Popflex
Cassey Ho's activewear brand, built from a YouTube fitness channel with zero advertising spend. $120M+ in annual revenue, patented designs, and a Target partnership.
A fitness instructor uploaded a Pilates video for 40 students in 2009 and never spent a dollar on advertising. Sixteen years later, that decision has turned into an activewear company generating over $120 million in annual revenue, a patented skort that Taylor Swift wore on camera, and a second brand occupying the front of every Target store in America.
Cassey Ho bootstrapped Popflex from her apartment using revenue from her YouTube channel Blogilates, which now has over 10 million subscribers and 5 billion views. Her estimated net worth is $12 million, and she remains CEO and head designer of a company that has never taken venture capital, never run a paid ad, and generates over 70% of its revenue from organic content.
At a glance:
| Founded | January 2016 |
| Founder | Cassey Ho |
| COO | Sam Livits (also her husband) |
| Ownership | Privately held, no outside investors disclosed |
| Revenue (2024, estimated) | $120M+ |
| Business model | DTC e-commerce + retail distribution via Target |
| Social following | 19M+ across platforms (10.8M YouTube, 3.7M TikTok, 3.2M Instagram) |
| Size range | XXS to 3X |
| Retailers | popflexactive.com, Target (Blogilates line) |
The Story
A doctor, a lawyer, or a failure
Cassey Ho was a pre-med student at Whittier College on a full tuition scholarship when her father told her she could be a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. Her parents had fled Vietnam in 1975, and financial security was not negotiable. In her third year, she dropped organic chemistry, the last prerequisite before the MCAT, and ended her path to medical school. She graduated with a biology degree in 2009 and moved to Boston for a corporate job as a fashion buyer.
40 students and a goodbye video
Before leaving California, she recorded a few Pilates workout videos for the 40 students she was leaving behind at 24 Hour Fitness and uploaded them to YouTube under the name Blogilates. She forgot about them for months. When she checked back, the videos had thousands of views and hundreds of comments requesting more. Nine months into the fashion buyer job, she quit, started teaching Pilates 12 classes a week to cover rent, and used the free time to make more videos. A yoga bag she designed for herself ended up in Shape magazine before she even had a real brand, and that was the moment she stopped treating the internet as a hobby.
The failure that built the standard
Her first activewear line, Bodypop, launched in 2014 and was not good. She rushed it to market without proper testing and ended up with quality problems she later called embarrassing. The failure taught her what would become the core of everything Popflex does: never release a product unless it is genuinely better than what already exists. In January 2016, she launched Popflex with that standard, and the brand has operated on it since.
The Strategy
Products that solve problems nobody else noticed
Every Popflex product starts with a specific, physical frustration. The brand’s bestselling leggings were designed to eliminate the front seam that causes discomfort during workouts. The yoga bag that started it all had separate waterproof compartments for dirty gym shoes because Cassey could not find one that did. Leggings come in different lengths so women of different heights can find the right fit.
Each product takes between 18 months and three years to reach the market. The team fits every piece on both a size small and a 1X model, then tests across all nine sizes from XXS to 3X before release. When their swim line did not fit correctly across the full range, Cassey delayed it by three months rather than ship a compromised product.
Duping herself for Target
In January 2025, Cassey launched Blogilates as a separate apparel brand designed exclusively for Target, with prices between $15 and $40 compared to Popflex’s $50 to $80 range. The collection sold roughly half its inventory across online and physical channels in less than a week.
The strategy was counterintuitive: she essentially created affordable versions of her own premium products for mass retail distribution. Instead of cannibalizing the premium brand, the Target launch drove Popflex site sales up 112% year over year. Women discovered Cassey through the affordable line and traded up to the premium one, which is exactly the outcome a traditional brand strategist would have warned against. The Target relationship started in December 2020 with Blogilates home workout equipment that sold out within weeks. By 2025, the brand occupied the front of 1,700+ Target stores nationwide.
The Marketing
$0 ad spend, $120 million in revenue
Most DTC brands spend 30 to 50% of revenue on customer acquisition through paid ads. Popflex has never spent a dollar. Over 70% of its revenue comes from organic content, primarily short-form videos where Cassey shows her design process from sketch to finished product. She started making 60-second vertical videos in 2021 explaining the problem each product solves, and some of those videos sell out inventory within hours of posting.
This works because her audience does not experience her content as marketing. She has been posting free Pilates workouts for 16 years, which means the trust was built long before she ever asked anyone to buy anything. The content is not a funnel. It is the relationship itself.
The community is the focus group
When Cassey shows a prototype on TikTok and asks her community what they think, the response functions as both market research and earned media simultaneously. Her followers tell her what problems need solving, she sketches a solution on camera, they tell her what to fix, and then they buy it when it launches because they watched it get built. No brand can replicate this dynamic through influencer marketing or paid partnerships, because it requires years of trust that cannot be purchased.
