Episode 318 - Reinventing the Basics: Tommy John's Tom Patterson
What happens when a medical device salesman gets fed up with his undershirt? For Tommy John founder Tom Patterson, it sparked a revolution in the men's comfort wear industry. From a $7,000 trade show investment during the 2008 financial crisis to a multimillion-dollar brand, Patterson's journey showcases how faith, persistence, and authenticity can transform a simple solution into an industry-changing success story.
Tom's background growing up in small-town Milbank, South Dakota
Early entrepreneurial experiences: lawn mowing, snow shoveling businesses
Career progression from DHL to medical device sales
Tommy John's origin story: the ill-fitting undershirt problem
Initial $7,000 investment in Las Vegas trade show
Breaking into Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom
Innovative packaging approach using "Tiffany blue" to stand out
Partnership with wife Aaron in building the business
Role of faith in business decisions and company culture
Recent baptism experience and impact on business perspective
Focus on authentic problem-solving and treating people "like Jesus would"
Evolution from product-focused to purpose-driven leadership
Importance of taking action alongside prayer
Balance of marriage and business partnership
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Justin Forman: All right, guys, welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. It is always a joy to be with you. It is a joy to reconnect with family every week here on this podcast, in a movement that stretches far and wide for so many different countries, so many different places, so many different industries and stories, and always fun to have these family reunions once a week here. And speaking of family reunions, it is super great to have just a wonderful co-host. You're back on the podcast with us, welcoming back one of the OGs from the beginning. William Norvell, great to have you back here on the podcast.
William Norvell: It's good to be here, brother. It's good to be here. Always a gift. I wonder if Alabama to seven or no, if I would have have been extended the invite to come back. But I'll take it. We lose Devante, I get a call. I don't think it's a coincidence, but, you know, we'll just chalk it up to You wanted to see me again?
Justin Forman: You know, there's conspiracy theories floating all around, and so maybe that's one believe it or believe a.com or whatever it is with the website that you might use to disprove your theories. We'll leave that up to another day. But, man, so good to have you back. It's good to be here. I know that you've been on the entrepreneurial journey yourself. It's been fun to hear the updates, been fun to follow from a distance, but I can give a really quick update what life has been like for you and the journey that you've been on.
William Norvell: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it's been so much fun, actually. Speaking of family reunions, my co-founder just called me this morning on the way back from the high tech prayer breakfast in D.C. and Henry was the keynote. So we're everywhere now, which is really fun, he said. Henry gave an amazing talk, as usual, about trying to follow the Lord on these journeys, which is what we love to talk about. And so for me, yeah, it's been super fun. We are over three years into Forte, if anyone's listening, you remember when we started this company over three years ago and I'll tell the God story because that's what we're here for. It's amazing where God is taking us. So we're still together. We're still going. Probably the coolest thing, Justin, that has come up and we get to partner together on this conference here February 20th. So we'll name drop the pastor Entrepreneur conference. But we have been pulled into serving the church, which we did not start out planning to do. And so there's a story of verticals that you don't see coming is the macro story, right? We started out and we've been serving schools and frontline workforces, really high burnout industries for a long time with our soul care product. If you don't know what we do, we build the training program, we train people, we call them guides. We come alongside people in their life and give them a sacred space to talk about life, work and everything in between. And we also produce content. And so we started attacking some of these high burnout industries, health care, education and frontline workers. I think Jersey Mike's, Chick-Fil-A, two Planet Fitness and the vertical that came out of nowhere about a year ago, a frequent podcast guest as well, Peter Greer from Hope International.
William Norvell (continued): We started a conversation in a conference and he said, Hey man, I'd love to give this a shot. I think our people could use it. And over 12 months, I'll say it publicly because I've told Peter privately we make very little money on Peter's contract, we'll put it that way. And so it was a great signal to the market that the Christian nonprofit space was a great opportunity. And then a church planner friend of mine as well came along and said, Hey, I've got 50 church plans going on. Would you be able to come alongside them? They're lonely and they're burned out. And we said, Sure, not really what we do, but we will. And it's gone amazing. And so now, 12 months later, fast forward, we were serving over 5 or 600 churches now and Christian nonprofits and coming alongside given them and their whole staff and their spouses and their families and their elder board, in some cases, a chance to have a place to process all the God's doing in their life. So it's a journey, as we always say. It's a journey. I'm gifted at people like you and people on the podcast along because you just never know where God's going to take you and you got to be ready to jump on.
