HP Business Class: Jeremy Moon from Icebreaker

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When wannabe-entrepreneur Jeremy Moon first came across merino fabric, he felt like it was meant to be.

Jeremy was working in marketing and sniffing around for his first big venture when he chanced across a farmer who'd produced a merino wool T-shirt. He couldn't believe how merino wool felt as a garment.

"That was a powerful moment for me because here was this thing, that was from the mountains, that was entirely natural. It felt gorgeous, nothing like the heavy old sweaters I wore as a kid. I wore it to bed because I didn't want to take it off, I slipped it on under my suit, I'd go for a run after work, it's what I wore. Here I am a week later, still wearing this thing thinking what is going on?"

For Jeremy, the revelation was more than just the new fabric. "I thought this is it, I didn't know what 'it' was but it felt like this is it. I'd been doing some personal growth stuff to connect more to my intuition. It was that follow your dream moment, follow your heart."

And that's exactly what he did, when he turned that fabric into legendary clothing brand Icebreaker at just 24 years old. He pulled together a team, some investors, and told the bank he wanted to put a new kitchen into his house. That wangled him $25,000 of his own to put towards his first collection.

Then, Jeremy drove the length of the country in his Ford Fairlane 500, selling merino clothing to outdoors companies. The company sold in 2017 for $288 million.

For Jeremy, becoming an entrepreneur wasn't a choice. "It's a force. I never woke up and thought 'oh it would be nice to be an entrepreneur'. It doesn't feel like that, it feels like a force, and it's trying to burst out of you a bit."

To hear more about the exponential growth of Icebreaker, listen to Jeremy's episode of HP Business Class here: