly big problems into perspective. So for all this and more about building a brand from a place of honesty, integrity, and authenticity, tune in today!
[bctt tweet= "A men’s-focused directly distributed brand could be really successful and there’s a huge addressable market."]
Key Points From This Episode:
- 1 Nate’s entrepreneurial spirit and the businesses he started before starting Rhone.
- 2 How Nate found a gap in the market for a brand like Rhone Apparel.
- 3 Investing more in the quality of the product and then selling it direct-to-consumer.
- 4 Building community around a brand that talks about mental health more than physical health.
- 5 Using Benjamin Franklins’ philosophy as a way of getting better at one thing at a time.
- 6 Perspectives on balance, fatherhood, and productivity.
- 7 Competing with himself and serving a community; Nate’s motivators.
- 8 Finding ways to enjoy work because we spend so much time doing it.
- 9 The lie of using sustainability as a marketing strategy if your product is not sustainable.
- 10 Crux moments for Nate and a story about his dad that puts financial loss into perspective.
- 11 More on Rhone products and where you can go to find them.
Tweetables:
“Investing in the quality of the fabric, the quality of the garment, the right supply chain, that's where we're putting our margin.”
“I wanted to build a brand that talked about mental health, more than it talks about physical health.” [0:13:03]
“I just don't feel like I can live a lie. Everybody knows this about me. I'm a terrible poker player. I would lose every time in poker because you know how I'm feeling generally most of the time. So, I think the business to some degree reflects a little bit of that.” — @natechecketts
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Nate Checketts on LinkedIn
Rhone Apparel
The Pursuit
Brene Brown
Previous Episode:
Tony DeBoom of Endurance Conspiracy
Stay Informed