Justin Forman: Yeah, those God winks or sliding door moments of life. They're fun to see and just fun to see innovation that's happening, the thinking, bringing new intentionality of how do we care for people and love that, like the heartbeat of being there for people and all those different industries in the vertical, as you said, the winding path and journey that brings us together. It's always fun when we get a taste of that also on the podcast. And so as we introduce today's guests, fun to see how Brad will make a great friend in the movement in the ministry for so many years in the work that what he's done has connected us to a new friend and want to welcome to the podcast, Tom Patterson. Welcome to the show.
Tom Patterson: Hey, thanks for having me, guys. Excited to be here.
Justin Forman: Yeah, well, it's great to have you here. The booming Metropolis City, Country Nation, whatever. We're referring to Austin these days, as fast as it's growing fun to see just what God's doing in your story and to get a little glimpse of that. And, you know, for those listening to the first time, some of these podcast episodes are discussion oriented and some of these kind of focus a little bit more on the story, and I think we're going to do a little bit of both today. But one of the things we love to do is just to hear some of the winding journey that God kind of takes us on and just kind of how ideas origination kind of starts and some of those unexpected moments. So, Tom, one of the ways that we kind of frame things up is kind of who are you? Where do you come from? What's your story? So give us a little bit of an insight on kind of how this journey started for you.
Tom Patterson: Yeah, so. William, you mentioned. Are you an Alabama alumni?
William Norvell: I am.
Tom Patterson: Well, maybe it's a story for another day, but I grew up in a small town, Melbourne, South Dakota. 3000 people grew up on 312 South fourth Street. Fun fact is, coach Caleb de Boer grew up at 301 South Fourth Street. It's become a great friend of mine. So small world for sure. But you know, I grew up in small town sports. My family ran a fourth generation funeral home business, funeral home furniture store, ambulance service, and just kind of down to earth, real nice mannered, genuine, honest people, really that small town you think about when you watch movies and TV shows like Friday Night Lights or even Six Feet Under or My Girl.
So grew up in an environment just where hard work was expected, middle class life. You know, a lot of people say middle class is the toughest class to get out of. I would say maybe we are a lower or upper middle class during different times of my childhood, but I had businesses in the summer. I had snow blowing and shovel sidewalks before school and after school. We were really just finding different ways to make money, knocking on doors in the springtime, asking people if they needed some of the mother lawn or let me do a test mow to see if it's worthy of what I would charge them. And, you know, little did I know I was learning a lot of sales skills, communication, selling my services that really I think were kind of foundational things to where I ended up going later in life.
After high school, I went to Arizona State, graduated in four years, which is very unusual school like that. And then I got into corporate transportation sales at DHL, which was formerly Airborne Express. So hard business to business sales, which led to medical device sales. Think of Will Smith in the Pursuit of Happiness. I wasn't selling bone scanners, but I was selling pulse oximeters. These sensors that go on your fingers, ears, nose, forehead, measure, measure your oxygen saturation and heart rate and was really foundational in a lot of ways which led to underwear and undershirts, which we'll get to next. But the skills I learned translated really well into the world of underwear, which a lot of people wouldn't think, but it was selling a product and a concept. So I would say to anybody, sales experience only accelerates and helps you wherever you go. And like nothing in this world starts without a sale, you know? And I've always been interested in it, enjoyed it.
Justin Forman: Love that perspective. I mean, when we start talking about faith driven students, we talked about next generation. I love what you're unpacking. There is in this highly digital world, we talk about A.I., we talk about machine learning. You talk about some of the core fundamentals of life experiences that you can find all around you that can lead you into such great things. So taking some of those first steps, and when we think about first steps, I think oftentimes we think that there's like this massive, beautiful, wonderful yellow brick road that leads us to this moment of innovation. But for you, I love this idea that, you know, there really never was a perfect time to start a business. But in the scale of things, you also kind of had this idea and this origination. It started in a uniquely inverse season of kind of when you guys started this venture.
