Ten Thousand started with one goal: to create the highest quality training gear without compromise. The journey over our first 12 months has taught us a tremendous number of lessons and surpassed even our most ambitious expectations. We’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response from our customers, partners, growing communities, and ever-expanding team. We’ve also, at times, been literally overwhelmed with keeping up with the pace of orders. Because you all have been so supportive and patient during our first year, we felt we owe an explanation about why we’ve had stockouts and what we’re doing to fix it.
At our launch last October, three months worth of products sold out in the first two weeks. We were stoked but also caught off guard. So we doubled the size our next production run which sold out even faster. And while being too in demand is one of the best problems going, we know from chatting with many of you that the gaps in inventory have been as frustrating for you as they have been for us. For that, we sincerely apologize. We couldn’t be more grateful for your support and want to reassure you that we’ve made some big changes to make it right.
So, what gives? Building anything from the ground up takes a lot time and the design, prototyping, testing, and production of high-quality training gear is a marathon process. We spent over a year testing hundreds of fabrics and meeting with the best mill partners in the world before deciding on our custom fabrics. We’re proud of these unique textiles, and are confident that they are the best performing in the industry, but there’s no rushing the lead time on custom designed fabrics and we simply couldn’t restock fast enough to meet rising demand.
In year two, we’re ready: we’re incorporating even better fabrics from more agile partners in France, Italy, and Japan; we’re keeping more fabrics and trims on hand so we can reduce lead times; we’re doubling our production capacity by bringing on an additional manufacturing partner in the USA; and we’re going big, with a current production run that’s larger than all previous ones combined. Plus, we’re psyched to welcome our new Head of Design from Rapha, a brand we’ve long admired for their flawless design and constant attention to detail.
With the next evolution of our gear, we’re taking an entirely new approach to developing training essentials so you can create the kit that exactly suits how you train and how you prefer your gear to fit and perform. The newest stuff will be hitting the site in the next month and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on. We hope that you'll bear with us in the meantime, sign up for product waitlists to be notified the moment products are available again, and continue to support Ten Thousand. We cannot thank you enough for everything so far.
— Keith Nowak, Co-founder & CEO
Why We’re Sold Out. And What We’re Doing to Fix It.