On a brutal August practice day at the University of Maryland, a tired fullback peeled off his soaked cotton undershirt and felt it drop in his hands like a wet towel.
Three pounds of sweat in one shirt. Chafing, heavy, sticky, slow.
In that moment he muttered to himself, “There has to be something better than this.”
That small, maddening problem became the seed of Under Armour, a global sports brand that now pulls in around $5 billion in yearly revenue and trades as a public company worth roughly $1.9 billion in market value in 2025, according to recent financial data and investor analysis from sources like Under Armour’s 2025 annual report and independent breakdowns such as this history and business model overview.
This is not a story about a perfect business plan. It is a story about a startup born from sweat, irritation, and one athlete who refused to accept “that’s just how it is.” In this post, we will walk through what happened, the key turning points, and how you can use the same mindset for your own startup, side project, or next idea.
The Sweat-Soaked Problem That Started It All
A Frustrated Fullback On a Hot Maryland Practice Field
Kevin Plank was not the star of the team. He was an undersized fullback at Maryland, known more for toughness than speed. What set him apart was his obsession with little details, especially discomfort.
Every practice, he wore the same kind of cotton undershirt that football players had worn for decades. By the end of drills, that shirt would be heavy from sweat, sometimes close to 3 pounds. It grabbed at his pads, stuck to his skin, and made every step feel harder than it needed to be.
Most players accepted it as part of the game. Sweat, soaked gear, extra weight, whatever. Plank did not. The soaked shirt did not feel like a small thing to him. It felt like a bad design choice the whole sport had simply ignored.
As the official Under Armour story from Maryland’s athletics department recalls, that frustration during two-a-day practices sparked a simple idea: if someone could build a better base layer, every athlete on the field would feel the difference.
Seeing an Everyday Annoyance as a Hidden Opportunity
At the time, major brands like Nike, Adidas, and Reebok were busy fighting over shoes, big endorsements, and changes in style. Jerseys changed. Shorts changed. Shoe tech improved.
But the simple undershirt, the layer that sat right on the skin, hardly changed at all. Cotton was the default. It soaked, dragged, and turned players into walking sponges.
Plank kept asking himself: “Why is no one making something better than this?”
He did not sit down with a polished pitch deck. He did not run market surveys. He started with a feeling he could not shake: this basic piece of gear is broken, and nobody is fixing it.
Many strong startup ideas start this way. Not from “disrupting an industry,” but from noticing some boring, constant problem that everyone has learned to ignore.
Turning Irritation Into Innovation: How the First Under Armour Shirt Was Born
Hunting for the Right Fabric With No Experience
Plank did not know anything about textile science. He knew sweat, pads, and long practices. That was it.
Instead of giving up, he turned himself into a student of the problem. In his last year of college, he drove up and down the East Coast visiting fabric warehouses. He walked past huge rolls of nylon, polyester, and spandex. He asked basic questions. He touched everything.
He did not start with fashion trends. He started with the feeling he wanted:
- Light, not heavy
- Close to the body, not loose and soggy
- Dry, not dripping by the end of practice
Over time, Plank learned the difference between fabrics that repel water and fabrics that soak it up. That search led him to synthetic microfibers usually found in women’s lingerie. They dried fast, breathed well, and did not hold sweat like cotton.
The gear that would change football did not come from a sports catalog at all. It came from a material designed for a completely different use, a detail you can also find echoed in deeper founder profiles like Kevin Plank and the Rise of Under Armour.
Building the First Prototype on a Grandmother’s Floor
With rolls of synthetic fabric in his car, Plank turned his grandmother’s townhouse in Georgetown into a tiny workshop. The floor filled with patterns, scraps, and thread.
He sketched rough designs. Local seamstresses helped him sew the first versions of what would become the classic tight Under Armour shirt.
Those early shirts were not great. Some squeezed too hard. Some rubbed and caused chafing. Some did not pull sweat away from the skin as promised.
Plank gave the prototypes to the harshest testers he could find: his old teammates and friends on college teams. They wore them in full practices and told him the truth.
- “Too tight.”
- “Feels cheap.”
- “Still soaked.”
Every complaint was data. He tweaked the fabric mix, the cut, the seams. The product was built in layers of feedback, not in a single flash of genius.
