Taylor Shupe
FOUNDER, CEO
FUTURESTITCH
SECOND STITCH
WHO: Taylor Shupe is the founder of circular knitting manufacturer FutureStitch with 20,000-square-foot facilities in Oceanside. It creates socks, sleeves and knit footwear, and made $50M in sales in 2023. His first local venture San Clemente-based Stance was co-founded to expand an overlooked part of the apparel segment: socks.
WHY: All FutureStitch factories utilize energy efficient practices. At the manufacturing company, Shupe founded a program called Second Stitch to employ and help rehabilitate formerly incarcerated people. In Oceanside, there are 14 employees so far with goals to have 40 by the end of the year. In the future, he wants to promote employees beyond production roles and move them into other parts of the business.
IN THE NEWS: Shupe was an honoree at the Business Journal’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards in March, recognized for his manufacturing model and the integration of the Second Stitch program.
NOTABLE: Second Stitch has seen a 0% recidivism rate since the founding of the program, meaning none of the employees have returned to the prison system. FutureStitch’s 280,000-square-foot Shanghai facility opened in 2018 and is now said to be the most energy efficient knitting facility in the world by LEED standards.
IN THEIR WORDS: “I want business owners to understand that there is a method to enhancing your environment and culture that will increase productivity and profits as a result.”