Tom Patterson: Yeah, that's right. You know, back in 2007, there was a show called The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on MSNBC. It was almost what Shark Tank has become now. And they had entrepreneurs and inventors come on the show who had created things like magnetic collar stays that keep your collar from flipping up or, you know, Spanx, which has become a very big brand. And I thought, well, what's a problem that I can solve that's authentic and genuine to me? So I get up every day and I think like, is it a cell phone cover? Is it a wine glass? It could have been anything else that stretches. And one day I got out of my car and my dress shirts were being tailored and my suits were fitted, but my undershirts were baggy and boxy, and they'd stretch out and come untucked. And I thought, Man, why doesn't anyone make an undershirt that's longer, doesn't shrink, the collar doesn't get stretched out, it stays tucked in, it doesn't yellow as quickly?
I couldn't find it anywhere. So I thought, well, I'll go buy some fabric in downtown Los Angeles in the garment district, 100 bucks, take it to a tailor at a dry cleaners, 50 bucks, see if the concept works. And I remember bringing it in. I'm like, Man, I have this unique idea. Is she going to steal it? And she, the seamstress at the dry cleaner's first thing she says, she's like, Why would you want to make a men's undershirt that looks like a dress? It goes past your butt. It's so long. Who's going to wear something like that? I'm like, probably just me.
And, you know, I just wanted to see if the idea worked. It stayed tucked in. It's hidden. Nobody's going to see it. But I wanted something functionally that was more comfortable, which led to me being more confident and more put together. So it wasn't like we had a huge business plan, hired these technical designers that had all these specific mathematical ratios. We didn't know what we didn't know. But my wife had started a business called Organic Kids selling household cleaners, organic skin care products. I saw her, Aaron, build a website and just observing that, it really inspired me to think, Well, I want to do something. What's my idea going to be? So she in a lot of ways gave me the confidence and I think ambition to get going there.
Tom Patterson (continued): But, you know, I think a lot of people think it has to be done a perfect way or you have to know the right people or have the right network or the right experience. And I think a lot of times in times of rapid change, especially like we're going through today, experience can be your biggest enemy. And, you know, not knowing what we didn't know, we didn't have bias for what we were about to get into, you know, the next 16 plus years.
Long story short, I made the undershirt. I did everything I thought it would do. Seven out of ten guys who I trust are really close friends, I said, Hey, I'm sending you something. Let me know what you think. And they all called back a week later and they're like, Dude, if you make more of these, I'll buy like 5 or 10 of them. So I thought, All right, I'm on to something, at least with my friends, because these guys would say like, Hey, this is a bad idea, or, Hey, get going. So I went up to downtown Los Angeles, found a manufacturer who could make a couple hundred of them and spent all day with them learning how to make patterns and technical design for the sizes small to extra large. And built a two page PayPal checkout website in spring of 2008. You know, I wish Shopify existed back then, but it didn't. Did the modeling on a roof of my friend's apartment in San Diego. And you know, I look at those pictures today and it literally looks like the iPod one. If we're on the iPhone six or just like things evolve over time and get better. But, you know, that was really how we started. So there wasn't you know, I would say so many people spend time, it's got to be 100%, 70% perfect, just get going and things will evolve. It never ends up being exactly what you think about at that moment in time. And that mindset has really replicated itself along our journey.
Justin Forman: I love that. I love that there was a book I read probably around some LA times. I read Seth Godin book, I think it was talking about shipping it and talking about this concept of like, get it to that point, ship it, let the market give you that feedback and do it. I love that element. I love the grassroots nature. I love what you said about just how we didn't have the bias of experience kind of working against you. So oftentimes we think that we need it to work for us, but there's a reality that it can work against us if we kind of have too much thought that we kind of get locked up into it. So when does this point become when does it tip? So you go from a people we've talked about I mean, I think you're talking about 27, 28. I mean, that's a crazy time. What's happening in the country? What was the thing that kind of pushed you over the edge?
Tom Patterson: Yeah, I mean, I remember vividly, you know, we launched our website in April 2008. In October of 2008, I got laid off my medical sales job. The company didn't get an FDA approval. They had to lay off some of their sales force. And I had already started Tommy John on the side on the weekends and doing it during not my full time job. And I read an article that said the best time to start a company is during a recession. And it's a witness. Remember in the fall of 2008, that's when the financial crisis began, the housing market crashed and the retail recession followed. And I thought, like, man, I have this product I think everybody needs, but they don't know they need it yet. And I don't want to be this could have would have should a guy. I'm not married. I don't have kids. I don't own a home. If I lose everything, I can always go back and get another job in medical sales. I liked it. I was good at it. But man, I just wanted to take a big swing in life and see where I could go and where I could take an idea.
