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Chris White and the serious business of being ridiculous
Chris White studied law and business, then built Shinesty around clothes that made his friends laugh. Keeping the joke alive has required a rather unfunny skill: learning how to run a company.
Jens Nicolaysen
Jens Nicolaysen is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Shinesty, the Boulder, Colorado apparel brand whose stated mission is to force the world to take itself less seriously. A 2010 marketing graduate of CU Boulder's Leeds School of Business, he spent his early career doing brand strategy and innovation consulting for large consumer companies before launching Shinesty in mid-2014 with fellow Leeds alum Chris White. The company began as a vintage-clothing resale operation with buyers scouring thrift shops in college and ski towns, pivoted to original designs in 2015, and grew into a direct-to-consumer underwear and loungewear business best known for its trademarked Ball Hammock pouch underwear, its holiday and theme-party outfits, and a joke-first marketing voice that Nicolaysen oversees across email, paid media, catalogues and video. Shinesty's story became a six-episode MTV2 series in 2017, the company was named an Inc. 5000 honoree in 2022, and it has raised roughly $8.2 million through a Series A.