25/08/2026
He Left Nike After 20-Plus Years to Build His Own Sportswear Brand. It Grew 743 Percent Over 3 YearsOmorpho founder and CEO Stefan Olander learned a crucial design lesson from Steve Jobs during a Nike partnership with Apple.
Stefan Olander came up with the idea that would later inspire his Portland, Oregon-based sportswear brand Omorpho during an intensive Crossfit workout in 2014.
Every Memorial Day, Crossfitters do a workout called “Murph” that consists of a one mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 air squats, followed by another mile run, and requires athletes to wear a weighted vest if they have one. It honors a U.S. Navy SEAL named Lieutenant Michael Murphy who sacrificed his life during a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan.
Olander had done it several times vest-free. “And then, one year, a friend of mine said, ‘We’re going to do it the right way this time,’” he says. “It almost killed me because it’s so much harder.”
Olander was blown away, first by how difficult the workout became with added weight, and second by how “ugly and uncomfortable” his vest was. After doing some research, he discovered there weren’t any well-designed weighted vests on the market. In fact, he says brands didn’t even sell them in colors other than black at the time.
In a Crossfit gym, working out while wearing something that fits badly is “almost like a badge of honor,” Olander says. “It’s cool because it’s macho, and you’re supposed to feel that way.” But as an executive at Nike, he knew that isn’t the kind of experience most consumers seek out. “Most people actually want things that are comfortable and beautiful,” he says.
By 2017, after 21 years at Nike in roles such as vice president of digital sport and vice president of global digital innovation, Olander decided to leave the company. “Nike is an amazing place and has a lot of resources,” he says, “but also, if you don’t show up for work, nothing’s going to change. The company will still go.” He took one year off, then pitched his idea to create high-quality weighted vests to a few former colleagues who, like him, had developed an appetite for doing something new.
From 2018 to 2021, his team developed prototypes. The process took longer than expected, according to Olander, who serves as CEO, because they were working with factories in Asia when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. During that three year period, Dr. Erin Feser—whose PhD in sport and exercise focused on the impact of microloading, or working out with a small amount of extra weight—joined the brand as its head of science. Her research lined up with another hypothesis of Olander’s: that microloading could help people burn more calories through exercise.
So when Omorpho officially launched in November 2021, it offered weighted “G vests” with 10 pounds for men and six pounds for women, as well as a collection of lighter-weight tights, shorts, long sleeve shirts, and short sleeve shirts. The brand’s products range in price from $299 to $89.
One thing that made Omorpho stand out from the start was its approach to men’s versus women’s vests. “Inevitably, male and female anatomy is different,” Olander says. Instead of ignoring those differences, the brand created designs tailor-made for each s*x. In the men’s version, weight is equally distributed across the chest, core, and back areas, while in the women’s style, it’s concentrated around the core and back.
Olander says his approach to design was influenced by Steve Jobs, who he worked with in the 2000s to create a product for a partnership between Apple and Nike. “I found his attention to design detail remarkably impactful in creating products and respecting the process of designing something beautiful,” he says.
He took inspiration from Nike when it came to brand-building—specifically, the company’s playbook of creating products that were functional, but stylish, and using partnerships with athletes to drum up demand for those products amongst consumers.
“We took great pride in making sure that what we developed and delivered to our customers would thrill them,” Olander says. “It’s supremely comfortable, completely adjustable, it looks amazing.” When you do that, he continues, “it’s just a matter of making more people aware of the fact that you exist.” Though Omorpho lacks the deep pockets required to sponsor superstars like LeBron James, Serena Williams, and Cristiano Ronaldo, working with smaller athletes and gym trainers has helped increase brand awareness.
From 2022 to 2025, Omorpho’s revenue surged 743 percent, earning itself a spot at No. 461 on this year’s Inc. 5000 list. The company, which currently has fewer than 20 full-time employees, declined to share revenue figures but disclosed that it has raised about $18 million in funding to date.
While Omorpho’s biggest channel is direct-to-consumer, it also works with retail partners such as Dicks, hosts pop-ups, and recently started selling its products on Amazon. Tariffs were “really disruptive” to the business when they first kicked in last year, according to Olander, but his team worked with suppliers to lower prices in order to avoid making drastic cost increases.
The brand expanded to Europe and the U.K. in June. When asked what’s next, Olander jokes, “World domination,” then adds that he’s 100 percent convinced that weighted clothing will become “a multi-billion dollar category five to 10 years from now.”
“There’s never been a greater interest in people’s health and well-being, both from a longevity side and a performance side,” he says. “And our products span all of that. Whether you’re someone who’s just walking to feel good and live longer, or someone who is a professional athlete looking to shave off one second of their race time, our products cater to both.”