And we ended up getting launched into - I got a meeting with a buyer at Neiman Marcus. I went down and presented and they decided to put us in 15 stores later in 2009, and we sold through 60% of our inventory in the first 30 days. We ended up going into all their stores and I went to Nordstrom a month later and said, Let me prove to you we can replicate this formula. And we went from 5 to 109 Nordstrom stores over the next nine months and it was just flying by the seat of our pants in a lot of ways, to be honest. Like we didn't even have a technical design for our products like I was, for the most part, the dimensions of a fit model which worked to our benefit, like literally try them on in our factory, be like, They look pretty good. Yeah, I don't think there's any issues.
So we were in these great retailers and we had not done so many different things. And I think about that. I'm like, Was that just luck or was that really faith? You know, like, why do those things happen? You know, I don't really believe in coincidences. The longer we've been in business, there's just these moments where things align. And I think there's so many times in life where things align that people don't connect the dots. And I think for whatever reason, we were able to connect the dots and continue to grow and grow and grow and learn and be curious and ask questions.
Tom Patterson (continued): And improve and evolve as we went on in business and product design and refining things. But a lot of it came back to, I think, the conviction and the vision I had for the business when communicating to buyers, talking to people in stores, and they just bought into what the product did. They love this story, but it delivered. Like we walked the talk with our products and our claims that are not related to the baseball pitcher. I played baseball growing up. My middle name's John. That's how we got the name Tommy John.
But one of the things that we did early and I've talked about this before to stand out is women bought most men's underwear back in 2008. And women look for three things. They look for the brand that their husband's been wearing because guys don't like to change, usually stay with what works. They see a brand that's advertised everywhere, or they look for a good looking guy on the outside of the package. So they're like, if the baseball pitcher started a brand. But we did a survey and we found the majority of the women like two things: Tiffany's jewelry and chocolate. And at the time, the packaging in retail stores was, for the most part, black and white packaging. So we chose the Tiffany Blue and chocolate color palette with a good looking guy and a box that opened up differently to make it easy to get in touch and feel the fabric.
So it's like you have a standout product. But we tried to find little additional ways to stand out by doing research, and it allowed us to kind of fire like a diamond and pop in a retail store. And then on top of that, it brought people into the product. And then the story behind it and then the product actually delivered. There's so many things that go into it getting in to like really the big leagues. We didn't know what we were doing. We were these big brands like Calvin Klein and Jockey and Under Armor. It's like, Who's this guy? So we had to go the extra decimal points to really give our business a chance to succeed.
And I would say, like a lot of what I find a lot of entrepreneurs do and why maybe you can relate to this is they sell the product in like, Man, I hope it sells. I'll send them a few documents to learn about the product and hopefully they talk about it the right way. But I went to 90 stores in a year and a half, spending 14 hours a day on my feet, talking to salespeople, talking to customers, learning ways to refine the way I position the product, get them to do it, to try end up buying.
Tom Patterson (continued): So a lot goes into selling in, but even more goes into selling through. I would say what didn't exist back then is the direct to consumer business had none of all, the landscape was a very different as a traditional brick and mortar wholesale environment 2008 through 2012. So that's really where we learned the business, where now today a lot of brands go online first and direct to consumer. And so I think the way businesses have evolved has changed a little bit since we started.
William Norvell: That's fascinating. I'm just hearing your story thinking you're making this sound pretty easy. You know, you're wandering around and then you're like, I'll just go buy some fabric and then this business is going to take off. Now, I know that's not true. But while the way you tell this story of just having those entrepreneurial instincts and taking those next steps, I mean, that's something that you said you could use this podcast in our pre taping, like I could use these stories. I grew up in a small town in Alabama, as we just mentioned, and we'll talk about Kalinda more often later. I'm not going to bore the listeners, but I don't feel like I heard these stories right. I don't feel like I had a vision for. You can just do it. So I have two questions. One. Did you have that somewhere? Somewhere in your life? Somewhere in your family where. Yeah, this was just like DNA, right? I mean, like, you see a good idea out there. You start going and then two, as you were growing the business, I've heard you talk about this on other podcast that you felt you had this urgency to go faster and grow, but you have this great quote of being patiently impatient. And so I want to hear like, how did you have that instinct to go? And then also how did you pair that with this concept of being patiently impatient as the business was taking off?
