We were lucky to catch up with Marc Sharma recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marc, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The word ‘Nation’ is loosly defined as a large body of people united by common descent, history or culture. It was this idea of being ‘united by culture’ that started my vision for Nation Athletic.

I have trained in martial arts, specifically jiu Jitsu, for years now. Like many, I came for the training but stayed for the culture.

Over the years I noticed many gyms had something in common. There was often a culture of unity and corporation within the gym environment that is uncommon in today’s increasingly divisive world.

I noticed there were people from all walks of life, with often very different beliefs and cultures, working together, building friendships and positive connections that may not have otherwise happened outside of the gym. I thought this was something special and started to see the gym as more than just a place to work out.

After years of working in a corporate environment, I realized this was often very sterile and missing these genuine connections. I had always wondered what it would be like to build a brand that represented this unique aspect of martial arts culture.

Like many others, I was laid off during the pandemic and found myself with all the time in the world on my hands locked up in a tiny NYC studio apartment. I realized I would never have an opportunity like this, so I began building the foundation for Nation Athletics.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I began training martial arts as a teenager because I grew up as a mixed-race kid in a pretty racist town in the UK so would get bullied a lot. I found a local Muay Thai gym and began training. I quickly realized I not only loved the training but that the gym gave me a sense of community, belonging, and purpose. Ironically I was often training with the same people that may have bullied me outside of the gym, but during our training, we were all working together with a common purpose and supporting each other’s training goals.

Fast forward some years I was forced to stop training Muay Thai due to an autoimmune disease that left me with a full hip replacement and spinal fusion. After years of training and focusing on rehab I realized I had to find another way to stay involved in the martial arts community.

At this point, I was introduced to Jiu Jitsu, ground-based martial art. I found that despite my physical limitations there were still many ways I could train as it relied less on explosive impact and more on leverage and technique. I was instantly hooked and felt like this gave me superpowers. In the back of my mind I also knew at any moment my training may be taken away so wanted to find other ways to stay involved.

Meanwhile, I had spent the last 10 years working in retail and hospitality at various levels of management. I had gained a solid understanding of running a business. Knowing I had the business background I always thought I could utilize this in a more positive way to create my own brand and spread a healthier corporate culture founded in the same sense of unity I had gained from the martial arts community. This is where the idea behind Nation Athletic was formed, I just did not know what the product or service would be.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I don’t think I ever thought Nation would be anything more than a hobby that kept me sane during my time working a demanding corporate job. After three years of grinding away at night and building up my side hustle, I was finally able to leave my corporate life and make my side hustle my main hustle, but it certainly was not easy making the transition.

One of the main reasons I believe I was successful in making this transition was ironically due to years of working the ‘day job’ in corporate retail that I was trying to escape. The way I now look at my time working in the corporate world is that this was my paid internship. I was able to use these years to gain a deeper understanding of the business acumen required to start and operate a brand and learned from the company mistakes made on someone else dime.

I was able to apply these learnings and developed a business model that was not only sustainable but had good potential to grow. Which we are now starting to see as we are up 300% vs LY in only our third year of operating.

what type of products/services/creative works you provide,

While working my corporate job during I day I would research my product ideas and business models for Nation Athletic by night. After over a year of self-learning, I decided designing apparel for the Jiu-Jitsu community would be the simplest entry to the market and had the most potential to scale so began learning graphic design, garment construction, and digital marketing.

In doing my research I realized there were a couple of main pain points with Jiu-Jitsu apparel that I believed I could help solve. Firstly the construction of training apparel was often poor and would not hold up to the tough sessions we put them through. During my first year of research, I did nothing but test samples from different factories until I would a factory, fabric, and construction I was confident would hold up. I also negotiated a replacement guarantee with the factory so that I could stand behind my products and offer free replacements to anyone that was not happy with the quality.

The second pain point I noticed was that designs often centered around two main areas. They were either pretty wild, super bright, and bold with images of dragons, unicorns, and Pokemon fighting each other, or alternatively often lacked personality and were plain.

During our design process, we tried to balance bold colorways and fonts with a clean design and layout. We also try to bring in cultural moments and stories to the designs that are relatable. Which we feel creates a fresh approach to the products we offer, somewhere between the two extremes.

One of the things that makes Nation stand out is the fact that everything has been built up from scratch and ground up. I taught myself graphic design and digital marketing to start a business. To pay for our first drop I cut out buying Starbucks and lunches from my time at corporate and saved this money. After a year I had enough to put this money back into inventory and a small budget to run some facebook ads.

Now more than ever there are so many resources available to help build your own business. We are proud to say that with a little resourcefulness and hard work we were able to capitalize on this and are currently starting to see the fruits of our labor coming together.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I don’t think it is possible to become an entrepreneur or founder without resilience. While it is probably easier than ever to access resources to help start and grow your business you still have to do the work, develop a unique product, gain trust and connect with an audience in a now more than ever crowded marketplace.

If there is one thing training Jiu Jitsu with an autoimmune disease, hip replacement, and spinal fusion has taught me it is how to adapt during periods of hardship. If you truly love what you do you will find a way to adapt and continue. Starting my journey this way helped to develop a big mindset shift, away from the limitations created during challenging periods and instead focusing on what can be done.

For example, when starting the business I realized I needed working capital that I could not afford. So I calculated I could save roughly $175 a week by not eating out or buying Starbucks. Instead, I’d invest this money back into saving start-up capital. After a year I have almost $10k in working capital. Around this time I was actually fired from my corporate job and with the learnings made, a small cash reserve, and some fire in my belly I made the leap to pursue Nation Athletic full time.

Focusing on the long term goal and each small milestone really helped, as it is a long journey and can at times feel like a constant up hill battle.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nationathletic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nation_athletic/