A former pro-motocross rider turned tradie earning $7-an-hour has revealed how he built his clothing company into a mega-successful global business set to be worth $100million.
Jason Daniel, 36, from Logan in Queensland is the founder of sportswear brand LSKD, short for the nickname ‘Loose Kid’ he earned with his fearless riding on BMX circuits as a youngster.
Between 2019 and this year the business has seen a meteoric rise with annual revenue surging from $1.6million to $76million – on track for $100million in 2024 – and celebrities like Hailey Bieber and Emily Ratajkowski donning the label.
The business began in 2002 as Loose Kid Industries when Daniel was 16 and working as an apprentice carpenter, though he’d been making t-shirts since he was 12 for the local BMX community. His mum bought him the LKI trademark in 2007.
Flash forward to this year and the father-of-two kids under 10 has just launched the brand in the massive US market by opening a base in San Diego, the sun-soaked southern California city the perfect match for the brand’s surf, skate and streetwear inspired roots.
Jason Daniel, CEO of LSKD, pictured with his wife Ally has turned the business into a $100million empire which has recently expanded into the US market
Celebrities like Hillary Duff, Zac Efron and Emily Ratajkowski (pictured in LSKD trackpants) are fans of the label
After years of the business as side-hustle encouraged by his surfing and BMX mates, Daniel got serious after he finished his carpentry apprenticeship in 2010 and decided it wasn’t for him.
With a broken wrist also shattering his motocross aspirations that same year, he went ‘all in’ with his clothing label.
‘My career path went from that to going, hang on, maybe this is my calling, to have a sportswear brand… I thought, I actually can do something with this – it just snapped in me,’ he told QWeekend magazine.
The n base of the company in Loganholme, south of Brisbane and on the way to the Gold Coast, is a massive warehouse complete with gym and event space and bustling with a hip staff of social-media savvy 20 and 30-somethings.
But Daniel explains it was anything but smooth ride to get to this point.
His first major purchase was a gamble, maxing out his mum’s credit card to buy 1000 blank t-shirts on which he would print his logo.
Luckily they sold, and he used that money to buy more stock, gradually grinding away to fill his mum’s house – his dad left the picture when he was 17 – with boxes and boxes of stock waiting to be printed or shipped.
He said in the early days of the businesses there were a steady stream of knockbacks but that just ‘fueled his fire’.
Eventually they invested in three shipping containers dropped into their backyard where they could store merchandise out of the way. His mother continued to work for the business handling accounts for more than a decade.
Jason and Ally pictured in the early days of the business in 2009 when it was known as Loose Kid Industries
The couple have two young children Hendrix, 5, and Freya, 2, and reside in Daisy Hill adjacent to Logan in Brisbane’s south
During the first half of the 2010s the label, then still known as LKI, was surviving and getting stocked in retailers around the country but it was also, frustratingly, not growing its bottom line.
‘The brand wasn’t doing well. We were stagnant on the same revenue … sitting on about $3million for five years,’ Daniel explains.
He told the publication that period for him personally was unfocused with his attention fragmented and an unwillingness to take on board advice from his staff.
The brand’s first expansion into online sales was a $100,000 disaster with Daniel hiring someone against the warnings of an employee to develop the webstore.
The venture failed and he later had the website redone using Shopify, though he used the experience as a learning tool and credits it as the moment he realised the success of the company depended on collaborating with his team.
That shift, combined with a period of intense personal reflection about what he wanted to achieve out of the business and where he wanted to take it, marked change of course for the company.
He began a deep dive into researching other successful business leaders, like Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, and he met with others, like Penny Skateboards founder Ben Mackay.
He read voraciously, motivational books by authors like Simon Sinek among his favourites.
By 2016 the company was growing at a rate of 15 to 30 per cent a year and by 2018 he rebranded again to LKSD after more than a decade of trial, error and learning.
Two of the hardest moments came in 2018 and 2019 when his brother and mother were made redundant, a move he deeply struggled with, especially considering their early support, but in the end felt necessary to shift the business in a new direction.
Since then the company has surfed the wave of the ‘activewear’ boom, with their ‘Rep Tight’ one of their most wildly popular items.
The company developed it’s own ‘buttery-soft fabric’ garnering it thousands of positive online reviews.
The description from the website illustrates the on-trend appeal: ‘Whether you’re pushing your limits training or just out there crushing the daily to-do list, the Rep Tight will have you sorted.’
The brand has built it’s success on a combination of a bricks-and-mortar presence in established shops and an online store, more recently venturing into their own stores
The Rep Tights are one of the company’s best sellers made from a custom ‘buttery soft’ fabric
The business now relies on a dual-channel approach to selling its products with bricks-and-mortar stores giving the brand a visible presence while the e-Commerce side showcases the entire range.
This is backed up with a sophisticated marketing strategy involving SMS messages, social media and producing its own video content to build an connected community.
Daniel credits the eventual success of the business to a willingness to accept mistakes, learn from them to improve, and to value your team.
There were weeks he didn’t pay himself to ensure they were paid.
‘The last 5 years is something that I didn’t think was possible,’ he admits.
‘It was 10 plus years before the brand actually did anything and making mistakes was the best thing I went through because it helped me keep tweaking and learning and understanding why we’re here.’
‘When you make mistakes, that’s how you get better as a team, and as long as you own those mistakes, you can constantly work on them and improve them.’