Tom Patterson: Yeah, you know, a month before I got laid off my medical sales job, we did this show called The Magic Show in Las Vegas. And that's where all the buyers come in and you present your products and the biggest brands are there. And it was $5,000 to enter the show. It's probably $1,000 in samples. We had to buy mannequins, we had to drive hotel flights, whatever. And I think it was around 7 or $8000, all in my savings just to get in there and see what happens. And we did $1,200 in sales. I remember driving back from Vegas to San Diego, the whole drive there, mannequin samples, it was like deflating. I was like, Man, why isn't this working? We have an amazing product. I know every guy that tries it will buy it and they won't buy one. They'll buy five. What is not connecting?
And that was really when I think about a moment where I think a lot of people would have just quit and gone back into the comfort of a job, a safe paycheck. And I just wasn't ready to quit because I knew something inside me. I knew there was a way to get this thing off the ground. And your second question, I think a lot of it for me is I played a lot of sports growing up, football, basketball track. I would say sports and school did not come easy to me. I had to really work and there was a lot of failures along the way, a lot of challenges I had to overcome to get playing time or make the team. So I think I was used to failing and I was used to having challenges to overcome. And I think in hindsight, the behavior and the character traits I learned prepare me for these moments of having tough times in the business, especially getting it off the ground, not selling. I mean, having no said more than a two year old about your product. I mean, it's humbling.
Tom Patterson (continued): But I think so many people get so close to having that pop and getting through the door in their business, having a moment of like taking off. And that's when they throw in the towel. And I think back, like, I don't know, it's just like never really had to give up. There's only one option. There's ten different ways to make a play. And I think that was really the mindset that got me into it. And then I think the one thing is like, I think in business and in life, you have to be patient with things too, like set up and get into motion, but also like it takes forever if there's not some level of impatience, right? And I think if you can remove distractions and save time and do it 70% perfect versus 100% perfect, you're going to get going and refine it and you're six months ahead of everybody else.
You know, when I think about like ways in school, I learned really quickly whether I study 20 hours or 2 hours, I was going to get the same 85%, 82% on a test. I was A, B minus to B student. So like, why spend 80 more hours studying for something that I'm pretty sure I'm going to get the same grade? So these things you learn along the way, like you figure out how to become impatient and save time because you know how quickly things can be done. And I think along the business, people don't want to make mistakes. People by nature want to do things correctly. And I think that's what really separates entrepreneurs is they're okay with the discomfort of uncertainty, not doing it 100% perfect and just getting going. And once it gets going, like everything takes longer. I mean, this whole journey is taken twice as long and it's been ten times harder than I thought. When I think about it in hindsight to where we are today. But yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these things were kind of ingrained in my childhood.
William Norvell: I love that. I love that. I think it's so good. And I think that concept, just as you were talking about being on the edge of the breakthrough, I just couldn't stop thinking of the woman who was chasing Jesus, who knew that all she had to do was touch you. And I sometimes when I see that story for someone who maybe took a long time to be entrepreneurial, I think of all the people standing around who were waiting for their moment who said, Well, maybe hope pass by here, right? Or maybe I'll be able to get a meeting with them later. Because I know Peter and I used to be on the boat with them, Right. But she knew, like, this is the time and I have to, like, take this chance, right? This could be the chance that could change everything.
William Norvell (continued): And I'm not going to let the moment pass. And I just hear that in your story of, yes, most people would have quit. I think it would have been like, hey, that was a fun side project. It didn't work. Let's go. Right. And I think those are the people in the audience. And I want to ask you that like 16 years, maybe just give you a bit of an open platter for like, how did your faith sustain you through that? What parts were there? Were there stories like that that you held on to? I know it sounds trite, but gosh, I just know those things go so far. Those moments, those stories when God speaks through the Scripture that we read the same verse a thousand times. Just curious your journey there.
Tom Patterson: Yeah, I mean, so I grew up going to church, Lutheran Church as a kid, and I got in a lot of trouble. I would say my first six, seven years of life, just bad kid acting out for probably a lot of reasons. And one time I was riding in a hearse with a nun for a funeral. My parents maybe couldn't find a babysitter or whatever, and I started drawing on her with a pen and drawing Sharpie and markers. And the weekend before, I learned all these swear words from a cousin that was visiting that had probably picked them up from a neighbor, a kid. And I was just like acting out. And you would think, like, what is in this kid? And sure, my parents were just thrown off guard and embarrassed, couldn't believe it.
