Our main goal at that time, the company was almost an accident. [laughs] We originally wanted to host a big weightlifting meet that supported the sport.
At the time, we’re just like, “OK. How can we get the best weightlifters in the country together?” At that time, not that there’s a ton of money in the sport now, but back then there was almost nobody getting paid with sponsorships. It was totally different kind of outlook there.
We said, “OK, if we get them out here, if we give a cash prize to these weightlifters and put them in front of an audience.”
At this time, you go to national championships that’s like, other lifters or maybe your parents, but they probably don’t understand what you’re doing anyway. That’s kind of it.
We said, “OK. If we can give them a crowd that understands what they’re doing. Like people are going to cheer for them and pay cash prizes, this will be a lot of fun. It will really help support USA weightlifting and support the athletes that are chasing that Olympic dream.”
Along with that, we can hold a CrossFit-style competition, which could be a great community event. We can get these do a team competition, get all these people from the community out here. We can have them compete, have fun doing all that. We can get vendors. Almost make it like a festival type thing.
At the end of the day, have this one invite session where they can watch the best lifters in the country compete. That was the main goal, and along with that. Simultaneously, they ended up being the same idea, we didn’t know it at first though, is that at that time parallel within the fitness industry, was a lot of things were really kind of corny.
Like you get a shirt. You might wear that shirt to the gym but you probably won’t wear it to your niece’s birthday party. Where kitschy sayings on them, stuff like that that doesn’t make sense anywhere outside the gym.
Like, “Man, we only make the shirts for this event. We should make sure that they look good. They’re good looking shirts and stuff you kind of wear in and out of the gym. One of my co-founders, Dean, he had a little street brand on the side. He’s cool. He’s cooler than we are, David.
He knows what looks good, and that type of thing. He started, he designed the shirt, designed the logo and started putting that stuff together. Then it’s like, “Man, this is something that people really resonated with.” People saw the brand. They saw the apparel, they saw how it was clean. It’s essentially street wear style that we sell, that’s in the fitness industry.
As we say, most stuff made off the gym doesn’t make sense anywhere else, but Caffeine and Kilos products are all designed to make you feel good, look good, and feel amazing in and out of the gym. Those kind of all things together we realized were the same idea. It wasn’t just an event. It wasn’t just this apparel and coffee brand, it was actually one thing that we can promote healthy, active lifestyle, and a community of fitness.
Now, go to the Caffeine and Kilos invitational, there’s a powerlifting meet. It’s a pull-only, it’s deadlift meet. We do it that way on purpose, we could get more people to compete, who may be would be uncomfortable with the monolift and that type of stuff.
There’s a powerlifting component, there’s a weightlifting component. Now it goes all day long. It’s a local meet. We get over a hundred local lifters competing in that. There’s still the fitness CrossFit-style competition. It’s come full circle. It’s bringing the community together and creating products that people appreciate. It’s helping support that healthy, active lifestyle.