This week, Glossy spoke with three leaders of brands that have scaled up to over $100 million in revenue without any outside investors. As investment dollars become harder to come by, learning to do more with your own funds is an increasingly important skill.
In the late 2010s, fashion startups were flush with investor cash. Low interest rates meant venture capital was happy to shower funds on promising young fashion brands.
All that has changed in recent years, and brands are now frequently finding themselves having to navigate the industry entirely bootstrapped. In 2025, U.S. venture fundraising fell to a six-year low with only $66 billion in VC money being distributed. That was down 35% from the previous year.
But many brands have flourished without outside investment, scaling into sizable businesses entirely with their own funds. As funding becomes harder to come by, it’s an increasingly important skill to be able to make it on your own.
Glossy spoke with founders of multiple fashion businesses who grew their companies into established players without any outside investment. Here’s how they did it:
Aviator Nation
Paige Mycoskie founded Aviator Nation in Los Angeles in 2006, hand-stitching clothes and selling them at local street fairs. The brand has taken off since then, with Mycoskie being named one of the best new menswear designers in America by GQ in 2013, designing collections in collaboration with the Gap and opening 15 stores across the country.
Most recently, Aviator Nation struck a deal in September to make a licensed collection in collaboration with the NFL, applying Mycoskie’s signature 70s-inspired designs to 25 NFL teams. The brand now does over $100 million in revenue and is sold in retailers like Nordstrom, Shopbop and Revolve.
Mycoskie told Glossy that the only investment she took on at the very beginning was a small bank loan from Wells Fargo for $8,000.
“When I started, I bootstrapped everything and kept operating costs super low because I was able to do most things myself,” she said. “I did my own photography, website programming and, of course, made the clothes myself too. When I sold to boutiques, I pre-booked my orders so I knew the money was coming and I was able to get a small loan. I quickly paid that back when I delivered orders, and I realized it was possible to self-fund and keep control.”
Mycoskie said she had “very specific ideas” about how she wanted to build the brand and the direction she wanted to take it. Taking on investors would mean giving up some of that control.
For Mycoskie, the most important thing to keep in mind as she scaled her business was to pay close attention to the supply chain at all times. For self-funded brands, profitability and margin are paramount since you only have the money you make.
“Inventory is a continuous animal you have to stay on top of,” she said. “You never want too much or too little, and predicting what people are going to buy is an art that only comes from really watching the numbers. I run inventory and sales reports weekly, and I study trends with my particular customers regularly.”
SwissWatchExpo
The 17-year-old watch marketplace SwissWatchExpo has risen rapidly in the last 17 years to become one of the largest American-based pre-owned watch businesses. Founded by Jake and Victoria Rokhlin, the company has hit over $100 million in annual sales. It operates primarily online, except for one physical store in Atlanta, and at any time carries around 2,500 pre-owned high-luxury watches for sale.
In 2016, Jake and Victoria’s son Eugene Tutunikov took over as CEO after a long career as a derivatives trader on Wall Street. Tutunikov told Glossy that his financial career gave him a first-hand glimpse at how “investor expectations can sometimes force leadership to prioritize short-term, headline-grabbing hyper-growth over long-term stability.”
His parents had never taken any outside investment before Tutunikov got involved with the company, and Tutunikov said SwissWatchExpo has been profitable for every single year of its existence.
“When you’re an immigrant family starting a business, there is simply no other choice but to be profitable from day one,” Tutunikov said. “VC-backed companies have the privilege of burning cash for years. Sometimes it works out, but often they never actually reach profitability. In our early days, every single expense was micromanaged, and there was zero room for waste. While we’ve certainly loosened up as we’ve grown, that hands-on, highly disciplined ethos remains deeply embedded in our DNA.”
The discipline about profitability is also important because watches are a capital-intensive business. SwissWatchExpo doesn’t operate on a consignment model; they buy every watch outright, taking full ownership of it. That means every watch the company buys must be sellable for a profit.
“In the pre-owned luxury market, trust and authenticity are your absolute most valuable currency,” Tutunikov said. “If we had taken private equity or VC money, there likely would have been immense pressure to scale faster by shifting to a capital-light consignment or marketplace model. Bootstrapping gave us the freedom to stick to our core model.”
EZContacts
EZContacts is one of the 20 largest eyewear retailers in the world with the largest eyewear catalog in North America. It was founded in 2005 in New York and operates primarily online. Despite no outside investment, EZContacts has grown to nine-figure annual revenue, and around 5 million shoppers visit its online store each year.
Rafael Sarim Oezdemir, head of growth at EZContacts, told Glossy that one of the most effective strategies the the company has employed is looking for ways to maximize the value of existing customers without spending ad dollars to bring in more.
“A better site, product pages, content, fulfillment, customer service or shopping cart can all increase revenue without needing to spend more on advertising,” Oezdemir said. “Content has also been big for us. We get roughly 150,000 blog visitors monthly, which can help give your brand a free pool of shoppers beyond your paid ads.”
Oezdemir said bootstrapping a business requires a slow, steady approach, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Without investor pressure to grow as fast as possible, you can prioritize sustainability and profitability.
“[But] the biggest disadvantage would be that the growth tends to be slower,” Oezdemir said. “You have to be very cautious with cash flow and focus on projects likely to show a return.”
Is it still possible today?
The brands Glossy spoke with all benefited from being established over a decade ago. But is it still possible to bootstrap a brand from scratch today?
These founders all said yes.
“I absolutely think it’s possible to launch a company without taking outside investments today,” Mycoskie said. “I would advise any young entrepreneur not to take outside investments unless they don’t have a lot of experience or they need help. If you need help and don’t really know the business or your customers, then taking outside investors can be wise because the partnership can help you succeed in ways beyond cash flow. But if you don’t need someone’s help (beyond cash flow), then I would strongly advise a bank loan or line of credit and maintaining ownership as long as you can.”
She said learning to do more with less is an invaluable lesson when it comes to building and running a successful company.
Tutunikov went further and said it’s actually easier to scale with no investors now than it was in previous years thanks to tools like organic social media reach, livestream shopping, AI tools and highly targeted digital marketing.
“Bootstrapping forces you to build a real business from day one, not just an inflated valuation,” he said. “It forces you to figure out your unit economics and profitability early, ensuring you actually have true product-market fit instead of just masking a flawed model with investor cash. If you are starting a brand today where equity and community trust are your main pillars, bootstrapping protects your soul. You might grow a bit slower at the start, but you’ll build a fortress that can actually weather economic storms.”
News to know
- U.S. spending on luxury brands fell for a third straight month last month, according to credit card data from Citi. A 6% decline after a 4% decline in August and July shows the slowdown is speeding up.
- Frasers Group, the British retail group operated by Mike Ashley, has continued snatching up stakes in global businesses. This week, Frasers announced taking a minority stake in Under Armour.
- Gap rolled out a new AI-based chatbot tool this week at Old Navy and Banana Republic, along with an AI-powered virtual try-on feature at Gap.