And over the next year, when they would run into these nuns, there was a convent connected to a hospital in our town. They would all ask "How's Tom doing?" And like, you know, he's improving, you know, so sorry for what happened. They're like, "Well, we just want to let you know that we've been praying for him." And I think there's this power of prayer. You know, there's this vibrational frequency that protects you from sin. It protects you from spirits.
Tom Patterson (continued): And it's funny along the way, childhood early adult, there's been people that for no reason made me a couple of times, like, "Hey, you've been in our prayers" and I think it's protected us. It's protected our family and our business - the power of prayer. And it took me a long time to figure out, I think, you know, like where we are today in our faith versus, you know, starting out. It's like at a different level in depth. When I think back to the tough times, like we did have protection from a higher power. You know, we believe that's God, you know, and the power of Jesus. And, you know, there's been moments that just are unexplainable with our business. The fact that we've survived so many tough times from, you know, investors wanting us to sell to product defects where it's just like, why is this happening now? And it's like, well, it's happening for you, not to you.
There's certain, I think, mindset you have to really believe in and just trust that his plan is the right plan. And that's really where faith gets you through things. And I think where we would be without that is probably would not be on this podcast with you guys sharing the story. But it's been huge. And then just on top of that, the people it's connected us to personally in our business that have found the brand that we find are wearing the product. You talk about faith. I mean, not that it matters, but it's the biggest of the biggest in the Christian world, the athletic world, the Hollywood world. So it's been really cool to see that and fall under our - it's hard to see, but to learn about that. And when that's explained, I mean, I get a lot of underwear pictures you probably...
William Norvell: You do bro. You know.
Tom Patterson: Hey, you know, my dog was a friend of mine and John's like, "Tom, you need to think about you guys have all figleaves into underwear and boxer briefs and what it is today. Like, think about that evolution from Adam and Eve." And I was like, Man, I've never really thought about that way. You know, it's true in a lot of ways. But yeah, I mean, it's been huge. And, you know, even our cultural values as a business and the way we treat people and our brand values, I think in a lot of ways people would say they're biblical values or things that we believe in, the way we run our company and the way we treat people.
So I don't believe in the word coincidence. I don't think coincidences are coincidences in the world that we believe in. But I would say to your point about the woman touching Jesus walking through, I would just watch that recently in The Chosen that scene. A lot of people can pray and hope, but those prayers oftentimes aren't answered without action, like turning water into wine. Yeah, it's a great idea, but people got to go take the barrels down to the river, fill it up with water, bring them back. You got to get that prayer into action to actually see the outcome. I think that's one thing I continue to see is prayer and hope is great, but it also takes action.
And I think about the times where we didn't take action. Things took longer. So I think you really have to be intentional with a lot of the things you do in your business. And for anybody that's listening, I think if you have a faith man, there's no better time to be an entrepreneur and a Christian. With the amount of information out there from podcasts to YouTube. There's so much more out there and so many people's stories. You can hear about how faith impacted their journey and the setbacks and the challenges they overcame that I think you can literally skip years in where you want your business to be.
William Norvell: I'm going to turn it back over just because I got chills when you talked about the nuns praying for you like that just stopped me in my tracks and I've been the beneficiary of things like that. Don't let it be wasted.
Justin Forman: Don't want to be wasted. I love what we're talking about here, is this idea of our entrepreneurs born or made. And I think, you know, you're seeing really this idea that they're made and it happens a lot earlier than we think. And it happens in unsuspecting moments of life and the twists and turns in the process. So I think the same is true when we talk about faith through an entrepreneurship, and maybe it's because of the obvious nature of Faith Driven Entrepreneur step of saying like, we're all on the spiritual journey, we're all in this process. We're not like born and arrived in that moment. We're always going through that refinement and in the same ways you can then draw that back to our journey as entrepreneurs as saying whether we might be born or have some traits or some things earlier on in our journey. It is always a process.
So I love hearing how God spoke through prayer, through sliding door moments. What does that look like for you today when you think about like, how are you being made as a Faith Driven Entrepreneur today? Bring us forward to today as you're hearing this podcast, as you're hearing other people's stories. What's the tension spots? What's the things that you're wrestling through, whether that's at home in the office, where does God have you in that journey right now?
