I started Inverted Gear six years ago. If you are curious about that story, you can read about it here. As we’ve grown and improved, Hillary and I make it a point to step back and define new goals. Looking back on our old goals, however, tells a big part of the Inverted Gear story.

Here are some of our past, and now accomplished, goals:

• Sell 100 gis in our first order
• Make a second, larger order
• Produce ranked rash guards
• Order enough gis to fill a shipping container
• Open a warehouse in Europe

This wasn’t a short or easy road, but we have come along way—all the way to Europe, in fact! From our first visit to Europe, we knew that the jiu-jitsu community there was special, and the more we traveled and the more great people we met, the more we were certain that we absolutely had to be a part of it in some way.

If you go back seven years—one year before Inverted Gear hit the scene—and asked Nelson what he knew about European trade, import, and tax law, he would have assured you that he knew nothing and would never need to. Oh man. This was a big undertaking, but thanks to the great jiu-jitsu community across the pond, we’re up and running and made the big official announcement during the recent Polaris Pro event (another awesome organization doing a lot for European grapplers).

Here’s one of our commercials:

As we move on into another year in business, setting new goals is tough. I was optimistic when I founded Inverted Gear, but I never thought we would get this far. None of the goals I mentioned before were set longer than 5 years into the future. Last year, during the great shipping meltdown of 2017, we learned a lot, and are working on streamlining our warehousing and inventory systems.

We have been working on doing our best to keep everything in stock, year-around, which has put a lot of strain into both our factory and warehouse. That’s a lot of gis to stock: We have 12 sizes, multiple colors, and multiple weaves. As we move forward we plan on more releases and updates to our current lineup, but we also plan to retire some of our current models.

On the horizon for new products and projects we have:

• A big announcement coming from our friends at Tap Cancer Out
• More Show the Art gear on the way
• Some unique takes on gear that only Reilly Bodycomb’s Rdojo could inspire
• The next stage in our buy-a-gi to give-a-gi program this time with kids gis
• Yes, we are doing kids gis

Finally, thank you from the entire Inverted Gear team. Without the support of Panda Nation, we wouldn't be able to do all of these amazing things. Every t-shirt and gi you buy is a huge compliment to us. We’re looking forward to another great year.