Happy Wednesday,
This week, Jake and I talked with Jack Rasmussen, the founder of Caddix Cleats. For context, he has no footwear background, a former housekeeper's resume, and a problem the biggest shoe brands in the world couldn't crack.
However, now his "Smart Stud" technology is on the feet of around 100 NFL players, and not one of them is being paid to wear it.
In our conversation, we got into how he went from a nineteen-year-old's hunch to locker rooms Nike, Adidas, and Under Armor have owned for decades, how he raised money before he had a product to sell, and what happens when a challenger starts making the giants nervous.
This is more of a seat belt than it is a pair of cleats. It doesn't inhibit your ability to drive, but it could save your life.
How Jack Got Here
Age 19: Jack and his dad, a marketing guy, watch Jamaal Charles tear his ACL in the open field with no one near him. Their reaction: that looks preventable. Jack was a housekeeper who had dropped out of college. His dad's background was marketing. Neither had any business thinking about biomechanics.
The next 1-2 years: Jack emails doctors, surgeons, and PhDs every single day about ACL injuries. A lot of them tell him to get lost. He keeps learning anyway, and calls it the most frustrating and most valuable stretch of the whole journey.
The first patent: He and his dad file a patent for a shoe sole that flexes to absorb force before it reaches the knee. It's awarded in August 2019. The development team in Portland says the full sole isn't feasible, so Jack asks whether they can do studs instead. Same function, just a slightly different design.
The proof: A University of Oregon biomechanics lab runs a study on the concept, and it works. It took Jack about a year and a half of meetings just to get the lab to take the idea seriously.
A 4-year detour into football: Jack didn't play football until he was 23. After a basketball injury, he taught himself to punt from YouTube, got his undergrad and grad school paid for, and ended up an All-American at Western New Mexico. He played until 27, then tried coaching but didn't love it.
The four-year gap (2019 to 2023): Jack never wanted to run a cleat company. He just wanted to hand off his idea. Several footwear brands talked to him, but all gave him the same answer: come back with tangible proof of concept and market validation, then we'll talk.
October 2023: Out of options and running low on time, money, and energy, Jack decides to make the cleats himself, teaming up with his college quarterback Grant, who becomes his head of marketing.
January 19, 2024: A video of Grant wheeling the stud and saying "these reduce injury" goes viral on Instagram. Four million views overnight, 900 followers to 14,000 in 24 hours, with zero product to sell. One of the people who reaches out is Todd Heap, Jack's childhood hero. Jack drives 13 hours to have lunch with him, and Todd invests. Joe Flacco, Dennis Pitta, and NWSL player Kayla Sharples follow.
Valentine's Day 2024: Jack runs a pre-sale using a drawing of what the cleats might look like. Hundreds of pairs sell, but the first physical pair doesn’t arrive until April.
2024: Flacco wears a custom Colts-blue pair, and NFL players start reaching out. Jack hand-makes custom pairs for about 30 players, but the website says "sold out," which creates serious FOMO. The first actual retail sale doesn't happen until December 2024.
Today: Around 100 NFL players are wearing Caddix; none of them paid. The NFL has allowed teams to buy the cleats, the first non-licensed product ever bought by NFL teams. A team ordered a full-size run of 26 pairs just days before we recorded. The company still runs with 4-5 people.
The Big Idea: The Best “Proof” is Undeniable
For years, the feedback Jack got from the biggest footwear brands was the same: bring us adoption, athlete feedback, and market validation, then we'll talk. The irony is, Jack didn't even want to build a cleat company, but he got the proof anyway.
Two years in, he has about 100 NFL players wearing the product voluntarily, and he describes a recent meeting with a major brand as the first time he felt he didn't have to sell anything.
The same companies that wanted to scoop up his idea cheaply three years ago now have to reckon with a challenger that already did what they said they'd need to see.
5 Tactical Takeaways
Being a challenger brand means being against something. Jack saw an ACL tear and thought, "that looks preventable," while everyone inside the industry treated it as inevitable. He then spent two years learning from experts who didn't want to talk to him. Not knowing what's "supposed" to be impossible can be a feature.
Proof of concept beats a pitch. Jack spent years trying to sell an idea. The moment he built tangible proof, through athlete adoption and lab data, the conversation completely flipped.
Create demand before you have supply. A viral clip, a pre-sale on a drawing, custom pairs for about 30 players, and a "sold out" website combined to make the cleats feel scarce and desirable before a single pair had actually been sold.
Take the financial bath where it buys you distribution. Jack made custom colors for players and didn't sell a thing for the first year, a deliberate loss to get the cleats into locker rooms. It worked: adoption grew from about 30 players to around 100.
Trust takes years to build and seconds to lose. Jack says the company never uses the word "prevent." He's honest that people have torn ACLs in Caddix Cleats, because turf, fatigue, and warm-up all matter too. He frames it as a seat belt, and his data on how fast the studs release from the ground (17 to 40 percent faster, he says) is still being prepared for publication.
Why It Matters
Jack's story is a reminder that the most defensible position isn't the best pitch; it's the best proof. He didn't win by convincing the big footwear brands to take a chance on him; instead, he built enough real-world evidence that they now have to convince him.
And the way he got there was by taking the unglamorous steps one at a time: emailing experts who ignored him, taking a financial loss to get into locker rooms, and leaning into his identity as a true outsider.
📩 And don’t forget: Bottom of the Ninth is back this Friday with the top three stories in sports and business from the week.
See you then,
Tyler & Jake