We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Justin McQuery a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Justin, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea came from working as a Law Enforcement Officer in AZ. AZ has about a 30 degree temperature swing from day to night. This is especially prevalent in the spring and fall. I was working a swing shift(1600 to 0200) and trying to decide what to wear under my uniform. Did I want to wear my long sleeve shirt or short sleeve shirt. This sounds dumb, but if I wear the long sleeve shirt under my uniform I’ll be hot and sweaty the first half of the shift. Then when the sun goes down, I’m wet and cold. If I wear a short sleeve, I’ll be fine the first half of the shift but cold after the sun goes down. I particularly don’t like wearing jackets unless I really have too. They are cumbersome and block access to your tools.

I started researching other brands of long underwear, compression shirts and base layers. I bought several of the competitors products and they did not fit the needs of Law Enforcement. No one takes into account the Kevlar vest which retains a significant amount of body heat. It also doesn’t breathe and is difficult to get moisture to dissipate. I found a local seamstress and asked her to cut some of these products apart and sew them back together as I instructed. She looked at me like I was crazy but she did it. I tested/wore this Frankenstein base layer for weeks. It worked much better than what’s on the market and better then I had anticipated.

I began researching and testing fabrics. After about a year, I found the fabrics I wanted. These are the fabrics we still use in our base layers today. I gave some base layers out to other cops and they loved them! That’s what started the company. From there we created our summer base layer and winter base layer. The winter base layer has not been released to the public yet.

From there, we started making “ merch”, hats, tee-shirts, hoodies, tank tops, trying to create some revenue for other ideas we want to bring to life. My wife has worked in the coffee business for over a decade and she brought our coffee line to life.

One thing we also do as a company is donate to a nonprofit, 22ZERO. Being in LE, it takes a toll on the mind. After several years I found my self dealing with my own PTS. Being stubborn and not facing it made things worse. I could feel my self going down hill and reached out to a friend of mine who works with Vet and get them assistance for PTS. He told me about 22ZERO. I reached out and they helped me with what I was dealing with. They were so great and have such a great cause I make it a point to donate to them. They work with the entire uniform community and really do help. I think it’s important to give to them so they can help others who are in the same position I was in. I can’t recommend them enough.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been in Law Enforcement for almost 10 years. I mainly work the road in patrol and as a Field Training Officer. I am also a Defensive Tactics Instructor and an instructor in LE based Jujitsu. I have worked many different shifts and had a few other small assignments.

I got into this business to solve a problem in Law Enforcement. I often describe TEN33 Industries as a “think tank”. There are so many items being created for “duty use” but they are cheap junk or over priced junk. That being said, there is a lot of great stuff out there. However, there is no one creating base layers specifically designed for Law Enforcement. Our base layers have a thinner, breathable, moisture wicking material in the core area; under the body armor. The sleeves are a double sided, moisture wicking, heavier material to help keep heat in the arms. Generally speaking, you want your core to stay the warmest in cold weather. No one accounts for the heat the body armor holds, which is a lot! Our base layers work with the body armor and create a much better thermal-equilibrium throughout the upper body.

We had readdressed the fit with less of a compression fit and more of what I call a “hug” fit. It’s close to the body but not tight. It’s true to size, abrasion resistant and has an extra long torso to stay tucked in. The neck tag is sublimated so it won’t wear off or be scratchy like a sewn in tag.

We also offer a summer specific base layers which also makes an excellent concealed carry under shirt. Everything about our base is LE specific and manufactured in the USA here in AZ. No one was addressing these issues all LEO have. This is what created this business.

Even though our specific clients were intended to be LEO, hunters, hikers, outdoors-man, nurses, coaches and even construction workers love our base layers. I was surprised at how many people from other professional area love our product. It is an amazing feeling to create a product and see how many people love it.

Our coffee line has also had great success. I was skeptical at first but my wife and I wanted to do it. She took the lead on this one. We were gearing up to start roasting and selling coffee. Researching beans, suppliers, import rules/reg and other things. My wife found a roaster about an hour north of us who was doing EXACTLY what we wanted to do and more. We contacted them and before we knew it, they became our supplier. We figured there was no point to reinvent the wheel. They even roast and bag freshly roasted beans like we wanted. When a customer orders a bag of coffee, it was roasted within the last couple weeks. The response from coffee drinkers has been amazing.

We do our best to manufacture, print, roast, design and create as much of our products in the USA as possible. This is one of our nonnegotiable rules.