Tom Patterson: Yeah. You know, I talked to a really good friend of mine about this, and I think the world, especially the last four years, we're not a political brand, Tommy John's not a social brand. We're not an activist brand. Comfort doesn't take sides. And I think the world wants brands to take sides or take stances. And I think the thing that we've continue to come back to our center is like Jesus loved everybody. He saw the best in everybody. Is there things that we could have done differently in our culture along the way? Of course, like, nobody's perfect, you know, we're all works in progress.
But, you know, I think when things come from a place of love and authenticity and honesty and truth, that's really where you need to stay. I think the world we live in today has so many distractions from mainstream media to social media. The scariest thing is AI and what people think is being said and it's not, but it's a really kind of confusing time to live and let alone run a business. And there's so many things that take you away from your purpose. When I think about why we started, I was like, I just want a better fitting undershirt that stays tucked in. And then I was like, I just want underwear that doesn't ride up, waistband that doesn't roll down, a fly that's more functional and all the other things I think you have to deal with.
It's kind of like college being a college coach. And I think a lot of coaches have left college sports because of NIL. So you either leave or you stay with during that evolution with where college football is going to be or where running a business is going to be, or even another filter down where running a fashion brand is going to be in New York City. So there's a lot of different dynamics that play into it. But man, just treating people like Jesus is something that has helped us in so many ways. And it's just it's really simple. You know, I just love him. Pray for him. You know, not agreeing on everything. Like, that's actually good. I've never really wanted the people around us... I love different opinions, different perspectives. And that's where I'm hopeful we'll get back to some day as a society. But I think you have to lead by example. And, you know, the hard road is not always the easy road, that's for sure. And, you know, I think we've been down that road a lot over the years.
Justin Forman: I love what you're talking about. You started earlier when you were talking about how the business started. It was like trying to find something of an authentic truth or simplicity, a problem that people like authentically had, not something you felt like you're pushing on. And to see that tie into your faith journey and to see that overlay there, that's really powerful because oftentimes we think of the business model separate from maybe our faith side. But to see the authentic integration of that, it's really you coming through in that. When I look at this and when you look at the conversation of this and you look at kind of everywhere kind of God's been building you and you talk about this journey and you talk about this thing and what's the thing you wish you knew then that you do now. When you think about the price of entrepreneurship, there's so many prices that we pay. There's so much tough parts of the journey. When you think back about this and if you're speaking to your younger you, what would be the advice that you would give that you know now that you're wishing you knew then?
Tom Patterson: It's going to be harder than you thought. It's going to take longer than you thought, but it will be the most rewarding thing you ever do. And I think, you know, if entrepreneurship is truly what you want to do, I think life's too short to do things you don't enjoy doing. Like underwear got us out of bed every day. Excited. Passionate. It means the last thing I thought I'd ever be doing. I was so embarrassed in my own underwear and homework class in my freshman year of high school. Like there's no destiny for me too, you know, coming from small town South Dakota. But I think God has big plans for everybody in their life.
Tom Patterson (continued): And I think for me, the last 4 or 5 years, we were very intentional about trying to take our identity away from the business. It's not Tom Patterson's Tommy John, So it's my name, kind of, but not fully. And I think, you know, so many people's identity is tied to what they do or who they know. And I think it really comes down to like, putting Jesus first and putting your faith first and having your identity being known through him versus everything else, because it's so easy to get caught up in the success and the awards and speaking at events and the people you get to know.
But once that goes aside, man, it's just you get to this place of peace, you know, in a lot of ways with life, putting that as the center. And, you know, I ended up getting baptized a year and a half ago and man, it just it really reset everything to a whole new depth for me. My wife ended up getting baptized and my daughter and two other friends that were unplanned. And marriage is one of those special things. When you take a public stance with who you're going to put first in your life and you know, whether you're 43 when you do it, which I was or you do it at 60, is never too late to make that declaration and put him first.
