Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Valentine Aseyo from Matador Meggings, an innovative activewear brand best known for its men’s leggings. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Valentine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
The mission of Matador Meggings is to elevate & empower men by giving them confidence, comfort, and joy through the performance apparel we craft. Even though it may simply look like we’re selling workout apparel, we want to support our customers to be the best version of themselves: healthy, active, and fit.
We get hundreds and thousands of customer emails telling how our leggings motivate them to exercise more because they feel very confident and sexy in our apparel. However, there’s one anecdote that blew my mind; it was beyond my wildest imagination.
One of our customers told us that he used to struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts due to being overweight. On a night of alcohol and drugs to numb his pain, he stumbled upon our ad on Instagram. He had an impulse to purchase a pair in that blurry state of mind. When he put on the pair of meggings, he immediately felt powerful, confident, invincible – like a superhero. This was his motivation to sign up to a gym and start his fitness journey. Within a few months, he went from 2XL to XL. Soon after, he went down to a Large and now he wears size Medium.
He told me: “Valentine, I was about the commit suicide the night I purchased your leggings. I simply didn’t because I passed out. When I received my purchase 2 days later, I was already a different man. Your product gave me the confidence and motivation to go to the gym for the first time in my life. If it wasn’t for Matador Meggings, I doubt I’d be alive.”
After 4 years in the business, I’m pretty used to people saying how they got fit thanks to our compression gear but to save a life of another human was a first for me. To say that I was crying uncontrollably while reading his email would be an understatement. This and countless other customer success stories are precisely why I do what I do every day.
Valentine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
WHO IS VALENTINE? I am the Maker of Matador Meggings. First-time entrepreneur. Executive coach. Ex-Facebooker. 200-hour certified yoga teacher. Burner. Spanish & Turkish. And of course, meggings aficionado. On paper, I’m the CEO of the company, but I’m also the designer, developer, marketer, accountant—even the customer service representative. As a one-man team, I get to wear a dozen hats on a daily basis. My last role was SVP of Product at Bandsintown, the #1 concert-discovery app. Prior to that, I spent 8 years working at Facebook in Ireland, India, and the US, spanning many different roles from Product to Advertising, Marketing to Sales, User Experience to Community Operations, and Outsourcing. Prior to Facebook, I worked at Colgate-Palmolive and IBM.
TELL US ABOUT MATADOR MEGGINGS.
Matador Meggings was born out of the idea that guys should have access to quality leggings made specifically for the male anatomy, and they should wear them with confidence—just like the original bullfighters of Spain. Our signature men’s leggings are made with sweat-wicking performance fabric and offer a soft molded crotch cup with No-VPL* Technology™ (*visible p*nis line), which conceals the groin department and offers support where it counts. Numerous features like an open pocket for a phone, a zipper pocket for valuables, and a t-shirt/towel loop make these meggings functional for the modern man’s needs.
WHERE DOES THE BRAND NAME COME FROM? WE GET “MEGGINGS” BUT WHY “MATADOR”?
Though athleisure is a newer concept born in the last decade, matadors have brought elegance and sophistication to athletic wear for centuries. Matadors are hyper-masculine but also emotional figures who needed tight-fitting pants that wouldn’t slow them down. They aren’t afraid of loud colors or bold prints. So, we took a page from the history books—and now we’ve added our own: men’s leggings for today’s matador. My signature design of the stripes that spiral around the legs represents the horns of a bull. It’s also an homage to my Spanish heritage.
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR MATADOR MEGGINGS? DID YOU NOTICE POOR FASHION CHOICES IN THE GYM?
The seeds of this product were planted 5 years ago when I showed up to the first day of my yoga teacher training. There were 20+ women in yoga pants and I was the only person who didn’t—or, better said, couldn’t—wear them because typical leggings expose the groin department completely and leave nothing to the imagination, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing on some occasions…but I’m not sure if those women were ready for a show. (And no one paid for a ticket, so…) I had been wearing leggings at Burning Man or other festivals for years but that was the first time VPL (visible p*nis line) had become an issue. I said to myself, “It’s 2015. Surely someone needs to invent leggings for men, right? I mean, women have cups in their bras to hide the outline of nipples, so why can’t men have a similar feature in their leggings?” Fast forward 5 years and we’re still the only ones doing it. There are some brands that claim to manufacture leggings for men, but their products either make your crotch completely flat (which is far from flattering) or they expose the outline of your pocket rocket. I personally am not a fan of either, so I decided that this would be my contribution to humanity: meggings! Men’s leggings specifically designed for the male anatomy.
