Words matter. These are the best Kevin Plank Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Blowing people’s minds is one of my favorite things to do.
All we’re trying to do is change how people think about fitness. And build Under Armour into the biggest brand in the entire land.
Before Under Armour, the only choices you had were to wear a short-sleeved cotton T-shirt in the summer or a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt in the winter. Why not make a better piece of equipment for underneath the shoulder pads?
Don’t ever, ever devalue your product. Ever. It’s the worst thing anyone can do to hurt your brand.
Any self-respecting entrepreneur has borrowed money from their mother at some point.
The markets are efficient over time.
There is some little boy and some little girl out there, somewhere, who believe that when they put Under Armour on, they can do just a little bit more.
My first real business was bootlegging T-shirts – I was just a dumb kid. You go to a concert and pay $25 for a cotton T-shirt that says ‘Rolling Stones,’ ‘Lollapalooza,’ or whatever. On the outside they’re 10 or 15 bucks. We were the guys selling them for 10 or 15 bucks.
I can’t imagine trying to operate a company banking on the fact that my logo is cooler than somebody else’s logo.
The world cannot continue to build larger health care systems where you just sit around and wait for people to get sick.
Brands are about editing.
The sports apparel industry was dominated by the big shoe companies. But there was a void in apparel and I decided to fill it.
The purpose of Disneyland is to make people smile.
Motivation, passion, and focus have to come from the top.
Everyone must have a voice, and everyone deserves clarity.
You’re convincing these big, tough football players to wear what was essentially women’s lingerie. There was a little bit of a Jedi mind trick that needed to take place. The product really spoke for itself once guys felt it and touched it.
I was a not-big-enough, not-fast-enough football player who wanted a little bit of an edge on the field. I figured my own sweat, if I could get that off my body, and more importantly, the weight that stood behind it, that would help.
People say they’ll pay more for something made in the U.S., but they won’t actually do it.
I realized early on that I was pretty good at organizing. A lot of it was about control. While my friends were out getting hammered at concerts, I was making money. I am a control freak.
Wipe the tears away, stand up, be a man, run your business, find a way.
At some point in your life, you’ll find yourself in a similar position: Surrounded by people who are smarter, faster, who have more experience and more money – and you’ll just have to find a way. And you’ll have to do it with passion.
I don’t want to be characterized as the big booster guy.
I like people who go. I love energy.
If I had been out in the industry instead of being a college kid who had an idea for another T-shirt, I would have been too scared to do anything.
Randy Edsall is a good, strong, decent man who is working his tail off on behalf of the University of Maryland. And there are more people that want to spend their days burning things down than building it up. At least just stop rooting against him. You know, give the guy a chance.
The best merchants in the world aren’t the ones predicting what’s cool next; we’re the ones dictating what’s cool next.
At Under Armour, we’ve created a very strong culture, a culture that first and foremost is built on people.
You need to put your hands around the throat of your business, and you need to run it. There’s no other way.
My kids have been watching a lot of ‘My Little Pony,’ and it’s rubbing off on me.
Maryland is one of the greatest schools that we have in this country.
I believe people change. I think that they can learn from mistakes.
In getting Under Armour started, like any business, I think, number one, you need a great idea. But it’s also about who you know.
The Small Business Administration was fundamental in helping our company. There’s great initiative from the government if you know the right places to look.
Everybody is an expert. But at Under Armour, I want people to control what they can control. Leave the pontificating to everyone else. Leave all that negative talk to everyone else.
The idea of insider information to me is almost, like, laughable.
Great companies have to manage the cadence of what they do.
I’m a sporting goods guy.
Brand is not a product, that’s for sure; it’s not one item. It’s an idea, it’s a theory, it’s a meaning, it’s how you carry yourself. It’s aspirational, it’s inspirational.
I don’t believe in flagship retail, because the definition of flagship retail is that it’s a marketing expense, and it’s going to lose money.
Data is the new oil.
Your attitude is contagious.
In getting Under Armour started, like any business, I think, number one, you need a great idea.
I want people to believe in themselves. I want intellectual curiosity. I want someone who realizes that they don’t know it all and that they’re dying to learn.
I don’t have the option of getting fat. I like to try as much of our products as I can. Our sample size is size large, and I can’t fit into our samples unless I’m at that size.
Stop with the stupid messages. I don’t need a message that says, ‘Go on, you can do it today.’ What does that mean?!
We don’t care which products you like, but you should be using UnderArmour.com – which is now MapMyFitness – and having a reason to visit us every day.
My love of horses began in College Park, with me and 10 friends on two couches and a keg of beer in the back of a truck, heading to Pimlico at 6 A.M. to mark our place in the middle of the Preakness infield, where we never saw a horse run.
As foreign as it would be for you to go running in regular shoes, I want it to be just as foreign for you not to work out in your Under Armour.
Employees get things done. Partners get things done done. But owners get things done done done.
I’ve always been a hustler.
The companies that do well are the companies that use math.
In my industry, a shirt and a shoe are still made the exact same way they were 80 years ago.
When I tell you it’s an Under Armour T-shirt, your question should be, ‘What’s it do?’
Leadership is… to make sure you never limit the idea or opportunity.
Every great brand is like a great story.
It’s a fire, it’s a passion to get out and to create and to innovate. And that I’ve always enjoyed and I’ve always been very proud of is that the people I’ve done business with, the people around me have always made money.
We don’t tell a 17-year-old kid that Nike sucks, because the fact of the matter is, Nike doesn’t suck. They’re actually very good at what they do.
It’s absurd that you know more about your car than you know about your body.
I didn’t like the way a wet cotton T-shirt felt under my equipment. There had to be something better.
I wake up in the morning and I think about one brand. I don’t have enough time to wake up twice and think about two.
I was always… naive enough to not know what I could not accomplish.
We need to stop making wide-body seats on airplanes, stop accommodating that, because it’s not healthy.
When you see most companies get big, they want to shout about all they’ve done. But the consumer wants to know: ‘What have you done for me lately?’
If you’re going to start a company, it’s not going to be in the millions of dollars, but it’s going to be something – for a lot of these kids – out of the trunk of their car, the same way that I did.
When you’re winning, you’re creating a dynasty.
Brands are all about trust. That trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.
I’m usually a pretty intense person. Give me an inch, and I’m going to go.
If Facebook owns social, if LinkedIn owns business, who owns your health?
I don’t like my competition. At all.
San Francisco is one of the worst-dressed cities in the world, bar none.