Bringing Both Quality and Comfort: How Soft Goods Caters to its Impressive List of Customers
Detroit garment company Soft Goods was born in 2012 in a home basement. Fast forward ten years, and the company now operates out of a 5,000-square-foot facility serving national brands like Shinola Detroit, Foot Locker, the Detroit Pistons and more. Their key to success? Ambition. Innovation. Creativity. Support.
All great businesses are built with solid plans inspired by trusted advisors. For Soft Goods, one of these advisors was the team at Michigan State University Research Foundation’s subsidiary, Spartan Innovations. The York Project, the apparel arm of Soft Goods, participated in the inaugural class of Spartan Innovations’ Conquer Accelerator program in 2016.
Conquer Accelerator is a 10-week program that supports rising startups by providing $20,000 in funding, access to more than 40 mentors, follow-on funding, and other essential resources.
“When we worked with Spartan Innovations, receiving the $20,000 helped us legitimize our business,” said Will Taylor, Soft Goods co-founder. “A business that was once just a side hustle, has turned into a profitable retailer that is continuing to scale and grow, thanks to the support of the MSU Research Foundation.”
In addition to working with national brands, Taylor is proud to have grown the business enough to take it on full-time, which happened in the summer of 2021. Soft Goods is different from other garment manufacturers by bringing ethics and transparency to the core of their business, which impacts both their products and employees. Under Taylor’s leadership. Soft Goods is committed to providing:
Clothing made of 100% cotton, removing the unnecessary plastic of polyester, making their products more environmentally friendly
Products that will last for years to come
Convenient clothing recycling program
Pigment-based dye, so they can treat and re-use water
“When we first met the Soft Goods team as a part of the York Project, we were immediately impressed with their business sense and drive to succeed in a competitive world,” said Jeff Wesley, Spartan Innovations’ executive director. “They certainly have the ‘it’ factor we look for before we begin to work with companies through Conquer Accelerator.”
Additionally, at Soft Goods, employees are promised a safe and fair work environment. The company currently has 10 employees and is looking to scale further during the fourth quarter of 2022. This includes doubling their space, especially as they launch their wholesale ecommerce store.
The wholesale ecommerce store sells the Soft Goods product, which is a range of clothing including the thickest T-shirt on the market. They custom dye and fulfill orders the traditional way: directly to the consumer. As of now, they are building an inventory, and look forward to servicing customers with their orders.
If you’d like to learn more about Soft Goods, visit: softgoodsdetroit.com
To lean more at the Michigan State University Research Foundation, visit: msufoundation.org