Brand Backstory: How FIGS Went from a Car Trunk to a Half-Billion-Dollar Scrubs Empire

FIGS turned the most boring product in healthcare into one of the most exciting brands in retail.

FIGS' wild ride:

• Grew from selling scrubs out of a car to nearly $556 million in annual revenue

• Went public in 2021 at a $4.6 billion valuation. The first company ever taken public by two female co-founders

• Opened five Community Hub stores in two years, with lines around the block at every launch

• Built a community of nearly 2.8 million active customers who treat scrubs like a lifestyle brand

Here's how they did it:

In 2012, Heather Hasson was grabbing coffee with her friend Allison, a nurse practitioner who had just finished a 16-hour shift. Allison was wearing oversized, scratchy scrubs with a bright orange size tag hanging out the back. Heather stared at them. She had spent years running a high-end handbag company in Italy. She knew fashion. And she knew these scrubs were a disaster.

It hit her fast. Billion-dollar companies were engineering high-performance gear for athletes. Moisture-wicking fabrics. Four-way stretch. Custom fits. Nobody was doing that for the people saving lives. Healthcare workers were stuck buying ugly cotton uniforms from medical supply stores. The same places that sell bedpans.

Heather had the product vision. She needed an operator. A mutual friend introduced her to Trina Spear. Harvard MBA. Former Wall Street. Blackstone Group. Trina saw the numbers immediately. Over 20 million healthcare workers in the U.S. alone. Ninety percent buy their own scrubs. The industry was massive and completely ignored.

Trina cashed out her 401(k) to fund the startup. That's commitment.

FIGS co-founders Trina Spear (left) and Heather Hasson. Photo courtesy of FIGS.

They launched FIGS in 2013 with no stores, no retail partners, and no brand recognition. Just scrubs made with antimicrobial, four-way stretch fabric and a willingness to hustle.

Their first sales strategy was beautifully simple. They parked outside hospitals at 7 AM and 7 PM during shift changes. Hot coffee in one hand. Sample scrubs in the other. Nurses who tried them on didn't want to give them back.

But breaking into a conservative industry was slow. Medical supply companies had owned this space for decades. Nobody believed healthcare workers would pay premium prices for scrubs. The feedback from the field told a different story. Nurses wanted pockets big enough for their phones. They wanted fabrics that didn't absorb every spill. They wanted to feel professional, not invisible.

FIGS listened to all of it. They treated every nurse, doctor, and technician as a product development partner. That deep customer obsession became their competitive edge.

Word spread fast. At nursing conferences, FIGS was the only apparel booth in the building. They drew crowds. They put real healthcare workers on Instagram and TikTok. Not models. Actual nurses and doctors wearing their scrubs on shift. It worked. Healthcare professionals started tagging FIGS in posts. The brand went viral in a community that had never had a brand to rally around.

Big investors noticed. Ex-Lululemon CEO Christine Day came in early. In 2017, producer Thomas Tull invested $65 million. That gave FIGS serious firepower to scale.

"I wake up every single day thinking about healthcare professionals and how do we support them, how do we empower them, how do we celebrate them." – Heather Hasson, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

Then COVID hit. FIGS pivoted overnight. They manufactured masks and face shields. They donated PPE to hospitals and offered free N95s to frontline workers. Revenue jumped 138% in 2020, reaching $263 million with $50 million in profit. The pandemic proved what FIGS already knew. Healthcare workers deserved better. And they were willing to pay for it.

In May 2021, FIGS went public on the NYSE. First scrubwear company ever listed. First company ever taken public by two female co-founders. The stock jumped 36% on day one. Valuation: $4.6 billion. A scrubs company. On Wall Street. Let that sink in.

Inside a FIGS Community Hub, where glowing signage and curated product displays reflect the brand's lifestyle-first retail strategy.

Here's where it gets interesting for our world.

FIGS started as digital-only. But in late 2023, they opened their first physical store in LA's Century City Mall. They called it a Community Hub. Not a store. The distinction matters.

These aren't typical retail spaces. They have personalization stations where you can embroider your scrubs with your name or a custom icon. Lounges and cafés. Wellness workshops. Recycling drop-offs for old scrubs. Happy hours. They're gathering places for healthcare professionals.

The location strategy is surgical. Every Community Hub sits near major hospitals and medical campuses. LA. Philadelphia. New York City. Houston. Chicago. Trina Spear puts it simply: "It's all about proximity to our people."

The results speak for themselves. Forty percent of store visitors are new to the brand. Of those, 30% become online shoppers too. When they opened the Upper East Side location in New York, the line wrapped around the block. Two-and-a-half-hour wait. For a scrubs store.

"Our brand is our community. Our community is our brand. We'd like to do everything we possibly can to support them and celebrate them." – Trina Spear, Co-Founder & CEO

By early 2026, FIGS operates five Community Hubs with plans for more. They're expanding e-commerce to 60 international markets. They outfitted the U.S. Olympic medical staff. And they've donated over 282,000 scrubs to nonprofits in 30 countries through their Threads for Threads program.

The "Awesome Humans" display inside a FIGS Community Hub showcases the full scrubs color range alongside lounge seating for healthcare professionals.

So what can we learn from FIGS?

1. Solve a real problem that everyone else ignores. The best opportunities hide in industries nobody wants to touch.

2. Let your customers build your product. FIGS designed scrubs in hospitals, not boardrooms.

3. Put your stores where your people already are. Proximity beats prestige every time.

4. Make your retail spaces about community, not just transactions. A store that people want to hang out in is a store that prints money.

5. Mission and margin can coexist. FIGS donates scrubs globally and still runs a profitable public company.

From a car trunk outside a hospital to five Community Hubs and nearly $556 million in revenue, FIGS proved that caring about the people who wear your product is the best business strategy there is.

Two women. One big idea. And a whole lot of better scrubs.

That's what we call a healthy return.

Michele

KRCrossing Consulting