From a College Startup to a Billion-Dollar Company: MISSION Founder Josh Shaw on Entrepreneurship, Private Equity, AI, and Executive Leadership

I founded Mission in 2008, and I'm proud to say the vision and mission of the company then remains the mission and vision of the company now, which is we are entirely focused on helping people who live, work, and play in the heat do so more comfortably and enjoyably.

Heat's one of the number one killers in the United States.

Heat-related deaths has topped most of the weather-related incidents in the US.

And what started as a labor of love or a, a passion project, if you will, in trying to help athletes train better and play harder really became something much bigger, because heat affects everyone, psychologically, physiologically, biologically.

And so we find ourselves today, fast-forward from 2008 to 2026, in this really unique position where we're really the only brand in the world that lives, eats, breathes, and sleeps cooling technologies to keep you safe in the heat.

Yeah.

I hear you on that.

So you said lives, works, and plays in the heat, and I think when I knew of Mission initially, before you and I connected, I really thought of it as plays in the heat.

So I thought of athletes or my son has a Mission towel in his football bag, right? So I thought of it from that side of things.

But you're saying works in the heat, and obviously being in the recruiting space, I'm thinking about all of the environments people work in that are extremely hot, and how this could be an employee safety play as well.

That's exactly right.

And so when I started the business back in 2008, we launched our first cooling product really 2010, and it was grounded in sport.

Dwyane Wade, Serena Williams, Drew Brees all came in as co-founders and equity partners because they knew that their number one enemy, competitor was the heat, frankly.

And what we found was when we launched it, so many more people than just the elite athletes in the world needed cooling solutions.

And so to get to your point, we coined the phrase industrial athlete, 'cause there was such a massive number of people in the world who- ... combat the heat every day at work, who frankly need to get through that day to collect their paycheck and pay the bills.

You could be a kitchen worker.

You could be in a factory that has no AC, just fans.

You could be a UPS driver.

You could be on a job site, a roof, paving, railroad, in the field working.

You know firsthand how devastating the heat can be.

And so over the subsequent years since launch, I'd say the industrial athletes become an even bigger body of consumers who want this product than the athletes we originally intended, who still love it, but they need it day in and day out to get through the day.

That's so interesting because the volume is just so much higher.

There are only so many elite athletes, and certainly enough to found an organization.

Like, there's enough of a market there, right? But-

That's right