It was when Anam Khalid and Wajdan Gul realised they were spending a lot of money to secure the international athletic wear they were fond of, that the husband and wife team came up with Squatwolf, a Dubai-born and designed active-wear brand.
Launched in 2016, Squatwolf is now available in over 120 countries, giving the duo a serious opportunity to make their mark on the $350 billion activewear market with its clothing.
In a wide-reaching interview, Gul told Arabian Business about expansion plans for Squatwolf – which include opening up international fulfilment centres – and its funding journey, sharing his lessons learned along the way.
When and how did the idea for Squatwolf come about?
When you start following these fitness trainers and influencers online you see them wearing a lot of homegrown, community-based activewear brands. Being gym addicts ourselves, we used to order a lot of gym gear from all the international brands.
On top of paying for the actual gear, we used to pay heavy international shipping charges, customs duties, taxes and then wait for days (sometimes weeks) to receive the order. If the gear we ordered didn’t fit, we had to request an exchange, pay the shipping again and wait for weeks. It was all in all a very disappointing and tiring process to order our favourite gear.
That’s when it struck us: why isn’t there a single brand manufactured in the Middle East region? We set out to challenge the status quo and offer gym gear with similar best in class quality, but most importantly, gear that dominates in the style department.
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Wajdan Gul, co-founder and CEO of Squatwolf.
We had no experience designing, manufacturing, marketing or selling activewear, but we had the vision to create the best activewear brand. We started doing research and meeting activewear designers, fabric suppliers, manufacturers, industry experts to learn about activewear business. Eventually, after eight months of running around, we created our first line with only six styles. We sold out two of them during the pre-order phase. As they say, the rest is history!
Walk us through your funding journey. Where did the initial funds come from?
We both used to have full-time jobs but always wanted to do more with our life and leave a legacy behind, something we created with our vision and hard work.
With this goal in mind, we invested all our savings into Squatwolf. With our savings, we were able to get a team together to design and produce our first collection and launch the brand in 2016.
We got the proof of concept within 12 months of operations as we were selling through the UAE. In mid-2017, we raised seed investment from our long-time friends at Disrupt.com. This helped us grow the brand further across the GCC and launch even more innovative products.
Squatwolf is a profitable business now and we have been self-funding our growth through profits and partnering with financial institutions.
Being in a non-sector hasn’t been a big challenge for Squatwolf primarily because of investors’ increased focus on direct-to-consumer brands and ecommerce as a whole.
What are your expansion plans?
We are building strong foundations by hiring the best talent in the activewear and apparel industry to help support our growth for the next five years.
We are now designing products for the global market. With customers already in over 120 countries, we will be extensively focusing on expanding the brand further in the USA, UK, Europe and Asia till 2023.
We are working with our international partners to extend our reach around the world and be close to our customers. We will be opening up international fulfilment centres in 2022 to serve our global customers faster.
With a significant portion of revenue already coming from wholesale, retail and distribution, we will be doubling down on the growth of these channels in 2022.
We will be expanding our successful community model and blueprint around the world to support global athletes in our Tier 1 international markets.
What advice would you give entrepreneurs in your field?
E-commerce is getting very competitive every day. Do not just enter into the e-commerce or activewear industry as a shortcut to success. Be ready to put all your resources, time and energy into the business for the first two-to-three years. You will need to be very patient, consistent and persistent.
Do extensive research on what you are getting yourself into. Sit with the industry leaders, talk to them about common problems and challenges.
Find a non-competitive niche in your local market. Capitalise and then grow internationally.
Try to find at least two marketing channels that bring in the best results. Focus and grow them for at least the first year. Don’t spread yourself too much too early.
Don’t go after big international social media influencers to promote your brand in the beginning. Look for hyper-local influencers who would most probably promote your brand for free and bring in better results.
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