Startup interview: Yang Liu, Co-founder, JustWears

RTIH gets the lowdown on British e-commerce startup, JustWears, which launched on Kickstarter in 2017 and has also been featured on the BBC show Dragons’ Den.

RTIH: Tell us about JustWears

YL: JustWears is a digitally native brand on a mission to solve men’s wellness issues by reinventing basic wear, starting with underwear. 

By introducing sustainable, high tech fabric and ergonomic designs, we help relieve discomfort, reduce sweaty balls and increase sperm counts. 

Beyond the underwear itself, our focus is on being a positive inspiration for men to be bold. Most high street brands emphasise sex appeal and fashion, failing to connect with today’s urban man, and leaving men feeling subconscious.  

In contrast, our messaging utilised bold colour schemes and slogans to make you smile. The brand leaves men feeling confident, comfortable and fun, which we believe is how quality underwear should make you feel.

RTIH: What was the inspiration behind setting the company up?

YL: I previously worked at one of the most active early stage venture capital funds in the world called 500Startups. After investing in and helping many other businesses scale, I recognised the dramatic shift taking place in retail. 

During that time, my husband and co-founder who worked in finance often complained that his underpants would regularly bunch up or get uncomfortable after a long day at his desk.

I looked around and tried to find a solution which would be both functional and comfortable, and was pretty disappointed with what I found. It was mostly either cheap, poorly made or sportswear.

Naturally, I began speaking with other male friends and found many others had this same frustration with uncomfortable underwear. After interviewing more than 200 men, I felt inspired to strike out and attempt to make something better in 2017.

After travelling around the globe, testing over 1,000 fabrics and doing more than 35 rounds of prototypes, we settled on a design that our beta testers really seems to like, so we then put it up on Kickstarter.

RTIH: What has been the industry reaction thus far?

YL: To our surprise, in the first month of launching, JustWears quickly became the most backed apparel project in the UK on Kickstarter with over +7,000 pairs orders from +2,200 customers in +60 countries.

Since then the brand has sold more than 100,000 pairs to over 25,000 customers in 73 countries and have been featured on BBC Dragons’ Den (where they received two offers) and other shows like ITV’s This Morning GoggleBox etc. 

In just under two years, JustWears has grown to seven figures in revenue and happy customers say that these underpants are literally the only underwear their balls deserve. 

RTIH: What has been your biggest challenge/setback?

YL: When most people hear about a company that’s helping to solve sweaty balls, they are surprised to find out that it’s started by a woman. 

Then when you see the humour and fun that has become our identity of our brand, they are even more surprised to find out that English is my second language.

Being an immigrant has presented its own set of challenges (on top of those that come with being a female entrepreneur).

In fact, the toughest time came when both my co-founder and I had our UK visa renewals declined because the Home Office was over its quota. 

Despite building a business and creating jobs in the UK, we were abruptly given just seven days’ notice to leave the country we call home. 

For the next four months, we had to manage the team remotely until we managed to return on a new visa. While it’s nice to be through it now, at the time it was quite stressful and almost ended the business. 

On the plus side, I guess it prepared us for the working from home life that the pandemic gave us.

RTIH: What are the biggest challenges facing the online retail sector right now?

YL: With the pandemic, it caused a major shift in the way many people think, which led to an uprise in people relying on selling goods online. More businesses online, means more choices for everyday consumers. 

As the internet continues to grow at such a fast pace, the attention span of an average online shopper becomes very short so you need to be able to present your products in the most engaging way possible whilst doing so quickly and efficiently to capture their attention. 

Those that were already in the online retail sector gained more competition and those who were new had the challenge to try and stand out. In our case, we were thankfully in a position where we were able to carry on growing our business.

RTIH: What's the best question about your company or the market asked of you recently by an investor and/or a customer?

YL: On the set of Dragon's Den, Peter Jones asked us if the pouch would be too large. He was later quoted in an article that he wears JustWears, so I guess not!

RTIH: What can we expect to see from JustWears over the next 12 months?

YL: At our core, we use innovative natural materials to solve functional problems.  

Underwear is just our first step in this journey and we have several more products under development, which I can't speak about publicly quite yet.

StartupsStaff WriterJustWears, Yang Liu, Startups, Online retail, E-commerce, Green retail, Kickstarter, Dragons Den, CoronavirusComment