Dan Alarik: What's Your Why?

So you start with why? Why do I wake up every day? Why do you work so hard, or do what you do? And there is a lot of things that are nice to have, but at the end of the day, money is not that important. You don’t take it with you we are all going to lay our heads down at the end of the day for the very last time and you're going to reflect across your life--you're not going to reflect across your bank account, nobody cares about that. When I started Grunt Style, I actually hated business. I joined the Army because I did not want to go to college, and to go work for somebody else, and then help somebody fulfill their dreams, and then die. Because it added up to nothing. So I joined the Army because I wanted to serve something greater than myself, so getting out of the Army, it was an interesting transition going to that to business. And what I found out was I didn’t want the mission that I had in the army to change. Now the army is full of pride and patriotism, and you know, love of country and take care of your family, the good guys to your left and right. And I made it my mission to share that culture of pride and patriotism to every home in America. Everyone should be inspired and motivated by those same feelings. Everywhere I go, setting all politics aside, what if everyone understood why our country is important to the rest of the world? The freedoms that we celebrate? Why so many people bleed and die for our country for hundreds of years? To share that culture...and that became my new mission. That’s my why.

Daniel Alarik was born April 19, 1982 in California. He moved to the Chicago area when he was in grade school. After graduating high school in 2000, Daniel decided to join the Army. With two deployments under his belt, he later spent 3 years as a drill sergeant, training nearly 2,000 soldiers. Daniel got married to his wife, Elizabeth, in 2008, and had his son, Ethan, a year later. Daniel decided that leaving active duty Army to transfer to the Army reserves was the best decision for his family.Upon leaving active duty, Daniel wanted to continue his passion for pride in service and patriotism in being an American and founded GruntStyle.com, a patriotic apparel company, with only $1200. Grunt Style is now one of the fastest growing apparel companies in ecommerce. In 2015, Daniel founded Alpha Outpost, a monthly box subscription club, that’s grown from $0 to over $8 million in revenue within 12 months. Daniel continues as CEO of both thriving companies, employing over 375 people, more than half of which are military veterans. The combined value of both companies is now over $100 million and growing.