#376 - Kevin Lavelle - Building Mizzen+Main, Influencer Partnerships, His New Startup Harbor

Kevin Lavelle is the CEO & Cofounder of Harbor. He’s also the Founder and Chairman of the Board at Mizzen+Main, where he invented the world’s first performance fabric dress shirt, ultimately driving it to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. He successfully raised a growth round from L Catterton and established partnerships with athletes like Phil Mickelson, JJ Watt, and dozens of others. Today, Mizzen+Main has more than ten of its own stores with 1,000 retailers also carrying its products. We discuss: - Starting and growing Mizzen+Main - The intricacies of celebrity-equity deals - The inspiration for founding Harbor - The realities of building physical products vs. software - Stories with Phil Mickelson and J.J. Watt We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links: Mizzen+Main - https://www.mizzenandmain.com/ Harbor - https://harbor.co/ Kevin on X - https://x.com/kevinslavelle The Phil Mickelson Commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45xF1C76I88 Support our Sponsors: BetterPitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Fort: https://bit.ly/FortCompanies Follow Fort on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fort-companies/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:49) - Kevin’s early career and inspiration to found Mizzen+Main (00:07:25) - Building the prototype (00:11:38) - The early days of building the brand (00:15:16) - The impact of sponsoring the Tim Ferriss Podcast (x) (00:21:35) - Choosing the name “Mizzen+Main” (00:23:50) - Inventory Management  (00:26:55) - Starting today, what would be your hiring order? (00:28:32) - Celebrity partnership stories: J.J. Watt & Phil Mickelson (00:48:17) - The inspiration for founding Harbor (01:03:17) - Bringing on a Co-Founder and building hardware (01:17:19) - Marketing approaches (01:14:56) - How celebrity equity deals work Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts