Interview: Claire Ortiz CEO of Ortiz Industry™

 Every month we'll be introducing you to an inspiring entrepreneur who turned their passion into a successful business. Today, we're talking with Ortiz Industry™ Founder and CEO, Claire Ortiz. She took her professional skills and experience and paired it with a bold investment to set out to build a fashion empire.  

Tell us about your company.

The mission of Ortiz Industry™ is to provide men’s and women’s fashion apparel with highly advanced performance technology solutions that enhance and simplify the demanding lives of the active urban professionals worldwide. Ortiz Industry™ Tradecraft is a set of formulas combining a proprietary collection of innovative materials with advanced engineering techniques, each with a unique combination of functions and benefits, all with a luxurious feel and beautiful design.

 Armed with a plethora of professional knowledge and research, co-founders Claire Ortiz and Heather Park set out to make clothing that is not only tailored and elegant, but also sublimely comfortable, while functioning specifically to exceed the ever evolving demands of life; and, by their interpretation, that means getting dressed in the morning and forgetting about it for the rest of the day, regardless of the tasks at hand. Everything Ortiz Industry creates has to provide superior performance, be washable, comfortable and absolutely beautiful.  

How did you get started with all of this?

For more than 25 years, I’ve helped build infrastructure and led teams in startup environments and global corporations like Nike, Wilson and Underarmour, as well as at my own startup companies. I’ve been making clothes since I was 14, and have always been a technology geek, a voracious reader, and an obsessive perfectionist. After leading well-known brands into major success, and developing other startups, I’ve decided to put my expertise in materials development to create an unmatched value to the brand through proprietary formulas for performance materials. My tech geek side emerged while collaborating with the likes of DuPont and Optimer to invent compounds for new technical fibers, and Heather and I are excited to be literally creating an emerging market for performance fashion that looks and feels good from a skateboard to a boardroom.

 As Global Creative Director at Nike, I was hired by basketball legend Michael Jordan to turn Brand Jordan Apparel into a success. This was an immense amount of work, as I carved out distribution channels and partnerships across the U.S., Asia and Europe that took the business from $15 million in 2000 to $128 million in 2005. Having led creative campaigns for more than 100 NBA, NCAA and NFL teams, and more than 2,500 world-class Nike athletes during the 2008 Olympics, and working successfully with Wilson Sporting Goods and UnderArmour, I went back to my entrepreneurial roots to start Ortiz Industry with Heather Park. Together we spent countless hours in research and development – literally studying human behaviors, as well as technological advances that we could weave into apparel. So, it was a project of passion built on a platform of necessity – we are taking action to provide consumers with what they need, apparel that reacts to the wearer, with each movement, while looking and feeling chic, modern and beautiful.  

What was your start-up investment?

My initial start-up capital raised was $500,000.

How long did it take you to become profitable?

We're still working on it. We're in year three with this and we’re lucky enough to last long enough to make it this far.

Where do you find yourself flourishing?

We seem to be doing very well with advance innovation platforms and next generation intelligent fashion.

Where do you find yourself struggling?

Traditional retail settings can be difficult. We also have some difficulty with understanding next generation innovation which therefore becomes a barrier to entry.

Three business tools you can’t live without?

• Adobe Creative Suite

• My business partner who also serves as my confidant providing much needed comic relief.

• My notebook!

If you had to do it all again, what would you change? What would stay the same?

I think I would put more trust in our gut instinct and less on what people told us we should do. I would also have less tolerance for mistakes (internally and externally), and would shut them down quicker. We spent too much time playing nice in the sand box, and thinking about personal relationships versus making tough business decisions. I'd keep everything else the same.

What's the best piece of business advice you can share with new entrepreneurs?

Stick to your guns. Just because you are a startup, doesn't mean you have to be at the mercy of established companies/suppliers and customers. Know that you can't please all the people all the time, and you must do what is best for you, your business and your team. Hold your ground, and be sure to play fair and expect the same.

Anything else you’d like to share?

As a female entrepreneur, I would just say that we women must remain extremely business minded. Too often we fear offending others, coming across too tough, or demanding. We have to take the personal out of the equation and keep business and personal separate. That isn't to say that we should all be sharks, with no emotion or compassion. That is simply to say, we must do what is right for our business and ourselves, versus what we think might be right for everyone else.

  Visit online: http://ortizindustry.com/Follow them on:Facebook & Twitter

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