092: Aaron Mottern (AGOGIE)

Aaron Mottern on Innovation City

“Processes make everything better … Spend time on how to operate efficiently with human capital constraint.” — Aaron Mottern

Welcome to Innovation City—powered by Venture Cafe—where Tyler Kelley and Michael Johnson, Co-Founders of SLAM! Agency, interview innovators, creators, and disruptors to discover how business is changing in the modern world.

Created and produced by SLAM! Agency in cooperation with Venture Cafe St. Louis and Venture Cafe Miami, Innovation City gives you an inside look at how rapidly business and culture are changing thanks to increasing diversity and inclusion, heightened creativity, and a stronger and better-connected business community. Venture Cafe is the largest combined gathering of entrepreneurs and innovators anywhere in the world. Events are held every Thursday in St. Louis, Miami, and other leading innovation cities around the globe.

Today’s guest is Aaron Mottern, Founder & CEO of AGOGIE. AGOGIE designs and manufactures resistance integrated clothing for the sports performance, fitness, and athleisure industries. Aaron sits down with the team to discuss his entrepreneurial journey that led him to his current product, his passion for creating opportunities for others, customer success stories, working within the St. Louis business ecosystem, the importance of internal processes to maximize efficiency, and much more!

They discuss:

• How he came up with the product idea
• His first attempt of the product failing during testing
• Revamping the product and getting it right
• His product:
  • Resistance athletic/athleisure pants for women and men
  • Gives you resistance on your legs throughout the day no matter what you’re doing
  • The pants have 8 resistance bands built in
• Going to Walmart to buy supplies for his first prototype and making the first pair by hand
• Finding his current COO who had connections with manufacturing
• Going from pattern to first product in 9 months
• Always being driven to become an entrepreneur
• His entrepreneurial journey
• His passion for creating opportunities for others
• Working with a wide range of customers from pro athletes to everyday consumers
• The product can help with balance, mobility, and weight loss
• Customer success stories
• Utilizing his marketing background to help boost the brand
  • Looking at Nike, Under Armour, & Adidas
• Working with social media influencers
• The importance of using several different channels for sales
• His 90 – 10 rule: 90% target market and 10% experimental markets
• Working within the STL business ecosystem
• Working in the T-Rex space in downtown St. Louis
• His challenge of outpacing his current inventory process and gathering funds scale up
• The importance of internal processes to maximize efficiency
• The future of AGOGIE
• Connect with AGOGIE on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and their website