Create a Million Dollar Brand with Trent Kitsch @ SAXX Underwear

About this video

Dan Martell interviews Trent Kitsch, founder of SAXX underwear. Kitsch says the idea came in 2007 while fishing in the Queen Charlotte Islands with his father, uncomfortable after three days in a big red ocean suit; drawing on his background as a baseball back catcher, he imagined side panels to prevent contact. Back at grad school at the University of Western Ontario, he pitched it for the new venture project — some professors took offence, others backed him — and used a roughly $20,000 tuition receipt to get a student loan from Royal Bank, delayed tuition, and spent it on development instead, including the first $1,500 on patterns by fashion designer Kara Meegan, found via Fanshawe College. Within four months he had his first 200 pairs, sold from a cafeteria table at Western and on Queen Street West in front of Lululemon, in sandwich bags with Avery labels, pitching ’the best underwear in the world’ at $25-$30 a pair, often as gifts. A producer who saw him win the Ivey business plan competition invited him to Dragon’s Den season two, where he asked 10% for $250,000; his professor Stuart Thornhill had earlier given $50,000 for 5%. He says SAXX sold maybe $1,500-$2,000 a day before the episode aired, then about $60,000 the night it aired and $40,000 the next two days, plus a $50,000 Armchair Dragon Award. Early revenue was about $26,000 in year one, then over $200,000, then $600,000; he and his wife Rhea sold from a vinyl-wrapped SAXX van, chasing a self-invented milestone of 200 stores and 10,000 pairs. He also describes his laminated goal card, updated every 12-16 months since a 2001 university class, prioritising health then family, and how Doja, his cannabis company born from a 2013 conversation about Health Canada licensing, went public and received a $10 million strategic investment from Aphria, as he says.

Key takeaways

• SAXX started from a personal discomfort problem on a 2007 fishing trip; Kitsch visualised the patented side panels and moved from idea to his first 200 pairs in about four months.
• He funded development by redirecting an approximately $20,000 student loan obtained against his tuition receipt, spending the first $1,500 on patterns — before any tuition or outside investment.
• Early selling was direct and scrappy: a cafeteria table, sandwich-bag packaging with printed labels, and pitching outside Lululemon on Queen Street West at a premium $25-$30 price as an attention-getter.
• Dragon’s Den was the awareness breakthrough, by his account: from roughly $1,500-$2,000 a day to about $60,000 the night the episode aired, showing the value of being ready to sell online when exposure hits.
• Kitsch credits a written, annually updated goal card (health first, then family), repeat-purchase metrics, margins (‘sell one, make two’), great partners/team, and designing businesses with an exit fit for a larger buyer.

Episode details: published October 25, 2021 · 43:00 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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