Activewear star LSKD wins big at Telstra Best of Business Awards

Tipped by judges to be “one of Australia’s next great brands”, rapidly expanding Queensland activewear chain LSKD was crowned the Telstra Business of the Year at a glittering gala award ceremony at Sydney’s ICC last Thursday.

Activewear chain LSKD – which also won the night’s Outstanding Growth category – was judged the gold standard from 22,000 SMEs who entered.

Founder and CEO Jason Daniel launched LSKD as an iteration of his original skate wear brand Loose Kid Industries in 2007.

$100m turnover

A 2018 pivot to e-commerce led to extraordinary rapid growth, and a turnover of over $100m in 2022-23. 

“Winning this award means a lot,” Daniel told SmartCompany. “It’s a testament to our wonderful team, who share our mission and values every single day.”

“We’re trying to create something bigger than ourselves, inspiring our community to be 1% better every day, so this is really great for our team.”

Despite the excitement of an award win on a national stage, Daniel was in bed pretty early after LSKD’s win, and back in the office early next morning.

“I only had one beer, and was in bed by 12.30am. I flew back up to Queensland early on Friday morning, and was in the office by 10am. There’s always a lot to get done. We’re opening a new flagship store at Pacific Fair on the Gold Coast in May, so we’re very busy finalising the design.”

LSKD’s mission to help people be 1% better every day is one of the brand’s six core values, which Daniel credits with the company’s exponential growth in recent years.

“We created our company values as a team. Our 20 staff members at the time helped us create them via an anonymous form.” Today the business has more than 250 staff globally.

Originally founded as Loose Kid Industries in 2022, the brand became LKI in 2007, and then LSKD in 2018. Loose Kid was founder Daniel’s high school nickname.

Loose Kid grows up

Jason Daniel started his clothing business at the age of 16, and at the time he was driven by one thing – getting his own clothes to wear.

After years of steady growth, the business hit a different trajectory over 12-months in 2017/18.

“I found mentors and started to read business books,” said Daniel. “For five years we had been on the same revenue number – $3m a year. I started to look at myself, and I realised I wasn’t being a great leader. I realised I needed to be humble and learn more — this was in late 2017.”

“My son was born in March 2018 and by September we’d changed the direction of the business. We built a product to be world class, and we haven’t looked back.”

Founded in Loganholme south of Brisbane, the brand today has nine outlets in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and last year launched its first international store in Pacific Beach, San Diego. 

Last week LSKD announced that Alex Shaughnessy, the former retail leader of Lululemon and Bailey Nelson, has been appointed as its first-ever chief retail officer, taking responsibility for LSKD’s global growth, retail operations, and team skill development.

Serving communities

Telstra’s business group executive Amanda Hutton said the telco’s annual awards provide “the opportunity to hear how some of Australia’s outstanding businesses have been adapting and excelling at meeting their community’s evolving needs, has been truly inspiring.”

Six other business were recognised as national winners on the night across seven categories with Mumamoo, Evolve Communities, Earworx, Transmutation, Eather Group and Lyka Pet Food winning their categories.