The journey that is UNB started five years ago this month. Each year I try to pinpoint the exact day that UNB was born but always come up short. The formation of UNB came about when I got laid off from my marketing job in 2008. I had worked at another underwear blog briefly and it wasn’t covering what I wanted to know about underwear. So the journey began. I figured it would be a great way to get some great undies and occupy my time for the few months I was out of a job.
Well the economic downturn of 2008 happened and the unemployment lasted a bit longer then I had expected. UNB quickly became a job for me to have an outlet for my creative energy. There wasn’t much pay but it was a lot of fun. I have met some amazing people, many whom I consider my friends, that I never would have met had I not started UNB.
Some of my best memories of the last 5 years:
- There are a few companies who have been there since the beginning and Baskit is one of those. Eric at Baskit took the time to really give me a great education of the industry and was the one person responsible for my first trip to Vegas in 2010. It was a super fast trip. I was in Vegas literally for a day. Flew in at 7 PM and was out the next night at 11 PM. But I got to meet a lot of the people i have been emailing and talking too on the phone. As they say it’s great to do an online friendship but nothing beats face to face. Ever since then I have gone to Vegas to meet with brands. Eric is a great resource for me and the blog.
- I was an underwear lover, and like most, we never really know what it takes to make underwear. I mean the actual production. Alex at Go Softwear took time and spent over an hour explaining the industry from sourcing to production. It was crash course in underwear production. To this day I still draw on that conversation when I’m talking production.
- In 2009 I have met one of my favorite people in the world. It is our Asst Editor Emeritus John. He, i think, responded to a post I did about finding writers/reviewers. Little did I know when he responded, we would work so well together. We built a lot of what UNB is back in 2009-2010. He has had professional obligations that he has taken a step back from the blog but he is still a friend and you will see him on the site from time to time.
- Hosting has always been an issue. When we started we were on blogger. We moved off because the URL never functioned well, so we got our own hosting in March 2009. The jump way made. Things went pretty well for the next two years. Then we hit the magic number and our server hosting started to throttle us and we upgraded to our own server. It was a few weeks of pain for readers and myself, but since then we have had relatively few issues. We hope it stays that way
- Another person I have to thank is Alex here. You know him from the Video reviews and if you follow us on Twitter. He has taken to both those mediums and really spread the word about UNB. He’s consistently gone above and beyond for the blog. He’s been our good will ambassador for quite a while. He recently was named our newest Asst Editor, a position he so rightfully deserved!
- Flash forward a few years and one of the best people I have met is Matt from Designer Drawers. We met a year ago when I drove over from Atlanta to Birmingham. He has been amazing to work with in shoots and models. He has amazing ideas and is one of the reasons the UNB shoots have improved over the last year. It’s a great relationship because he is very outgoing and I’m a little more introverted. Yeah I”m ore of the quiet nerdy guy. Which to me isn’t a bad thing but he comes up with the great ideas and bounce ideas off each other and sometimes I just let him run with it and the results are just amazing.
- One of the most recent memories is the “Who is your favorite underwear model?” post. This was done one night at 10 PM on a Thursday I think, and I figured we’d get a few hundred votes and announce the winner. Well, Philip Fusco and Jon Varak both had people tell them about the post (and who ever you guys are, I owe you undies) and they both started to campaign for the title. They both were super friendly and it never went negative. It was a lot of fun, plus I got to talk to a little to each Philip and Jon. Shortly there after I had a phone conversation with Jon. He really impressed me how down to earth and how he has his priorities in place. Not only is he handsome but he’s super nice. I have death with people in the industry who can be about them and how great they look. Jon was anything but he was surprised he was in the poll and just a joy to talk too! Well the results of the poll were released and we had over 12,000 votes. It blew me away. That has been the biggest thing we have ever done. Granted it wasn’t scientific and guys could vote as much as they wanted!
There are a few memories and people that I had to mention. There are many more people who have helped make UNB a success. I want to thank all those I didn’t mention as well for the success over the last five years. There are too many to mention.
Lastly would be you guys, our readers. Without you none of this would have been possible. You guys are amazing and keep sharing your love of underwear. We are working hard to get the site more personal so you get to know us and hopefully consider us friends as well. We have a lot in the works and plan on telling you about it later this year. The world of men’s underwear is an amazing community and I’m honored to be a part of it.
