It was shortly following Hurricane Sandy when Terry White (Harvard `12) went for a run in New York City amidst the chaos, floods and power outages. Taking to the ground with his keys and iPhone in hand — like many often do in metropolitan and urban areas when they go for a run — an idea dawned on White. “I was trying to figure out where I was going to put my keys. I’ve got this iPhone, I want to listen to music. What am I doing with all of this stuff?”
It wasn’t long before the idea had consumed Terry, and over the course of his run through the streets of Manhattan, the recent Harvard lacrosse graduate began to realize that he was on to something: spandex with pockets. “I got back to my friend’s apartment, we had a conversation, and we decided that this product could make sense. Just naturally from there, it was like a lightbulb went off. Something clicked and I was like ‘I need to look into this.’ — I went for it.”
While back home for the holidays, Terry first confided in pursuing this idea full time to his younger brother, Alex, who was a teammate of Terry’s on the Harvard men’s lacrosse team for three years and was about to enter his final semester of college. Shortly after, the two connected with a close childhood friend and fellow Delbarton (N.J.) grad, Tony Ubertaccio (Ursinus College `11), and the team behind this promising idea grew to three.
Ubertaccio explained that his initial eagerness to jump on board with Terry’s vision was something he didn’t have to put very much thought into. “It was almost obvious, like ‘This really doesn’t exist? Prove that this doesn’t exist because it has to — it’s so clearly needed, how could it not?”
After months of competitor researching and product conception, Terry began dedicating more and more time to the idea of bringing his vision to life; but, like most products available to consumers, they’re often a part of a larger entity. That’s when White decided he needed to build a brand around his idea to fully-support his vision.
“I put a lot of thought into what that brand could be, and I didn’t have a name for it at that point, but I had an idea of what it could represent,” he explained. “This product was, in a way, representative of what I wanted the brand to be — creating functional apparel primarily for young professionals in cities. You graduate from being an athlete, to being a professional and sitting at a desk. You want to maintain an active lifestyle, but it’s not always that easy. That’s what the brand was rooted in — creating a brand that can support that person, in any way possible.”
Over time, while Terry was still pursuing a professional career as a Junior Development Associate for Greater New York-based Advance Realty, a brand was born. “I was driving home from work and I was like ‘What is this company really about? What does it do?’ And then it hit me, ‘It’s about a way of life.”
Way of Life Athletic Company. WOLACO.
After WOLACO was incepted, came the team’s further investigation into what this product would look like, feel like, and so on. The North Moore Short — as it came to be called, paying homage to the street that Terry called home in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood when the concept came to fruition — was spawned from a labor of back-and-forth exchanges with a Minnesota production team and ongoing work with a Brooklyn-based designer.
“It was very much a ‘Where do I start?’ kind of thing — I didn’t really know where to start. So, fortunately, we live in an age where we have this great tool: the internet. I found a company that happens to focus on clients like myself. We just started slowly,” Terry explained. “It became this iterative process. I’d put a sketch together. They’d source materials and send me swatches of fabric, and I’d figure out which fabric we wanted to sample. Through trial and error — wearing them, testing them — we’d figured out which fabrics wore well, which didn’t. It just evolved over time. All in all, we’ve probably had 10 or 11 prototypes made over the span of a year and a half. We got to a point where we felt like we’d developed a market-ready product, and that’s what we have right now. That’s what we’ve sold.”
Through the trial and error in the prototype testing process, came a wealth of feedback from a network of individuals spanning acquaintances, close friends, family and select professional athletes. The encouragement from the aforementioned only continued to aid in the trio’s mission to bring The North Moore Short and their brand mainstream.
On Monday, Nov. 3, WOLACO officially kicked off its Kickstarter campaign. By day two of their campaign, The North Moore Short crowdfunding had already surpassed its 30-day goal of $28,000. With nearly 1,000 backers, and over $70,000 in funding, the former high school lacrosse teammates turned business partners couldn’t be more thrilled about the success of their first campaign and what lies ahead on the horizon for WOLACO.
“The early success of our campaign has been incredibly exciting,” Terry began to describe. “We've been humbled and inspired by the support that people have shown us. We prepared, and were cautiously optimistic that our campaign would be a success; however, we never expected such an early outpouring of support — that was definitely pretty surreal. We're enjoying it, but continuing to stay focused.”
Their campaign closes on Dec. 3, and then it’s full steam ahead for the New York-based lifestyle and athletic apparel company. Upon manufacturing and fulfilling their Kickstarter orders, the next question begs: What lies ahead for WOLACO and its team of young entrepreneurs?
Additional men's merchandise? Women’s apparel offerings? Sponsorships? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves — but, the opportunity could very much become a reality in years to come.
“The same way that this concept for the brand has evolved in my mind, so have the ideas for new products,” Terry explained. “Something that we’re trying to do, especially with this crowdfunding campaign, is to reach as many people as possible because we think we have a product that will change the way people think about fitness — personal fitness, and being efficient. It’s not really wearable technology, but it’s apparel that accommodates the technology that you have.”
Posted By: Collin Scarpello
Friday, May 15th 2015 at 11:57AM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