WHAT MAKES MATADOR MEGGINGS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER BRANDS?
Matador Meggings are men’s leggings on steroids. We pumped them with several features to fit modern men’s needs: soft molded crotch cup concealing VPL (visible p*nis line), an open pocket for your phone, a zipper pocket for your valuables, a loop at the back for your t-shirt or towel, an inner drawstring for extra security, and feather-weight sweat-wicking performance fabric. These are not your grandmother’s leggings! We thought of everything; you can wear them for everything from intense workout sessions to festivals to Sunday brunch. We also differentiate ourselves with the wild colors and bold prints we offer. As a man, you’ve typically had only 2 options: go to big brands to get high-quality leggings that only come in boring colors like black and gray, or purchase funky colors/designs from Amazon that are incredibly poor-quality nylon/spandex that will give your skin a rash. Matador Meggings combines the best of both worlds: high-quality performance compression pants with designs that (finally) match your personality.
LET’S TALK ABOUT VPL. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS SUCH A BIG ISSUE FOR GUYS?
Because people shouldn’t tell your religion by your leggings and some things should be left to imagination. Most compression pants give cause to “moose knuckles,” which inevitably creates insecurity and forces guys to wear shorts on top of meggings. Our signature crotch cup makes your man parts look rounded like a superhero without showing the outline. Think about it: very well-rounded, perfectly proportionate, and generous. Compression pants don’t need to compress your junk and make it flat; we combat this issue. Thanks to this No-VPL™ (visible p*nis line) Technology, you no longer need to wear shorts on top of your meggings. If you’re feeling brave and you’d like to expose your money-maker…all the more power to you! You can remove this cup and give people the show they’ve been waiting for. The stage is yours! Just make sure to put it back when you’re visiting your parents.
WHAT/WHO INSPIRES YOU?
I got my inspiration from 2 concepts that are very dear to my heart. I’m from Spanish lineage, and I’ve always admired matadors. Even though I’m completely against bullfighting, I’ve appreciated this hyper-masculine yet emotional figure who is not afraid of wearing the tightest pants with the brightest colors. If you look at their clothing alone, no “macho” would really wear them: incredibly brave colors, super tight-fitting, very intricate embroidery…but they didn’t give two shits, and I absolutely love that. So they’ve been my primary design inspiration. The second element of inspiration is “the bull.” If you look closely, you’ll notice that the stripes on the sides spiraling inward, represent the horns of the bull. So this animal directly influenced our design choices. Every brand has design elements, and I snatched this one as my unique identifier.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Lesson: Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, just build a better one
A lot of young entrepreneurs spend years looking for a “million dollar idea” that doesn’t exist. Such a waste of time. Innovation eats invention for breakfast. Don’t sweat it too hard to come up with a unique idea that no one thought before because 99% of the time either it’s been thought or it’s not a good idea, hence, it doesn’t exist. If you look around you for 5 minutes, I guarantee you that you can find 10 products in your apartment that could be improved. This could be socks, toaster, an app, a stool, clothing, etc.
My mistake was that I kept looking for a brand new invention so I had to unlearn this unhelpful pattern. The moment I changed my perspective, I had a long list of products that I could improve and re-market similar to the brand I built. This was the birth of Matador Meggings. I discovered a need for improvement in the leggings I wore so I set out to build a better wheel.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Lesson: Don’t try to be everything to everyone
Early on in my journey, I wanted to launch an active wear brand so I made 68 references, which took me 9 months to develop. At the end of the day, 90% of my sales was generated by my hero product “meggings” — Knowing what I know now, I would’ve focus on one single category (meggings) and launch a website only for that. Over time, I can always keep adding tops, joggers, etc.
Pivot: Once I noticed that my hero product was what brought all customers and sales, I killed all secondary product categories and doubled down on men’s leggings. I spent months improving the product until I had one single product that was close to perfection. For the first 2 years, I sold only men’s leggings, which was a huge pivot from the initial strategy. Once I established brand equity and a solid customer base, I gradually introduced other product types such as compression shorts, t-shirts, tank tops, and bike gear.
My advice: Find your niche! You don’t have to serve all men or all women. Narrow down your audience as much as you can and give them a single product that they will love. You will scale over time but first, focus on your core product.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.matadormeggings.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/matadormeggings
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/matadormeggings
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/valentineaseyo
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/matadormeggings
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MatadorMeggings
Image Credits
None. All belong to Matador Meggings.