The Moment the Shirt Finally Worked On the Field
Then one day, the tests changed. Players came off the field with shirts that were still close to the body but not heavy. The fabric stayed light from the first drill to the last whistle. No balloon of sweat. No dragging cotton curtain.
That was the emotional turning point. Plank realized he had not just improved a shirt a little bit. He had rethought what a base layer could do for performance.
When your product matches a user’s lived experience that well, adoption speeds up. People talk. They do the marketing for you.
From Car Trunk Sales To Billion-Dollar Empire
Selling From the Trunk: One Team, One Equipment Manager at a Time
With a working product, Plank had to figure out how to sell it. He loaded boxes into the trunk of his Ford Taurus and drove from campus to campus.
His pitch was simple and confident: “Try it. If you don’t like it, you don’t pay.”
Athletes felt the difference right away. Instead of peeling off soggy cotton, they finished practice feeling lighter. Equipment managers heard fewer complaints about gear and noticed players staying more comfortable in brutal heat.
Plank’s “warehouse” was still his grandmother’s basement, stuffed with boxes, labels, and handwritten invoices. He was the sales team, shipping department, and customer support all in one.
The lesson for any startup is clear. You do not need fancy offices. You need a product that solves a sharp problem and the grit to put it into people’s hands one conversation at a time.
The Breakthrough Orders From College Teams and the NFL
Momentum built slowly, then faster.
Early purchase orders from programs like Georgia Tech, Arizona State, and NC State turned Under Armour from a side project into a real supplier for serious football teams. That story is laid out in detail in startup profiles like the Under Armour startup story on Fundable.
NFL equipment managers took notice. Pro players wanted a layer that stayed dry under heavy pads during hot games. Plank started sending samples, taking calls, and filling small but important orders.
Visibility skyrocketed when teams wearing Under Armour showed up in bowl games and on national TV. Tight, sleek shirts peeked out from under jerseys. No logo explanation needed. Fans and other players saw the gear in real competition.
Then came the film Any Given Sunday. Plank worked to get Under Armour on the actors who played elite football stars. It was not an ad in the classic sense. It was storytelling. The brand showed up in a world of speed and power, which did more for its image than any print campaign could have.
Protect This House: Building a Brand Athletes Would Bleed For
Under Armour was never just about dry shirts. It was about how you see yourself as an athlete.
The tagline “Protect This House” locked into that feeling. It did not talk about winning trophies. It spoke about defending your team, your gym, your standard, with raw effort and discipline.
Where Nike often celebrated the glory of victory and Adidas leaned into nostalgia and heritage, Under Armour talked about sweat, grind, and pain in practice. The brand gave a voice to athletes who felt they earned their edge through work, not hype.
That message made high school and college players feel seen. Wearing the logo felt like saying, “I outwork people.” The shirt became a symbol, not just a garment.
Brand stories like Under Armour’s own 25-year reflection show how much the company still leans on that identity of grit and focus.
IPO, Global Growth, And The Challenges of Success
From 1996 to the mid-2000s, revenue climbed from thousands of dollars to hundreds of millions. In 2005, Under Armour went public. Within a few more years, annual revenue crossed the billion-dollar line, then grew into the multi-billion range.
The company expanded from base layers into cold-weather gear, compression wear, footwear, and even digital fitness platforms. By 2025, Under Armour generates about $5 billion in yearly revenue across apparel, footwear, and accessories, as confirmed by its recent investor reports and financial releases.
Rapid growth came with new problems. Supply chains got more complex. The brand had to fight in crowded lifestyle and athleisure categories. It had to battle the full product engines of Nike and Adidas across the globe.
There were leadership changes and strategy shifts, but Kevin Plank’s focus on performance products and better technology stayed at the core. Scale changed the company, yet the original idea still mattered: build gear that makes athletes better, not just better dressed.
What This Story Teaches You About Finding and Building Your Own Startup Idea
Start With a Real Problem You Feel in Your Own Life
Plank did not start with a spreadsheet. He started with a soaked shirt that drove him crazy every practice.
Your best startup idea may come the same way. Look at your own habits, hobbies, and work. Where do you keep thinking, “There has to be a better way”?
