By Joe Johnson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 28, 2012
One of UFV’s former students turned business success story, Joel Primus, was on campus earlier in the week to give a talk on his Naked business, background and philosophy. He also opened up some of the more intimate details on his labour of love company while speaking to The Cascade.
Naked is a very unique company to Abbotsford and has a strong connection to UFV, hence all the publicity around the University in recent days surrounding his visit to Abbotsford campus. When Primus was a UFV student, he studied philosophy – a far cry from what he’s doing now.
While being a UFV student, he was also doing some soul searching which led to hitchhiking across Canada, spending some time in Asia, and eventually an attempt to make a documentary in South America. And that’s where he found a pair of underwear that caught his interest.
When he got back to Canada, Primus was fired up to make something of himself.
“I tried a bunch of different things,” Primus said, “just throwing stuff against the wall trying to make something stick.”
Then one day Primus was hit with an idea. Primus stated, “I heard a story about Lululemon and then I heard another story about Ginch Gonch, and then all of a sudden an underwear thought popped in my mind, ‘wait a second, I bought this pair in Peru that I liked and I never even opened it.’ And that’s when I said, ‘Well, I can create an underwear line’.”
With that, Naked was born. And now into his mid-20s, Primus has a young business that has been rapidly growing with a recent valuation at $1.5 million.
As per their slogan, “Every Naked piece is made with soft-to-the-touch Italian fabric that seamlessly forms to your body, making you feel as though you’re wearing nothing at all.”
Naked’s Abbotsford headquarters is staffed by Primus as the CEO, Alex McAulay as COO and CFO, and two full time employees on top of multiple contract workers for sales and other work. The partnership between Primus and McAulay works well; McAulay is a CA and has business experience to backup Primus’ entrepreneurial passion.
The brand of Naked is one that they’re still seeking to achieve, according to Primus.
“We want to create an environment that inspires people to output the brand. And the brand is sexy and sophisticated … everything that we want to be about is about outputting that consistent message because that is our place in the market,” he said.
For Primus, charity will always be a part of Naked. He is a co-founder of his own charity, Project World Citizen.
“The things that I’ve seen, because I’ve travelled to a lot of places, and if I can help never see some of those things again, I will know I have done my part … if Naked can help me do better at giving, then it’s going to tie a charitable component to everything it does.”
Philosophically, Primus is a firm believer in the personal and relational aspect of business, “the one thing I feel I can add specifically through speaking … is helping business students appreciate and not forget the human component of business because it isn’t just ‘business is business.’ There is a personal component to it, and I believe that personal component—that human component—is what allows businesses to thrive for a long time.”
Of course, being successful is aided greatly when you can get the kind of exposure Naked has received. With multiple appearances on Dragons’ Den (the first time being rejected), e-Talk Daily, Entertainment Tonight, and Urban Rush, that kind of exposure goes a long way in name recognition.
What they sell exactly is composed of two lines, traditional and contemporary. Primus considers their textiles to be some of the best in the world. Their traditional line is made with Italian micromodal fabric, and the contemporary is a microfiber. Everything comes in black and white and they have six products currently.
But coming from a cost perspective on using such high quality material, Primus believes that it’s what is required to service the product “So we didn’t really look to save pennies on the fabric, we went and said ‘what is the best’ because that’s all we wanted for our underwear.”
Being such a young company, though, getting a product into stores isn’t easy. However, having the local and national exposure they’ve received has made the most difference. As explained by Primus, “They don’t want to make a commitment to you and you don’t ship them the product, or your business goes bankrupt between now and when. So, when they see you around a couple times … year over year, all of a sudden it’s like ‘okay, this business is here to stay. I’m going to get involved with them’.”
Although, exposure only goes so far and capital is needed to actually finance the business at startup. And that’s where the roughly 27 investors came in. Having sold a percentage of Naked so as to establish that growth capital, Primus said that he’s “a big believer in keeping your business your own, but that wasn’t possible with Naked.”
He is still majority stakeholder, however.
Now outside of the local area and even Canada, Primus noted their products are now sold from “New York to Dallas to Oklahoma, Louisiana, Seattle [and] California.”
Given that distribution and product price points of $36 and $44 for the underwear, and $64 for the undershirt, Naked isn’t currently in a profitable position. But as Primus has said, “We won’t be profitable because we will always reinvest to grow the brand.” He expects to see greater return in around two years time.
But because Naked is creating an interesting product, Primus identified the fact that businesses with much deeper pockets may be watching and attempt to tackle the same product market segment – a segment predisposed to luxury, willing to spend on themselves.
Primus, though, is ready to take on any challengers. “The vision is for Naked to be the new standard of underwear for men and women in the world.”
