If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s telling stories. And the stories I enjoy telling most usually involve lifelong friends who turn a shared passion into a business.
Last week’s story on the guys behind Afternoon Golf is a prime example.
Today’s story is no different. It’s about two longtime besties who turned their shared passion into an apparel and lifestyle brand. Seriously, I’d venture to guess that many of you reading this can flash back to ninth grade, home room and making plans with your BFF to go into business someday.
For most of us, it never happens.
For Tom Underwood and Jonathan Ord, it did.
Their company is AndersonOrd. If you had to define it, AndersonOrd falls into the neo-classic-traditional-yet-modern apparel category. It may not be for everyone (it certainly isn’t the lowest-priced) but the story about how Underwood and Ord found their way from freshman football at Torrey Pines High in San Diego to starting their own apparel brand might be the most interesting thing you read today.
AndersonOrd: Rooted on the gridiron
Tom Underwood and Jonathan Ord (we’ll refer to them from here on in as Tom and Jonathan, as they wouldn’t want it any other way) met as freshman at Torrey Pines High School back in the late ’80s, where they played football. Ord was the quarterback, Underwood the receiver and punt returner. They were good, too. Underwood played at San Diego State while Ord went to Brigham Young, where he backed up Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer as a walk-on.
After college, the pair went on their own career paths but stayed close.
Jonathan entered the software business and helped build DealerSocket, a major automotive software platform. Tom worked in the golf industry for a firm that managed nearly two dozen golf courses and real estate developments.
“Tom really wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I had already been one,” says Jonathan. “He reached out to me one day about doing something in the fashion industry for golf. I knew what it would take, so I pushed him quite a bit to make sure he really wanted to do this.”
“When we first talked about it, he did tell me how hard it would be,” adds Tom. “But he didn’t tell me how really hard it would be.”
“We knew it was going to be messy,” says Jonathan. “But we knew it was going to be fun and we were going to have to figure some stuff out. We knew we’d make mistakes, but we were in this thing together.”
Montana-to-Rice. Brady-to-Moss. Ord-to-Underwood?
Like any QB-WR combo, Underwood and Ord have very different yet complementary skill sets. In this partnership, Jonathan is the finance guy while Tom and his wife Melanie handle operations and product creation.
The company actually started life as a brand called Pull The Pin. They originally viewed it as pulling the pin out of the cup to watch the ball roll in. They ultimately discovered, however, that most people equate pulling the pin with hand grenades.
Besides, they saw their future as going beyond just golf apparel.
“At the time, Jonathan had a great love for lululemon (he was an investor),” says Tom. “He introduced it to me and I’m like, ‘Man, that’s dull.’ It’s all muted colors that don’t make sense for this bright industry.”
While lululemon popularized the “athleisure” apparel category, Tom saw a gap in golf apparel. Specifically, he was looking to combine technical performance with versatile design that wouldn’t look ridiculous off the course. While that’s common today, a decade ago it really wasn’t.
With that, AndersonOrd begat Lifeleisure™. It may be one part marketing slogan, but in the founders’ minds, it’s three parts a design, style and purpose philosophy.
“We do everything in this stuff,” says Jonathan. “I work out in it and I play golf in it in both the heat and the cold. It’s the most comfortable stuff you’ll ever wear.”
“Fabric first”
There’s a lot of trite, boilerplate language in golf apparel. Everyone tells you their stuff works “on and off the course” and their fabric is “special.” AndersonOrd follows the crowd in that respect. The company likes to say it’s “fabric first” with its proprietary “double-soft” fabric.
In this case, the term proprietary requires some context.
There’s a big difference between “proprietary” and “invented by.” AndersonOrd didn’t invent any new fibers or weaves, but it did work with its suppliers to develop an exclusive fabric blend. The specific fiber composition, knit structure, brushing method and finishing process are unique to and exclusively for AndersonOrd.
“We went to different sourcing groups with some fleece,” says Tom. “We told them we want polos and T-shirts that feel like this but are lightweight and breathable. They were like, ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’”
They eventually found the right material but got flagged for a couple of false starts.
“The first year, it was so soft that it peeled,” Tom explains. “The second year, we had issues with the collar. By the third year, we found the secret sauce to make it perfect.”
If you’re looking for a couple of essential men’s pieces from the AndersonOrd catalog, you’d look at the Blacks Beach hoodie ($115), the Butter T long-sleeve T-shirt ($69.95) or the Gamer polo ($95). When you touch them, you will feel what they mean by “double soft.”
