A little more than a decade ago, David Wright and Melanie Alder were selling fridge magnets online from Alder’s living room. They were not chasing a billion-dollar business. They were simply looking for a way to earn some extra money and support their families.
Today, the husband-and-wife team are among Utah’s newest billionaires, after turning that small online business into Pattern, a major e-commerce company whose market value has crossed $4 billion, according to Forbes.
The couple, who married in 2018, now have a combined fortune of around $2.2 billion through their stake in Pattern.
Currently, Pattern assists consumer brands in selling their products online. It oversees everything from establishing online stores and managing orders to overseeing delivery and sales on platforms like Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart, and South Korea’s Coupang.
It started with fridge magnets
Wright and Alder began their business journey in 2013, selling products on Amazon from Alder’s living room. At the time, neither imagined that the small side business would eventually become a publicly traded company.
“We were just trying to bring in a little extra money on the side,” Wright said, recalling those early days from Pattern’s headquarters in Lehi, Utah.
Alder added that their main goal was simply to help support their families. Their lives were very different then. Both were married to other people. Alder was raising four children with her then-husband, while Wright had six children with his then-wife.
Over time, their business grew, and so did their relationship. They eventually married in 2018. Today, they share 10 children between them.
From a living room to Wall Street
The scale of what they had built became clear last year when Pattern went public. On September 19, Wright and Alder walked together onto the NASDAQ stage in New York City’s Times Square for the company’s IPO.
They arrived wearing black button-up shirts and specially designed blue and purple Nike Air Force sneakers. Pattern employees were also given custom Nike shoes for the occasion. Wright, who serves as Pattern’s CEO, took the microphone and thanked the company’s employees.
He then talked about a question he and Alder often hear: how they managed to build such a successful company. “Mel and I get asked, ‘How did you do it?’ We didn’t…it’s a team sport,” Wright told the crowd.
As he said it, he took off one of his shoes and held it up. Pattern’s custom footwear even caught the attention of NASDAQ president Nelson Griggs. According to the company, Griggs said it was the first time in his 20 years at NASDAQ that he had seen a company arrive with its own custom “kicks.”
How Pattern makes its money
Pattern’s business is built around solving a problem that many consumer brands face: selling products across online marketplaces can be complicated and time-consuming.
Amazon and other major shopping platforms can offer brands huge opportunities, but managing everything from online stores to pricing, inventory and deliveries can become a major headache.
Pattern steps in to handle much of that work. The company buys products from brands in bulk and then manages their sales across more than 70 online marketplaces. These include Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart and South Korea’s Coupang.
Pattern makes money by selling those products at a markup.
The company has also moved beyond simply selling products. It now offers technology services that use data science and artificial intelligence to help brands understand online shopping and improve their sales.
More than 200 brands use Pattern’s services. Its clients include well-known names such as Panasonic, SkullCandy and Spanx.
Their fortunes crossed the billion-dollar mark
Pattern’s IPO gave Wright and Alder a huge financial boost, but the company’s stock rally made their fortunes even bigger.
Since its September IPO, Pattern’s share price has nearly doubled. A four-month rise that began in March pushed the company’s market value above $4 billion. In July, Pattern shares reached a record high of $29.
At that point, Wright’s net worth had risen to around $1.7 billion, while Alder, who is Pattern’s chief strategy officer, was worth about $1.1 billion, according to Forbes.
Pattern’s stock has fallen from that record since then, but the couple still owns about 55% of the company.
As of August 7, their combined stake was worth around $2.2 billion. They also had nearly $90 million in cash after selling some of their Pattern shares soon after the IPO.