So for me, that was a really big thing to really level set. And now it's like, you know, whatever we go through and it's just easier. It helps you get through the tough times. Having a faith in something bigger than us and knowing there's an eternal life. And this life is so short. But man, you're here to make impact. Don't waste your skill. Don't waste your potential. Go all out. You know, like there's nothing worse than having stuff left in the tank at the end of the day. Now it's like you got to figure out where you use your tank of gas, right? With kids and activities and work. It's more complicated in some ways, and you start adding, you know, little bodies into the place.Tom Patterson (continued): But yeah, just be intentional. I don't think God put anybody on this earth without a purpose. And I think once you realize it got to find your purpose, you know, and I think a lot of people that if everything's easy, I think you guys like it sounds so easy, you know, like, man, the people that have had it the easiest, in my opinion, struggle with adversity the worst. They're not prepared. So I think we've embodied this mindset is when challenges come or adversity comes, it's preparation for something bigger you're going to have in your life. And you know, Tommy John will be here forever. It'll be here beyond us. But I don't want it to define everything we do. I think there's plans for Aaron and I, whatever that next chapter is and just trusting it. It's continuing to be Tommy John over the next 20 years or it's something else. Yeah. I just don't sit back and wait. Life's fast.
William Norvell: I love that. I love that. I love that intentionality. And I think you you see that in God's gracious God. So if we wait a little bit, he'll jar us, right? You know, he'll be like, All right. Jonah. Good work there, brother. Go on. I'll get you back. And so it's fun to know we have a gracious God. So if you feel like you've missed an opportunity, you haven't right? Like God is still there with you. In this conversation. This podcast may be your invitation to go forward for that thing that's been in your heart for a long time that you feel like you missed five years ago, that you feel like is in a notion file hidden somewhere. So one thing I do just want to say is like, God loves you. He has not forgotten you and he will get you back. Right? And you have not, like missed his path for you. And I know you didn't say that. I'm not saying you did, but that's something I felt before. And so I want to make sure if there's anybody like me out there, it's not too late. Right? God still with you and he's still walking with you.
Tom Patterson: Yeah, well said.
William Norvell: And the last thing you just mentioned it. I want to say real quick, we got about five minutes. We didn't hit on this. You hit about it really briefly. You started this business with your wife and we haven't really gotten a chance to dive into that. So we may have to invite you back to go deeper. But there's husband and wife teams. We know that. Listen, we've had, you know, different ones on. And I just think it's a fascinating topic. Can you tell us a little bit about that journey, starting with your wife and how that's been?
Tom Patterson: Man. I don't know any different. We've always worked together. You know, we've been together since day one with the business, the idea we weren't married at the time, but man, I mean. There should be no bigger cheerleader, no one you trust more, no one you can confide in more than your spouse. Right. The good, the bad, everything in the middle. And I think when you understand that and you also understand like it's not always going to be smooth, there are going to be challenges.
I think, you know, for us, it was little things like, man, we could talk about business till midnight, but like, you know, 9:00 rolls around. Like I don't want my cortisol and adrenaline to get running into two in the morning. So you have to pick and choose when you bring up maybe topics that are just going to be challenging. But you know, like when there's alignment together as a couple, what the bigger picture and where you want to go and the type of life you want to create, which was the situation for us. Yeah, I mean, it's just worked and it's been one of the coolest things to do is to build this business together.
Tom Patterson (continued): And we also had opposite skill sets in the early days. Anything in a spreadsheet, customer service, operational was Aaron. Anything marketing, brand, product design, buyer relations was me, so we could divide and conquer. And I think it really helped kind of define where the brand went. But a lot of the ways the brand was us. It was the personality, the sense of humor. You see no edgy guarantee, things like that, right? That's kind of how I speak as a guy. I verbalize thoughts that we all have when we're wearing uncomfortable underwear and it's authentic. And so there's fun things that happen. And I know there's probably some guys readjusting driving down the road. Listen to this podcast. I said that there's an answer. There's cure, there's Tommy John.
But yeah, on top of that, I think, you know, managing a team and managing people like in a lot of ways, you turn from like college kids to young adults to parents, and you begin parenting people older than you that come into your company. And I think it probably made us better, more patient parents, to be honest, managing and building a company and then having kids later and everybody's journey is different. But yeah, I think for us, like me and I, I couldn't imagine running a business without her as part of it. It just, it would be weird.
So when people ask, you know, why did it work the way it did? We were so aligned with our vision, our faith, what we wanted in life, you know, staying together. No matter what happens, we're going to ride this through. If at all fails, we'll serve each other. And then fortunately, I found somebody that was willing to take the risks with me, that was comfortable with uncertainty, you know, cause I was a broke guy without a job for that first year and a half. And she had a job that helped, you know, kind of pay the basics for us. And, you know, she believed in it. So, yeah, again, I don't think that's a coincidence. You know, I think that was things life for us.
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