The Taylor Swift skort
In April 2024, Taylor Swift posted a YouTube Short of herself playing pickleball in a lilac athletic skort. Viewers identified it as the Popflex Pirouette Skort within minutes. The $60 skort sold out in every color and size in 15 minutes, generating a 700% sales lift and the brand’s biggest single sales day in its history.
Cassey’s team responded by renaming the product the Pirouette Skort “(Cassey’s Version)” and updating the website banner to read “Tortured Pirouette Department.” The playfulness was not a calculated marketing move. “It was just us being excited doing Swiftie things,” Cassey said. The brand had its second-highest sales day that Friday. She had designed the skort in 2022 and patented it in January 2024, three months before Swift wore it. The patent mattered because the celebrity endorsement also triggered an avalanche of counterfeits from Shein, Amazon sellers, and eventually major American retailers including Nordstrom and Kohl’s.
The Numbers
| Year | Estimated Revenue | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2016–2019 | Not disclosed | First four years of Popflex |
| 2019–2022 | Doubled annually | Per Cassey’s Shopify Masters interview (Oct 2022), 800% growth since 2019 |
| 2023 | ~$20M+ | oGorgeous Inc. (holding company) minimum |
| 2024 | $120M+ | Industry estimate across Popflex and Blogilates brands |
The revenue jump from roughly $20 million to over $120 million between 2023 and 2024 reflects two things: the Taylor Swift viral moment that turned the Pirouette Skort into a cultural phenomenon, and the Target launch that put the Blogilates brand into 1,700 stores simultaneously.
Popflex made the Inc. 5000 list as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies. The brand doubled its sales for three consecutive years leading up to 2022 and was drawing over 1.5 million monthly visitors to its website by that point.
Funding: No venture capital, no outside investors disclosed. Cassey built the brand using revenue from Blogilates content and early product sales. Her husband Sam Livits serves as COO, and the company remained small enough that its culture and operations stayed under their direct control.
Controversies
Design theft and counterfeiting
The most persistent issue Popflex faces is not scandal but theft. After the Taylor Swift moment, counterfeit Pirouette Skorts appeared on Amazon, Shein, and TikTok Shop. One Amazon seller took a video of Cassey modeling the skort and replaced her face with an AI-generated one to evade detection. “It makes it more difficult for the victim of the infringement crime to get it taken down than it is for these dupers to just steal my photo and put it up,” Cassey said.
The problem escalated to major retailers. Gottex allegedly copied the patented skort design and sold it through Nordstrom. When Cassey’s team sent cease and desist letters, Gottex’s lawyers responded by threatening legal action against her for pursuing “any further infringement allegations.” As of 2025, the fight over design protection in activewear remains ongoing.
Shein meeting
In February 2023, Shein invited Cassey to a Zoom call after being caught copying her designs. The executive told a story about his daughter being a Blogilates fan and, by Cassey’s account, made her feel sympathetic to the company’s position. She later said she was disappointed in herself for how the conversation went, describing it as the executive “playing to her sensitivity.” Shein has continued to copy Popflex designs since.
Early quality failure
Cassey’s first activewear line, Bodypop, launched in 2014 with quality problems she attributed to rushing the product and not having a full-time employee overseas to manage manufacturing. She has been publicly candid about the failure, and it became the reason Popflex products now go through 18 months to three years of development before release.
What You Can Learn
Your audience is the product development department. Cassey does not guess what women want. She shows them sketches, asks what problems need solving, and builds products based on the answers. Any online business can do this, and the ones that do will always outperform the ones running focus groups with strangers.
The best marketing does not look like marketing. Popflex proves that 16 years of free content creates a customer acquisition engine that no paid ad budget can replicate. Cassey’s design process videos work because her audience feels like they are watching a creator solve problems, not being sold activewear. The catch is that it takes years of giving value before you can ask for money, and most founders are not willing to wait.
Fail publicly, then fix it publicly. The Bodypop disaster could have ended Cassey’s product career. Instead, she told everyone what went wrong and used it as the standard for everything that came after. Transparency about failure builds more trust than pretending it never happened.
A premium brand and a mass-market brand can coexist if they serve different needs. The Blogilates Target line did not cannibalize Popflex because it introduced new customers who would not have found the brand otherwise. The 112% increase in premium sales after the affordable launch is the kind of result that should make every founder rethink their fear of going mass-market.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much revenue does Popflex generate?
Popflex and the Blogilates brand combined are estimated to generate over $120 million annually as of 2024. The holding company, oGorgeous Inc., was doing a minimum of $20 million in 2023 before the Taylor Swift viral moment and Target launch accelerated growth significantly.
Is Popflex a publicly traded company?
Popflex is privately held with no disclosed outside investors. Cassey Ho is CEO and head designer, and her husband Sam Livits is COO. The company has not taken venture capital.
