Introduction
Discover how Jason Daniel transformed LSKD from a struggling business stuck at $3 million annual revenue for 5 years to a thriving $100 million+ fitness brand in just 4 years. In this exclusive interview, Jason shares the pivotal moments, core values, and strategic decisions that fueled LSKD’s remarkable growth journey in the competitive athletic apparel industry.
Founder Success Story QnA
Where I’d love to start is if you could boil down your childhood into a couple of key moments that made you the person you are today, what would they be?
I grew up racing motocross but before that I grew up riding BMX. The story is quite crazy because my parents own a plant nursery and I grew up working there. We had five acres, a big plant nursery, and on Sundays we’d do the markets. I was working at a young age, I don’t know how old I was but I must have been six or seven. I had to work to get my first motocross bike and I couldn’t afford one, so I had to work. I was working in my parents’ plant nursery from getting cuttings and knocking on people’s doors and asking if I can cut some of these certain trees down to trim up their yard, then we would take them home and repot them and then we would go to the markets on a Sunday and sell them. I think those are the moments where it was like I had to work for something if I wanted it.
For those that don’t know, what is lskd and what’s the mission you’re on?
LSKD is a functional fitness brand, we have a slight street aesthetic to what we do. Our mission is to inspire people to be 1% better every day and we really try to create sportswear products. We create a lot of our own fabrics and our raw materials and are really obsessed with women’s leggings and fabric fit and function. Whatever decision we make we always go back to how do we inspire people to be 1% better every day.
Do you have a story where you can remember the impact of creating your brand when you started to first see the scale of the clothing outdoors?
There’s been so many moments. I actually had a conversation with someone this week and they were down in California and it was their first sighting of LSKD in America. Our brand is really starting to grow within the US community. We have a team in San Diego and a small team based in Austin Texas as well. They said it was the first time they saw it in the wild and I was like that’s so cool. Our New Zealand community is growing and we opened our first store at the end of last year in Takapuna in Auckland and there was over 700 in the lineup in the rain. It was like wow this is so crazy, like we’re in New Zealand.
The reality of the space you entered is there’s fierce competition. What are the key things you had to do to create such cut-through with the different stages of your journey?
Starting in action sports in the early days came from a passion of being involved in action sports. I was not looking for a market fit, it was like we naturally did this sport every day so we were like let’s create product for the athletes. When we transitioned to LSKD it was a similar approach. In the early days I used to spend too much time worrying about what everyone else is doing. We have a quote in our office that says we don’t have competition, we set the standard. It was more to say like let’s focus on what we’re doing for our community and how we create product for them instead of getting caught up in what everyone else is doing.
Was that language (referring to customers as “community members”) something that was really intentional and do you think there’s a big difference that is created having those different language pieces throughout your business?
It was intentional but it happened naturally. It happened from years of learning and being in the industry. I always remember hearing things like oh the punters are coming today and I was like God that’s such a harsh word isn’t it. I don’t like being called customer, so we just kind of said let’s change it and just you know they’re community members they’re not customers. We created our own language within it but we felt it fit into the community and ourselves as a brand. We changed our customer service department to community experience and that was a team effort.
How do you use the discipline of “1% better every day” in your own life? What are the practical things you’re doing to kind of be true to that value?
Growing up being an aspiring athlete I created a fair bit of discipline from getting up early to go to work and having to train at certain times. I love setting goals, we do a lot of vision and goals here at LSKD as a team. Part of my goals this year is to do Fit Us in the city, Turf games, High Rocks in March, and I want to run a sub 8 minute half marathon at Melbourne. That gives me that discipline within my life, okay ice bath every morning, put a book on, set my alarm at 4:00 a.m., get up, ice bath, have a book on, listen to one, stretch, have a coffee. I’m either training at 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. pending. Having those goals and a lot of them are fitness goals because I think if you’ve got goals in fitness, it’s good for your mindset and life in general.
Can you think of any 1% that lskd has done that’s made disproportionate impact?
It’s a great question because there’s so many little things we do as a team every single day from how we build the brand that makes such a big impact over time. COVID was one of those moments. We were already in our place as a brand, we’d found our why, we’d learned e-commerce, and then COVID came and so many brands boomed. We were lucky enough we’d already started growing before COVID but COVID sped so many brands up. We’re very grateful that we’ve kept growing post-COVID. It’s those little things you do every day and when you’re having bad days you do them or you do something that helps you move forward slightly.
What’s the principle or practice that you do to get feedback from the community that practically helps you iterate to best serve them?
We have a community group on Facebook that’s over 995,000 members. It’s awesome and we have a team that really focuses hard on always learning and getting feedback. That’s one channel where we’re always listening and learning. We ask feedback, we drop product in there of what they think. We have 17 retail stores now and opening a lot more this year, so we’re always getting feedback from community in the stores firsthand from our team on the ground. Then our athletes, our team in house, our local gyms, so there’s so many different avenues we’re able to get feedback from when we’re creating product or things that we can improve.
What are the key things you think helped lskd stand out as a brand and have the growth you’ve had over the last five years?
There’s digital marketing that does play a big part for brands and I learned how to run ads, but it’s one part of marketing. What do you stand for and what are you trying to achieve? You’ve got your product and how do you bring the two together. We have a lot of amazing athletes through train and run within functional fitness, they’re awesome. You’ve got events, we’ve got our retail stores, they build communities within themselves which is so awesome and is marketing as well. There’s so many layers to it that what we do to build a brand and it takes time. If you’re too reliant on digital marketing, you can ride that gravy train but if you haven’t built brand through these different layers, it doesn’t have as much impact.
