Cased was created by myself, Rhett Jones, and my cofounder, Dylan Vanek.
I’m a mountain biker and entrepreneur from Austin, Texas. After founding a mountain bike park in high school as my first business, I decided to make my second business, Cased.
My goal was simple: Make actually comfortable, actually protective padded clothing.
THE BEGINNING
I started designing prototypes in August 2024, going into my freshman year of college. What I thought would be a two-month research and design process turned into nine months.
During that time, there were zero sales. I was slowly putting more personal money than expected into the business while continuing to reject prototypes that didn’t meet my standards.
I have a very high bar for quality. It took over 130 prototypes and dozens of different material tests to finally make a product I was satisfied with.
This wasn’t dropshipped gear. I worked with a specialized manufacturer and designed the product from the ground up. The goal was to build something minimal, extremely comfortable, and built with top-of-the-line padding.
BRINGING ON A COFOUNDER
About six months into the prototyping process, my cofounder joined.
Dylan, 23, went through a serious elbow injury about a year and a half ago that he’s still recovering from. Before the injury, he was one of the top riders in the country. That experience shaped how seriously he thinks about protection.
Because the injury kept him from riding, Dylan started getting into entrepreneurship and e-commerce.
We actually met in an unusual way. I went on Lukas Pakter’s podcast to talk about my bike park business and mentioned that I was starting Cased. Dylan heard the episode and cold-messaged me asking if he could be my business partner.
We hadn’t met before, but everything aligned, and we became cofounders in March.
GOING ALL IN
When Dylan joined, the prototypes still weren’t finished and the debt was growing. We both started maxing out credit cards to fund the final stages of R&D.
In April and May, we made major progress and the product was finally close. On May 29, we got our first sale.
Shortly after that, sales started picking up. Customers were excited about the product, and it became clear that we had something real.
Even though we were still in debt and expected to take on more, we both decided to fully commit to building Cased.
Dylan quit his full-time corporate job. I dropped out of college. From June onward, we went all in!
WHERE WE’RE HEADED
Since June, we’ve scaled quickly.
We raised $300,000, primarily from customers who believed in what we were building. I traveled to Asia to secure a higher-quality manufacturing partner and build long-term relationships.
We’re not interested in cutting corners. Our goal is to build the best padded apparel brand possible and help riders spend more time outside without worrying about comfort or protection.