We are still growing, designing and creating. I have many proud moments but I’m sure there are many more to come. But I still remember the first time someone sent me text message with a picture of someone wearing one of our tee-shirts. The text said something about they were standing in line at the grocery store and someone was wearing one of our shirts. That’s an incredible feeling.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I love answering this question because this was a big struggle. Many underestimate the difficulty in this and I did as well. I could not find a local seamstress who wanted to work with me. They only wanted to do alterations or high end custom work. I learned quickly many seamstress’s know how to sew, mend and alter a garment but not how to create a template, cut, sew, grade, and actually create a garment.

I spent months reaching out to bigger company’s who could do what we needed. Many did not want to work with us because we were small with a small budget. I got blown off time and time again. The ones which were willing to work with me were very expensive with sample costs, template costs, labor costs and then a minimum order quantity which was going to cost about $20,000 just to start. And some of these were out of state which would have required travel and those costs as well.

A friend of mine introduced me to a friend of his who did sewing and some basic prototype work. she had great prices and worked with me as we fine tuned everything. She is probably the reason we even exist right now. The process took a long time because she only worked on the base layers on the weekends but her work was awesome and she took care of use. Shout-out to Hope!!

Once we got to a point where she could not keep up with our needs, I again went to bigger companies. I tried a company over seas, violating my own rule. This ended up being a huge mistake and costs me almost $2000 with nothing to show for it. The cost savings sounds good, but the product is usually trash and contacting anyone is very difficult. I again tried other large companies in the USA, and had the same issues.

I finally just put an add out. I was going to hire a seamstress part time or try and find someone to work with. I got a response about 4 weeks later. This lady had a cut/sew business about 1.5 hours away. She had multiple clients but was looking for more after the pandemic. She made us a prototype using our templates and it was great. She even added a few things to the base layer. We are still working with her and it has been great.

I was printing tee-shirts his house. I did a LOT of research and internet searching to figure out how to do it and what median I wanted to use. I printed all the hoodies, shirts and tank tops for a few years. We recently got in contact with a company out of Salt Lake City who does screen print and embroidery. They are also a small company and LE family owned/operated. They are currently doing our printing and embroidery. They do a fantastic job and we are happy to be working with them.

We started doing it all in-house, except for the base layers, and now we have vendors. Neither is right nor wrong, just preference. Finding the right company to work with takes time and can be frustrating but worth it if/when you find the right people.

What I found is this, the first few years are hard. You have to do a lot of things yourself. You don’t have to have the most knowledge or the best equipment. You need to know how to research, learn, and get better. Don’t be afraid to fail and fail again. I have failed a million times and will fail a million more but you have to keep going. Your drive and will to build your business has to be greater than your fear of failure. Keep learning, reading, researching and trying. It’s amazing what you learn along the way and the people you meet. We are by no means a million dollar company, not even a half million dollar company but I absolutely won’t quite and that’s all you have to do.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

This is always one of the hardest parts of starting a business. I wish I could say there was a simple answer but there isn’t. I cut as much frivolous things from my day to day budget as I could. I got ride of Netflix, Spotify, took shorter showers to use less water, sat in the dark at night to save power. I also did not have internet at my house, so I drove down the street to the local school and sat in the parking lot when school was out and used the internet to read, research, send emails and do website work.

I worked extra shifts and overtime. I did not take vacations, cut out drinking, snacks and other things. I started doing small 1 day gigs for extra cash (hung tv’s, cut firewood) and even sold old stuff I had hanging around. I did hat ever I had to do to come up with extra cash. There is nothing glamorous about it, but it’s worth it. Be uncomfortable for a short time to be comfortable for a long time.

I have been able to slowly build the company without any major investors or loans. There were a few months we racked-up some credit card debt but that got paid off asap. I wanted to build this company with a little debt as possible or none at all. Debt just eats into your profits. Could I have build bigger and faster with a big loan? Yes, I probably could have, but how much of my profits would have been going to someone else. Plus the worry of default, late fees, missed payments etc. I did have some family and friends donate to the business which was great and helped a lot. But it wasn’t something I relied on. Just buckled down and saved.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ten33usa.com
• Instagram: Ten33industries_

Image Credits
All photos are taken by me. Models in the photos are my wife, Danielle McQueary, and the other is Pete Kelly Jr. Both of which have provided me rights to the phots and legal right to use them.