D2C Diaries

How Slo Engineered the Future of Fashion With 900K SKU's and a Custom SaaS Stack

Loukas Hambi and Olly Hudson

Kristian Hansen (AKA, The Jeans Guy) didn’t plan to build a fashion brand. But after accidentally buying a pair of women’s jeans, he posted a TikTok asking, “Is this really what women deal with every day?” and woke up to 3 million views. 

Welcome to the story behind slø, a custom denim brand that’s rewriting every rule in DTC fashion.

In this episode of DTC Diaries, Kristian takes us behind the scenes of a business that:
- Offers 1170 sizes and manages over 900,000 SKUs
- Sold $400,000 worth of jeans in its first hour, completely organically
- Grew a waitlist of over 200,000 customers from TikTok and community alone
- Built a factory from scratch in Turkey after every supplier failed to deliver
- Runs a 1.5% return rate in one of the highest-return industries on earth
- Ships custom-fit jeans in under 21 days with a factory-powered SaaS stack

Kristian doesn’t just talk about product or performance, he shows what it takes to build a real moat in DTC: full control, radical transparency, and obsession with customer experience.

If you’re a founder, operator, or marketer trying to scale without shortcuts, this episode is for you. 

00:00 The viral TikTok that started it all
03:00 The $400k launch that went wrong
05:00 Supply chain failures + learning curve
10:45 Why they chose accessibility over premium pricing
12:30 Customer commitment 
16:00 Complexity of SKUs & 1.5% return rate
21:50 Building a supply chain SaaS
24:07 Custom built business model
29:18 Being "The Jeans Guy"
31:30 Community building and customer service
40:00 Slo’s product roadmap
42:00 Future vision
44:40 Lessons learned & what the future holds

Follow Kristian
https://www.slo.co/
https://www.tiktok.com/@thejeansguy

Follow Joe on socials:
Linkedn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-marston/
Twitter: https://x.com/JoeJMarston

Follow Olly on socials:
LinkedIn: https://shorturl.at/kPrqO
Twitter: https://x.com/oliverwhudson

Follow D2C Diaries on socials
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@d2c.diaries
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/d2c_diaries/

People on this episode