January 18, 2022

A 16-Year Roam That Is Ever Evolving

By: Matt altman, CEO & CO-FOUNDER

Sixteen years. For a small business, 16 years represents defying the odds, surviving challenging times, navigating obstacles, and overcoming the statistic that shows most small businesses don’t make it past the first two years. 

This month, Sportiqe celebrates 16 years in business, and it’s an accomplishment that we are immensely proud of. When my Co-Founder Jason Franklin and I started Sportiqe more than a decade and a half ago in our respective apartments, we began with the simple idea of bringing comfortable, quality lifestyle apparel to the fan (whether that be a sports fan, music fan, brand fan or a fan of something).

As two industry veterans, we credit some of our early momentum to leveraging the relationships we held in sports merchandising and retail. It paid off – some of the first clients were NBA teams and The Dave Matthews Band – and delivering for these big names allowed others to trust our brand new startup. 

Over the years, I’ve learned that any new business venture just needs an opportunity. Then it must deliver with unwavering grit. We were able to accomplish that in a short amount of time. 

When I look around at what we’ve built, the accomplishment I’m most proud of is that we’ve remained focused on two critical aspects of Sportiqe: the quality of the people we work with and the quality of the product we have produced. One without the other is not sustainable but the combination makes us extraordinary. 

On the people side, we’ve been fortunate to be a work family for several key players on our team. Their longevity has allowed us to continue to evolve sustainably without major interruptions. Over the years, we’ve grown the size of the team. We have a group of highly talented and dedicated individuals, with each person bringing their own unique strengths, talent and influence to the company.

On the product side, we have remained focused on how important it is to continue to evolve our product offering seasonally, as well as deliver quality core apparel consistently year over year. Time has been on our side, as certain products have proven to be tried and true. Our two signature styles, the Olsen Hoodie and Classic Comfy Tee, have inspired us to further develop modern American comfortwear.

As much as we’ve done, we still have a lot to prove and to get better at: further development of the team personally and professionally, perpetually innovating new products, wowing our customers, strengthening our ability to give back to support our community locally, nationally and globally, along with building a prominent brand presence for people to roam in comfort.

I am deeply motivated by our vision to help people feel comfortable, and build a company consistent with our values of teamwork, evolve, respect, can do, integrity and fun. 

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this 16-year journey. Thank you for your continued support, loyalty in our business, and being a part of the Sportiqe herd.

- Roam In Comfort 

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