“You go back to a clothing line for more than just color,” says Jonathan. “It’s fit and features. That’s what actually feels good on your body.”
Eight years, eight figures
Even though it’s eight years old and in over 2,000 pro shops nationwide, AndersonOrd still qualifies as a small company.
“We have 50 employees now,” says Tom. “But if you had told me eight years ago that we’d be an eight-figure (in sales) company, with the challenges and learning curves we went through, I’d have said you’re crazy.”
“One of the reasons we’ve grown is that Tom creates great relationships with people,” adds Jonathan. “He finds the best club pros who understand how to sell product and he finds the best marketers who can sell stuff online.”
Additionally, both men say the company has zero debt and thus zero interference from outside investors.
“We don’t have a board of directors making decisions based on profit margins or the scale of the business,” Jonathan says. “I’m in a position where I can fund the business. We don’t have to scale the way other apparel companies have to and we don’t have cash constraints. That gives us some freedom.”
It was at this point in our conversation that I had to ask why the company name is AndersonOrd and not UnderwoodOrd.
“We had Pull The Pin but we wanted a two-letter acronym that would stick,” says Jonathan. “About this time, my father-in-law passed away. He was a huge fan of Tom’s and he loved talking and playing golf with Tom.”
So, at Tom’s insistence, Jonathan’s late father-in-law became the Anderson in AndersonOrd.
“That tells you a lot about Tom,” says Jonathan. “That’s how he runs the business, too. Some days he’s screen-printing stuff, other days he’s out at trade shows walking the floor. He’s not some guy who sits in a CEO palace giving orders.”
Premium is as premium does
If you peruse the AndersonOrd website, you’ll find their products aren’t cheap. (Make sure to check the Sale tab, however. Deals can be had). Price limits appeal but price is only a number. A $60 T-shirt and a $115 polo aren’t for everyone but they aren’t for no one, either. Value, whether you’re selling seedless grapes or premium golf apparel, lives at the intersection of what you pay and what you get. If you like it and you think it’s worth the money, that’s all that really matters.
“We want to be in the market that allows us to be the best that we can be,” says Tom. “To do that, we have a price point that’s not out of the threshold of 80 percent of the people who play golf. We’re in the same neighborhood as Johnnie-O or Peter Millar.”
Apparel is like anything else. There are great value brands – the Ben Hogan line is an excellent example – that offer good stuff at a considerably lower price point. However, for a product to be considered premium, it actually has to be premium. It has to feel good, be well-designed and well-made. Apparel is one of the areas where differences are noticeable. Whether you care enough to pay the freight, however, is a completely different story.
“We don’t need to be a high-volume brand to do what we need to do,” says Jonathan. “Our goal isn’t to see how big we can get. It’s to see how good a product we can deliver. Our competitors may be looking to create scale, do things for cheaper and drive EBITDA lines in their financial statements. That’s just not us.”
What’s next for AndersonOrd?
In the big picture, there are an awful lot of golf apparel companies out there and AndersonOrd is, if you’ll pardon the expression, one of them. Each is looking for a unique niche to call its own. AndersonOrd identified what it considered a gap in the landscape and filled it with LifeLeisure™.
On the gridiron, it’s called running to daylight.
“We keep our core pieces core,” says Tom. “Our seasonal pieces vary a bit but still have that AO flair.”
“It’s been super cool to design stuff for golf like front pockets with a little more depth or a back pocket than can hold a scorecard easier,” says Jonathan. “We’re trying to think of different features and functions.”
AndersonOrd will soon be adding golf bags to its offering, and it has just released two new golf shoes. The spikeless AO Wave1 and AO Coast1 have West Coast vibes. I’ve tried the Coast model and while they’re very stylish and comfortable, I’m not sure how they’ll perform as a golf shoe. At $250, they’ll likely be more of a lifestyle choice than a golf performance choice.
“Going forward, I don’t know if it’s going to be any easier than it’s been,” says Tom. “I do know we have a much clearer picture of what we’re doing and how we’re going to do it.”
“It’s a long-term focus for us,” adds Jonathan. “We’re not spinning this up to sell it or to try to take a bunch of money out of the business. We’re creating a differentiated product that’s going to be around for a long, long time.
“And we’re going to have a lot of fun doing it.”