What do you think the thing that you’ll need to change about yourself that will make the biggest impact to get you to where you need to go?
I’ve got a lot to learn. Not only developing as a leader but as the company grows, Christmas time we just shy 500 team members. The team is really growing, especially with retail. How do I keep developing as a leader and improving? Making sure we’re big on reading and we pay for our team’s audible account. We’re very passionate about how we develop our team internally with goal setting and courses. How do we develop our team and I’m very passionate about that. I spend a lot of time thinking about how can we keep developing our team internally and develop their careers. In 20 years time, are they the next CEO of LSKD? That really inspires me.
What’s the key changes in your life been since you’ve had kids?
I genuinely think that having kids is why we’re in this position as a brand. We changed the company in September 2018, my son Hendrick was 6 months old. There was no guaranteed LSKD was going to work and it was quite tough. It was like wow I’m in the real world now, we’ve got kids and it humbled me. If we didn’t have kids we wouldn’t be in this position as a brand. It really just made me appreciate a lot more, it changes you for the better and it gives you a lot of purpose.
It’s 20 years from today, I’m sitting across from your kids and I asked them what’s the biggest value that your dad instilled with you. What do you reckon they’d say?
I’d like to think partly the LSKD values – sweep the sheds, humility, the willingness to learn and develop, 1% better. Those little things I’d like to think that I’d hopefully instilled that into them. It’s a great question I’ve never been asked that. I’ve never actually thought about that. I didn’t come up with the values at LSKD, we came up with it as a team, but I make decisions and live and breathe them and that goes back to my personal life as well. How I am at home is how I am at the office like it doesn’t change.
As you reflect on the journey that’s been, what are you most proud of?
I’m really proud of the fact that I stuck this journey out. There was times where I was like why am I doing this. The oi days it sounds easy to say it now but there was times it was just tough. We were stuck on around $3 million a year for about 5 years and it was like what are we doing wrong here, why aren’t we growing. I’m very proud of sticking the journey out and going actually like how do we make this work. It wasn’t about the money, it wasn’t about the growth, it was seeing something succeed. I’m also now most proud of what we’re creating as a team. I want to look back in 20 years time and the brand that we’ve created is still firing based on the why and the product we’re creating.
Jason Daniel Business Stats
Jason Daniel transformed LSKD from a struggling business to a thriving $100 million+ fitness apparel empire in just 4 years. Here are some key stats that highlight the remarkable growth of this Australian brand:
- Grew from $3 million annual revenue to over $100 million in just 4 years
- Expanded from a small online store to 17 retail locations across Australia and New Zealand
- Built a community of nearly 1 million members in their Facebook group
- Grew the team from 12 members to nearly 500 employees
- Successfully expanded into the US market with teams in San Diego and Austin
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2007 (full-time) |
| Annual Revenue (2018) | $3 million |
| Annual Revenue (2022) | $100+ million |
| Team Size | Nearly 500 |
| Retail Stores | 17 locations |
Jason Daniel Method
Jason’s approach to building LSKD centers on authenticity, community focus, and continuous improvement. Here are the key elements of his method that drove extraordinary growth:
- Finding and committing to a clear mission: “inspire people to be 1% better every day”
- Focusing on product quality and innovation with custom fabrics and designs
- Building authentic community connections rather than treating customers as transactions
- Creating multiple brand touchpoints through retail stores, athlete partnerships, and events
- Maintaining company values like “sweep the sheds” – no one is too big to do the small things
Jason Daniel Tools
Jason leverages a combination of personal development tools and business systems to maintain growth and innovation at LSKD. His approach emphasizes continuous learning and team development:
- Personal development courses like Landmark Forum that sparked his transformational journey
- Toastmasters Club to improve public speaking and communication skills
- Business and leadership books that shaped his management philosophy
- Audible accounts for the entire team to encourage continuous learning
- Vision and goal-setting frameworks for 1, 5, and 10-year planning
Key Notes
The LSKD success story offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses. Here are the most important takeaways from Jason’s journey:
- Sticking through tough times is crucial – LSKD was stagnant at $3M revenue for 5 years before their breakthrough
- Finding your “why” creates authentic brand positioning that resonates with customers
- Building community rather than customer bases creates loyal brand advocates
- Creating multiple brand touchpoints reduces dependency on any single marketing channel
- Investing in team development and culture scales the business beyond the founder’s personal capacity
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
Entrepreneurs looking to replicate Jason’s success can follow these five essential steps to build their own thriving brand:
- Define your mission and values – create a clear purpose that guides all business decisions
- Focus intensely on product quality and differentiation in your market
- Build authentic community connections through multiple channels (online, retail, events)
- Embrace continuous learning and personal development for yourself and your team
- Stay committed through challenging times – most breakthroughs come after periods of struggle
Conclusion
Jason Daniel’s journey with LSKD demonstrates the power of persistence, purpose-driven branding, and community focus in building a remarkable business. From struggling at $3 million annual revenue for five years to breaking through to over $100 million, his story offers valuable lessons for entrepreneurs across all industries. By staying true to their mission of inspiring people to be 1% better every day, building authentic community connections, and continuously improving their products and processes, LSKD has positioned itself for continued growth and impact in the competitive fitness apparel market.