What is Cassey Ho’s net worth?
Estimates place Cassey Ho’s net worth at approximately $12 million, derived from Popflex, the Blogilates YouTube channel (10.8 million subscribers), the Blogilates Target line, and associated product lines.
What happened when Taylor Swift wore the Pirouette Skort?
In April 2024, Taylor Swift appeared in a YouTube Short wearing the Popflex Pirouette Skort in digital lavender. The $60 skort sold out in every size and color within 15 minutes, generating a 700% sales lift and the biggest sales day in the brand’s history. Cassey renamed the product “(Cassey’s Version)” in tribute to Swift’s re-recorded albums.
Does Popflex run paid advertising?
Popflex has never run paid advertising. Over 70% of revenue comes from organic content, primarily short-form videos on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram where Cassey shows her design process. The remaining revenue comes through organic search and word of mouth.
What sizes does Popflex carry?
Popflex offers sizes XXS through 3X across its entire product line, with all styles available in the same colors. The brand tests every product on both a size small and a 1X model before expanding to all nine sizes. Leggings are available in different lengths to accommodate different heights.
Is the Pirouette Skort patented?
Yes. Cassey filed a design patent for the Pirouette Skort after it was originally copied by fast fashion companies, and the patent was approved in January 2024. Despite the patent, major retailers including Nordstrom have sold alleged copies, and enforcement remains an ongoing challenge.
How is Popflex different from the Blogilates Target line?
Popflex is the premium DTC brand sold through popflexactive.com, with most items priced between $50 and $80. The Blogilates line is sold exclusively at Target with prices between $15 and $40. Cassey describes it as making her designs accessible at a lower price point without compromising the premium positioning of Popflex. The Target launch in January 2025 actually increased Popflex sales by 112%.
How did Cassey Ho start Blogilates?
In 2009, Cassey was leaving California for a corporate job in Boston and recorded a few Pilates workout videos for the 40 students she was leaving behind at 24 Hour Fitness. She uploaded them to YouTube under the name Blogilates, forgot about them for months, and returned to find thousands of views and hundreds of comments. She quit her corporate job nine months later and started creating content full time.
What was Bodypop?
Bodypop was Cassey’s first activewear line, launched in August 2014. It had significant quality issues because she rushed it to market without proper testing. The failure directly influenced Popflex’s development process, which now requires 18 months to three years per product with testing across all nine sizes.
Has Shein copied Popflex designs?
Yes, multiple times. Shein has copied Popflex designs on several occasions, and a 2023 meeting between Cassey and Shein leadership did not result in lasting changes. Cassey has been vocal about the emotional and financial toll of design theft from fast fashion companies.
Who founded Popflex?
Cassey Ho founded Popflex in January 2016, six years after starting her Blogilates YouTube channel as a goodbye gift to 40 Pilates students she was leaving behind in California. She bootstrapped the company from her apartment using revenue from Blogilates content and remains CEO and head designer.
Who owns Popflex?
Popflex is privately held with no disclosed outside investors and no venture capital. Cassey Ho is CEO and head designer. Her husband Sam Livits serves as COO. The holding company is oGorgeous Inc.
When was Popflex founded?
January 2016. Cassey’s first activewear line, Bodypop, had launched in 2014 with quality problems she has been publicly candid about, and Popflex was the relaunch built on the standard that no product ships unless it is genuinely better than what already exists.
Sources
- Shopify Masters, “Cassey Ho’s Journey From Blogilates on YouTube to DTC Success With POPFLEX,” October 2022. Revenue growth, design process, Inc. 5000 listing.
- Modern Retail, “How Cassey Ho of Blogilates and Popflex built a fitness ecosystem,” 2024. Brand strategy, Target partnership, revenue figures.
- Retail Brew, “How activewear brand Popflex duped its own products with its new Blogilates line at Target,” January 2025. Target launch strategy, self-duping concept, 112% sales lift.
- Ad Age, “How Taylor Swift made Popflex skorts go viral,” 2024. Taylor Swift moment, 700% sales lift, “(Cassey’s Version)” response.
- Modern Retail, “After a Taylor Swift viral lift, Popflex faces off against AI-enabled counterfeits,” 2024. Counterfeit issues, AI deepfake listing, design patent.
- Net Influencer, “The Creator Economy’s Most Unlikely Fashion & Fitness Mogul,” June 2025. Founder story, product development timeline, company culture.
- Wikipedia, “Cassey Ho”. Biographical details, career timeline, Gottex/Nordstrom dispute.
- Spectrum News, “How Popflex founder Cassey Ho is fighting for fairness in the fashion industry,” April 2025. Patent details, industry-wide copying.
- ECDB, “Popflex Active Company & Revenue 2014-2026”. Revenue estimates.