How Under Armour Got Its Start: With A Valentine’s Day Rose

This may seem like an odd day to post my first LinkedIn blog, but Valentine’s Day is actually the PERFECT day. Why? Because nearly three decades ago, I ran a rose delivery business out of my college dorm each year on this day. The profit from that company – from selling Valentine’s Day flowers - became the seed money for Under Armour.

What got me from there to here? PASSION and PURPOSE. Both are the driving forces behind our team at Under Armour, and both are essential in fueling our brand for the next defining chapter in our history.

More than 20 years ago, as a University of Maryland student and athlete, my "colleagues" and I ran a rose delivery service every February 14th called Cupid’s Valentine Rose Delivery. My freshman year, we sold 100 dozen roses. The following year we sold 250. By my senior year, we had a credit card machine in our dorm room, 40 drivers making deliveries, and five operators taking orders. And after four years in the business, we mastered the art of up-sell: “For just $10 more, we’ll arrange the roses in a glass vase!” 

That brilliant idea came from my first business partner, then girlfriend and now wife, DJ. She’s always had a knack for taking a good idea and making it better. That’s what great partners do.

I would stay up for three days straight heading into Valentine's Day because there was so much work to do. At the end of the day on the 14th, I would crash for 13 hours while the phones would continue to ring in the background.

The hard work paid off. That last year we sold 1,186 dozen roses, grossed over $50k in a single day, and made $17,000 in profit. My goal was to actually sell 1,500 dozen flowers that day, but we fell short as I watched 314 dozen - or 3,768 - unsold flowers die from missed or unsold deliveries. My two biggest lessons from that experience was to first, if avoidable, never deal in "live" inventory. And two, make sure everyone you work with can count to twelve.

That profit was used to fund a new idea - to create a totally different kind of T-shirt, one that was stretchy, light, tight and resistant to sweat. At the time, of course, I had not one bit of experience in the sporting goods world or how to manufacture. I had only a tiny bit of money and there certainly were no investors or banks lining up to give me theirs. I had no business plan. I had maxed out 5 credit cards. I had no specific mentor, no one to show me how it was done. There was no roadmap for me. But I did have passion and purpose – and from there, the idea for that T-shirt became a reality.

In the first year of Under Armour, I worked alone, nearly 24 hours a day, focused and mildly obsessed with my passion to build a better t-shirt for football players. It wasn’t long after starting when I realized that baseball and lacrosse players too, loved this shirt. Then soon, it was the girlfriends of the lacrosse players who played on the women’s team showed me that this brand + PASSION + PURPOSE were not limited to any one sport, let alone any one gender.

The early years of Under Armour were mostly spent driving across the country in a windshield-cracked Ford Explorer, more 100 thousand miles - which is the equivalent of driving around the world four times. I met with former teammates who were playing in the NFL, and convinced equipment managers to hold the T-shirt in their hands with the hope that they would take a shot and buy a few. I like to think that our passion to make all athletes that much better, and our unwavering purpose was the reason our early customers took a chance on us and bought the shirts.

My partners and I made these shirts effectively, ourselves. We heat-pressed on the logos. We packed boxes and shipped them. In the first catalogue, we made the unfortunate mistake of boasting that we were open 24 hours a day, which meant waking in the middle of the night to take phone orders. We did all of this because we were PASSIONATE about what we did, we were PASSIONATE about the product, and we stayed true to our PURPOSE of becoming a BRAND. We believed we could help make athletes better. That is still our mission at Under Armour. 

Passion is the reason that that dorm room idea became a company. Equally as important, PURPOSE helped us to become the BRAND called Under Armour.

Now, I want to make one thing clear: PASSION is not emotion. And please do not confuse the two. Emotions control us, but we control PASSION. PASSION is not a hashtag. It is defined by CONVICTION.

So what does it mean to have passion? Passion means finding a way. It’s something that entrepreneurs do so well. “Entrepreneur”—the word—literally means “a bearer of risk.” It describes a person who has an idea or ideas, and is ready and willing to take the risk of acting on them.

So, here’s a Golden Rule I think we should all follow: To be an entrepreneur, you must support other entrepreneurs. One way I have done this is through a competition called “Cupid’s Cup” in partnership with the University of Maryland to encourage and support student entrepreneurship. Over the past 13 years, Cupid’s Cup has awarded more than $500,000 in cash prizes to young businesses, many of which are still thriving today. This spring, we will relaunch Cupid’s Cup as a minority business expo in our hometown of Baltimore. 

I’m also proud to see how Under Armour has sparked the entrepreneurial spirit in our teammates, with a few leaving UA to start their own business. A great example of this is Mission BBQ, which was started by Bill Kraus, Under Armour’s former senior vice president of marketing. In 2009, Bill left UA with a PURPOSE: to create a chain of barbecue restaurants that would also give back to our nation’s heroes. Today, Mission BBQ is available across 13 states and growing.

If I can impart any words of wisdom to those starting their own business today, it is to never lose your passion and purpose. My passion for Under Armour is as strong today as it was 22 years ago. I never set out to create a global brand when I was selling Under Armour t-shirts out of the trunk of my car, but I never believed it couldn’t happen either.

And for those who may not want to strike out on their own, but still want to support the entrepreneurial spirit, it can be as simple as this: You know those lemonade stands that you see kids set up in the neighborhood or on the side of the road? Next time you see one, whenever you see one, stop. Stop whatever you’re doing and go directly to it. Buy tons of lemonade. Talk to the kids, encourage them, ask questions and celebrate them. Oh, and always remember to grab a $5 or $10 on your way out the door – good counsel is priceless, but cash, passion and purpose will fund that next big idea.