Ask yourself:
- What tool makes you swear under your breath each week?
- Where do you waste time doing the same annoying workaround?
- What do people in your niche complain about, then shrug off as “normal”?
Strong ideas usually come from simple, specific problems, not from trying to chase a vague “huge market.”
Become a Student of the Problem, Not Just the Product
Plank learned about hydrophobic fibers, moisture behavior, and fabric structure because he needed to understand why cotton failed. He went far beyond “make a better shirt” and studied what “better” really meant on the field.
If you want to build something meaningful, you need that same depth. Talk to users. Read technical articles. Watch people work. Break the problem apart.
Before you worry about brand colors or social media handles, make sure you understand the mechanics behind the issue you want to solve better than almost anyone else in your circle.
Also read: Dr Pepper: How a Waco Soda Fountain Startup Became a Global Icon
Build Small, Test Fast, And Let Real Users Shape the Product
The first Under Armour shirts were not pretty. They were prototypes.
Plank gave them to people who cared a lot about the problem and could not afford weak gear: serious athletes. Their blunt feedback shaped version after version until the shirt worked under real pressure.
You can follow the same approach:
- Make a simple version.
- Get it to people who feel the pain every day.
- Ask sharp questions, not “Do you like it?”
- Improve it, then repeat.
Polish can come later. Early on, real-world performance matters more than having everything look perfect.
Sell Directly To the People Who Feel the Pain the Most
Plank did not start by pitching random retailers. He went to equipment managers, coaches, and players, the people who woke up drenched in sweat and gear every day.
For your startup, name the tiny group that feels the problem the hardest. That is your best starting market.
Know who hurts, know how they talk about that pain, then speak their language. Their results are your best proof when you go to the next group.
Build a Story and Identity, Not Just a Product
“Protect This House” turned a moisture-wicking shirt into a badge for athletes who pride themselves on effort. It told them, “This is for people like you.”
Ask yourself:
- What kind of person uses your product?
- What does it say about them?
- What belief are they proud to show the world?
Use simple, clear language that mirrors how your customers already talk. In a crowded market, a strong identity often matters as much as features.
My Personal Take: How This Story Shapes The Way I Think About Startups
The Moment I Started Treating Annoyances Like Startup Clues
When I first read the Under Armour story, I saw my own habits in a new way. I used to complain about tiny work problems, then move on.
One example: I had a messy process for tracking content ideas. Notes were scattered across apps, email drafts, and random documents. I wasted time every week trying to remember half-finished thoughts. It annoyed me, but I shrugged it off.
After learning how Plank treated his soaked shirt as a clue, not just a hassle, I changed how I saw these moments. Now, when something frustrates me more than twice, I write it down. I ask, “Who else feels this, and could this be the start of a product?”
Most of those notes go nowhere, and that is fine. The shift is that I now see irritation as a signal, not just a mood.
How I Now Test Ideas Like a Locker Room Prototype
I also changed how I test ideas. I used to polish things in private for months, trying to get them “ready.” By the time I showed anyone, feedback hurt, because it meant a huge redo.
Now I treat ideas more like those early Under Armour shirts. I build a small version, show it to people who feel the problem the most, and invite blunt feedback.
Sometimes that means sharing a rough Google Doc with a few founders who care about startup storytelling. Other times it means sending a simple tool to a small group and asking, “What broke? What annoyed you?”
It feels uncomfortable, but it saves a lot of time. And it makes the final version stronger, because real users helped shape it.
Conclusion: Your Next Startup Might Be Hiding in Plain Sight
Under Armour started with a soaked cotton t-shirt on a hot practice field and a college fullback who refused to accept that misery as normal. From that moment came a new kind of base layer, sales out of a car trunk, a bold message in “Protect This House,” and a global sports brand worth billions in revenue.
The core lessons are simple: notice real problems you feel in your own life, study them deeply, build small and test fast, sell to people who truly care, and build a story that matches how they see themselves. When those pieces line up, a small irritation can grow into a powerful startup story.
Before you move on with your day, grab a notebook or open a note on your phone. Write down one frustrating problem you faced today, then list three simple ways you could start exploring it, even if it is just research or a tiny prototype. Your version of that sweat-soaked shirt might be closer than you think.
0 Comments