Inspiring Conversations with Whitney LaMonda of Thread Vision

Today we’d like to introduce you to Whitney LaMonda.

Hi Whitney, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I spent nearly 20 years in corporate fashion, working my way from production coordinator up to Director of Production at BB Dakota. When Steve Madden acquired the company during the pandemic and relocated to New York, I chose a different path and launched Thread Vision in 2021, a full service fashion agency giving entrepreneurs and founders access to exactly what big brands rely on, end to end product development, global sourcing, sampling, compliance, warehousing and fulfillment.
Thread Vision became the engine behind something much more personal. My daughter Ava plays flag football and I could not find a mouthguard that fit her or felt like her. As a former Division I soccer player and team captain at LMU who also played Olympic Development, I lived the experience of being a female athlete treated like an afterthought when it came to gear. Always second fiddle to the boys.
So I used everything Thread Vision does for clients and applied it to creating Fangz. We designed the product, sourced it overseas, developed the art and packaging, sampled it, ran third party compliance testing and shipped it in through our own freight forwarder directly into our warehouse. No boxes in my garage. That is how FANGZ was born.
The day the first samples arrived and Ava saw them, her face said everything. Pure “you made these for ME.” That moment is why FANGZ exists and why I show up every single day.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth is not a word I would use. Entrepreneurship has been the greatest crash course of my life. Learning finance, sales, legal, HR, and marketing all at once while trying to actually run a business is no joke. Managing the unknown is real and nobody prepares you for it.
The hardest part honestly has been managing my own nervous system. Burnout is real, the mental load is heavy, and when you are the one responsible for everything, it is easy to lose yourself in it.
The Trump administration tariffs brought me the closest to the edge. A 145% tariff hit is not something you can just absorb. I had to make painful financial decisions including eliminating a position held by someone I considered a friend. It was one of the most stressful experiences of my professional life. We resolved it, but that season tested everything in me.
What keeps me going is knowing that every hard thing I have navigated makes me a better resource for my clients and a better founder for FANGZ. And honestly, watching Ava is a pretty powerful reminder of why I started all of this.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Thread Vision?
Thread Vision is a full service fashion agency built specifically for entrepreneurs who want to add a physical product line as an additional revenue stream. We handle everything from brand discovery and design to global sourcing, sampling, compliance testing, warehousing and fulfillment. Concept to customer, completely under one roof.
What sets us apart is the depth of expertise behind the work. I came up through 20 years in corporate fashion at companies like Juicy Couture, O’Neill and BB Dakota. That is the level of production knowledge and vendor relationships our clients get access to, without needing to hire a full internal team.
We specialize in helping founder-led brands launch and scale custom product lines, whether that is a quick turn domestic merch drop or a fully built from scratch overseas collection. Our hybrid model means clients can start lean and scale smart, with real hands-on support at every step.
What I am most proud of is our portfolio. The quality and beauty of what we have built for our clients is something I genuinely stand behind. We hit $1 million in revenue faster than I expected and have maintained profitability, which as any entrepreneur knows is not guaranteed. But more than the numbers, the fact that I have built and run this company, navigated every challenge it has thrown at me, and kept growing. That means everything to me.
If you are an entrepreneur with a vision for a physical product and you want a true expert partner to bring it to life, Thread Vision was built for you.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Most people meet me as a fashion executive and entrepreneur and have no idea about my athletic background. I was a Division I soccer player and team captain at Loyola Marymount University, played Olympic Development, and was inducted into my high school hall of fame. Sports shaped everything about how I lead and compete in business.
What surprises people even more is that before Thread Vision, my first business was Athletes Temple, a yoga practice I built specifically for athletes. I am a certified yoga teacher and have always believed that the mind-body connection is the secret weapon most competitors overlook.
Away from work you will find me on a hiking trail or somewhere in nature completely unplugged. It is where I reset and where my best ideas actually come from.
The through line in all of it, soccer, yoga, hiking, entrepreneurship, is the belief that how you treat your body and your mind determines how far you can go.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.threadvision.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/threadvision/
• Other: https://www.fangzmouthguards.com