business move
Irreverent men's retailer is packing up its short-shorts and relocating to Austin
Quirky fashion brand Chubbies Shorts is moving its headquarters to Austin by the end of the year, the company announced in a September email to customers.
Known for its stylish short-shorts for men, Chubbies is an online clothing brand founded in 2011. The San Francisco-based company is in the process of moving most of its 65 employees at headquarters to the Capital City.
In an interview with the San Francisco Business Times, Chubbies co-founder Kyle Hency explained that the team still loves San Francisco, but it didn't see a future in which employees could start families, buy homes, and live comfortably in the Bay Area.
"We decided it was best to move the company to a city that was very entrepreneurial, business-friendly, and that employees would really like," he told the, adding that most of the 65 employees at headquarters are between 25 and 30 years old.
The company isn't alone in that realization. In recent years, Bay Area companies have either moved services or expanded to other parts of the country, with Austin being chief among them. Cupertino-based Apple built a billion-dollar campus in North Austin, bringing 5,000 jobs on top of the thousands of others already based in the Capital City. And Menlo Park-based Google has already bought up all the office space in a new high-rise opening downtown in 2022.
Hency and three friends from Stanford University founded Chubbies in 2011. On campus, the men would sport retro short-shorts they had picked up from thrift stores and were handed down from their fathers and uncles, turning it into a business a few years after graduation and looking for a way to leave behind their day jobs, according to Business Insider.
In the years since, Chubbies has captivated the so-called frat bro, from the sassy language it uses to its irreverent marketing techniques. (Check out their prank videos and sketches here).
Once a way for its founders to avoid a typical 9-to-5, Chubbies has raised $16 million in four funding rounds since 2012.
