Driftline

Overview
Business Strategy
Ecommerce GTM
Visual Identity
Creative Direction

Role
Co-Founder, COO
Aug 2017 - Present

Watersports became a passion of mine during my time living in San Diego. I was working as a kayak tour guide while getting my post-grad design degree, and was surfing every day as part of that “California lifestyle.”

As I looked to upgrade my gear, I realized that performance apparel in that space has lacked innovation for decades. This led to a lightbulb moment on the beach for a signature garment concept of a wetsuit lined boardshort called Drifties™. It was then & there that my friend and I decided to bring this idea to market, and co-founded Driftline as a brand that would go out and disrupt a stale industry.

Bringing the fight to a legacy doorstep.

Ever since I was a kid, I was always drawn to action sports like skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, and the like. The sponsoring brands like Hurley, Billabong, and O’Neill were household names, and surprisingly still are in the extreme sports world.

After so many years of product advancements across every other industry though, these legacy brands have rested on their laurels and not made any notable garment innovations for their end users. Competitive research showed me that if anything, companies were just adjusting past designs or stitching things a bit differently, and then marketing it as a unique item.

I knew Driftline could actually provide an industry advancement, so I brought this into my design program to help launch the idea in a structured school project. I was able to design a distinct visual identity, while going through the UI/UX process of building out wireframes and a sitemap for the eventual ecommerce store.

At the same time, I was going through a makeshift “accelerated” fashion design program where I was learning the ins-and-outs of measuring, stitching, and developing the Drifties apparel concept that exists today. By the end of my semester, I had the first samples in-hand and enough of a brand foundation to get us to launch.

Initial logo concepts

Wireframe renderings & refined website mockup

Think wetsuit-meets-boardshort.

Driftline’s GTM (go-to-market) plan was centered around a D2C ecommerce store to drive sales, while getting into local watersport shops to help us reach our target persona – men aged 21-35 with a passion for surfing – right there in San Diego.

Even though I knew the brand needed work, we found that many men were searching for “lined boardshorts” as a chafing solution, which was exactly what we created Drifties for – and something we calculated into our SEO strategy. Sales naturally spiked, and the amount of organic traffic we received was enough to sell us out within the first year!

We’ve learned so much about our customer base since then, which has led to a natural evolution and maturation of the brand and its patented product. I now design our products to reflect the styles of men aged 28-45 who are past the flashy colors of their youth. Our digital presence and brand voice speaks to aintellectual modern man who will pay a premium in order to support his pastimes, while having a lot of fun doing it. And our global marketing strategy is focused on the support of influencers across social media channels, who live the actual lifestyle that we support and incorporate natural product placement within their posts.

Driftline remains a fun side project for both myself and my business partner, but we’re proud to have achieved YoY sales growth since inception, while reaching industry-leading digital benchmarks across conversion rates, ROAS, CAC, and more. The company has also enjoyed prominent coverage on ABC’s Shark Tank (May 2022), and across notable publications such as Forbes, Outside Magazine, The Inertia, San Diego Magazine, and more.