Advice Line with Chris Riccobono of UNTUCKit

**Guy Raz** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298.
Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is UNTUCKit co-founder Chris Riccobono. Chris, welcome back to the show.

**Chris Riccobono** (3:22)
Great to be here again.

**Guy Raz** (3:24)
So Chris, when we last talked not that long ago in 2025, you told us the story of UNTUCKit. And if anybody missed it and wants to go back and listen, I highly recommend you do. We'll drop a link to it in the show notes. Chris, you started out as a medical device sales rep. You had no fashion background. And you were thinking about different businesses until this idea came to the shirt idea, a shorter shirt, a button down shirt that you could wear UNTUCKed. And you almost tucked yourself out of it because you thought, well, if there was a market for it, somebody else would be doing it.
But within about 10 years of that idea, with the help of a friend of yours from Columbia Business School, Aaron Sanandris, you guys built UNTUCKit, going from zero to like 73 stores in just four years. You've been through a lot. That episode was so powerful because it had so many ups and downs and a lot at stake. First of all, how have things been since we last spoke?

**Chris Riccobono** (4:18)
They've been OK. You know, it never ends. When I was on that episode, we talked about COVID. We talked about high interest rates taken on debt to survive COVID. And I believe we were just touching on tariffs, but we had not gotten there yet. I think we were predicting that there could be some tariff issues. Well, they, of course, hit us hard. We had about 9 million that was pulled out of our bank account that we had no line of sight to.
And that was for two reasons. One, the normal tariffs. But then also Trump removed in the middle of the night this 3-2-1 de minimis rule, which you could ship from Mexico. It had been in effect for like 100 years without paying duties. So that kind of doubly hit us.