When the coronavirus pandemic sent the economy into tailspin in March, SquadLocker, a venture-backed tech company that sells apparel to sports teams and other organizations, faced no shortage of challenges.
The pandemic temporarily shut down two of the company’s main customer segments, schools and youth sports, as the country tried to lower the transmission rate of the virus.
With jerseys, lacrosse pinnies and hats not in demand, the company pivoted. SquadLocker started making and selling individually decorated masks to consumers so people could more safely participate in athletics during the pandemic.
“There was this emerging need and requirement for schools and kids and parents and sports organizations to have masks available to them, and so we developed pretty swiftly the capability of putting a mask into our stores,” SquadLocker co-founder and CEO Gary Goldberg told Rhode Island Inno. “Our differentiation when we went to market with masks is we have no minimum orders.”
SquadLocker is behind an innovative software platform that allows any organization to set up an online store to sell custom apparel to fans and members of the community of that team or organization. The company also has its own manufacturing facility in Warwick, where it makes the apparel.
Last year, SquadLocker closed a $20 million Series C round, one of the largest institutional funding rounds in the Ocean State in recent years.
After the virus hit in March, the startup quickly partnered with new and existing vendors, including Under Armour, Augusta and Admiral, to source blank masks. The company then designed the masks at its facility in Warwick and shipped them off to individual consumers across the U.S.
“We were part of a supply chain we kind of whipped together,” Goldberg said.
The pivot proved to be a huge success. Goldberg said SquadLocker had more than 10,000 users who added some sort of decorated mask or face covering option onto their community member stores. The company ultimately sold more than 150,000 decorated masks to consumers across the U.S. In addition to sales, SquadLocker also donated just under 10,000 masks, according to a spokeswoman.
Having the unique technology platform proved to be a huge differentiator for several reasons.
As the pandemic progressed in 2020, Goldberg said programs and organizations found it difficult to get their apparel from mom-and-pop stores or other brick-and-mortar providers.
SquadLocker enabled members of organizations to get their masks at their homes through contactless delivery, because everything could be completed online and, unlike other decorative mask makers, SquadLocker required no minimum orders.
Goldberg said his company experienced a “donut hole” in revenue in late spring, but by the end of the year, SquadLocker had achieved revenue growth due in no small part to the mask effort.
Bram Berkowitz is a contributing writer for Rhode Island Inno.
