Team Sure Win is a sports clothing brand which is best known for designing custom made sports uniforms. They have designed and manufactured uniforms for teams in basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, softball, badminton, bowling, netball, and running. They have also started designing and selling ready to wear casual apparels. The brand is owned by Boiling Gold Enterprises, LLP, a design company based in Singapore. [1. “Boiling Gold Enterprise.” – Boiling Gold Enterprise] Design and manufacturing is currently based in the Philippines under TSWS Enterprises. [2. “TSWS Enterprise | We create awesome designs.” – TSWS Enterprise]
Contents
History
Sherwin and Indonesian customers design options meeting in Team Sure Win showroom, Singapore.
Team Sure Win, the brand was created in late October 2013 by Sherwin Yanzy F. Enriquez, a Filipino and a Computer Engineer by profession. He was then working in Singapore as a Senior IT Manager in the IT Department of an architecture company, ONG&ONG. It started out as a hobby and creative outlet for Sherwin who loves to draw and make designs. [3. “Team Sure Win | Basketball Court Philippines” – Basketball Court Philippines] The trademark is owned by Boiling Gold Enterprise LLP in Singapore and TSWS Enterprise in the Philippines.
Early History
Back in 2007, while working as a Business Intelligence consultant at SGX, Sherwin was commissioned to design and create the uniform for West Dreams, a basketball team he was also playing for. The Pinoy IT dot SG League awarded them the best in uniform award. Since then his team mates, who has since played with other basketball teams, would contact him to design and manufacture uniforms for them. In the next five years, he would only be doing 2 to 3 projects a year.
Back then, he didn’t have a brand for his products. By May 2012, he decided to create the brand Team Sure Win, under the company that he and his wife, Rachelle, owned. Under the new Team Sure Win brand, he made his first 2 team sales on the first morning after launching the product. One was for a men’s basketball team in the US, and the other was for a women’s volleyball team in Singapore. It would end up as his only sales for the month. But after the first products were delivered, more customers soon followed.
Every weekend Sherwin would go to various sports hubs around Singapore to meet the customers during their practice. He carried a big sports bag with his sample jerseys and sizing kits. He was well known for his design process. Back then, custom uniform makers would do what the customers would tell them to do, usually from a hand written sketch or some photos from the internet. The manufacturers usually give little to no input on the design and will only do as they are told.
Team Sure Win’s marketing differential strategy was to design the uniforms for free. They would interview the team about their color preference, team’s character, mascot, inspirations, motivations, then create a design that is unique and matches the team’s identity. They also made innovations by combining various new manufacturing technologies together and using modern moisture wicking fabrics. Because the designs were vector drawn on computers, and the printing technology was also computerized, the customers loved that what they see on the design is what they actually get, rather than leaving the hand drawn sketch to the interpretation of the manufacturer.
Five of the first 8 teams he designed won best in uniform awards. More awards soon followed.
In the first 4 months, Team Sure Win sold over 1,000 sports uniforms. Social media played a big role on the brand’s rapid growth and success, as his customers posted photos of their selves and testimonials in Team Sure Win’s official Facebook page.
On October 10, 2014, Sherwin left his job to work full time in building the Team Sure Win brand. He and his family moved back to the Philippines in December 2015 so he could focus in creating better products.[4. “Products Archive – Team Sure Win Sports Uniforms.” – Team Sure Win Sports Uniforms.]
Product Show Room
Team Sure Win’s first showroom and store in Far East Shopping Centre, Orachard Road, Singapore.
The first show room and store of Team Sure Win opened in January 2015 at Far East Shopping Centre, along the plush Orchard Road, Singapore. Because Sherwin moved back to the Philippines, the store was managed by Ari Rahman, a long time friend of Sherwin. Around June 2015, Ari fell sick and could no longer attend to the shop. They decided to close the show room in July 2015.
But because of the loyal customer base and strong brand presence, Singapore continues to be Team Sure Win’s main customer demographic with more than 90% of the sales coming from Singapore based clients. They continue to deliver products to Singapore customers every week.
Ready to Wear Products and Online Store
In August 2015, Team Sure Win launched two ready to wear products, a crew neck t-shirt and a v-neck t-shirt. It coincided with the launching of their first online store where customers can now purchase and pay for products online.
Branding
Early Team Sure Win logo which won the logo making contest online. Designed by harshikagraphics and is the 45th entry in the contest.
The logo of Team Sure Win came from the winning design in a logo design contest organized online in October 2013. [5. “Team Sure Win logo design – 48HoursLogo.com” – www.48hourslogo.com.] 56 designs by 11 artists were submitted. Harshikagraphics won the contest. The prize was only US$100. The winning design featured a stylized design of the brands’ initials “TSW”, with the words “Team Sure Win” below it, and 3 stars above it.
The design direction was very loose, apart from the requirement that it has to include 3 regular star polygons. This logo was used on the uniforms created by Team Sure Win up until around September 2014. Later on, the TSW was removed, the 3 stars were made more prominent.
The 3 stars were a homage to the founder and his two brothers who likes to play basketball competitively against each other in their backyard while growing up.
In both the old logo and the new logo, the words “Team Sure Win” are not displayed when used as an identifying logo on the uniforms.
Customers and Global Presence
Although operation is now currently based primarily in the Philippines, Singapore still remains Team Sure Win’s main customer base with over 90% of sales and weekly product delivery to Singapore.
The first customer outside of Singapore was from the Purple Rain basketball team, in Texas, USA in October 2013. Since then, they have delivered uniforms to customers in Japan, Australia, Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.
Because Singapore is a culturally diversified country, Team Sure Win also have clients who are from England, Russia, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Global Customer Representatives
Team Sure Win has customer representatives in Singapore, Philippines, Australia and Saudi Arabia and are looking to expand their marketing arms to other countries as well.
Official Uniform Provider
Majority of Team Sure Win customers are community based sports teams who participate in independent community leagues. But they have also provided uniforms to prominent multi-national companies, government institutions, religious groups, sports clubs even movies.
PBA Legends Singapore
Team Sure Win representative, Nicole Hernandez, together with PBA Legends Benjie Paras, Jerry Codinera, Alvin Patrimonio and Nelson Asaytono during the press conference of PBA Legends Singapore Tour.
Team Sure Win was commissioned by Red Card Sports & Entertainment as the official basketball uniform provider for the PBA Legends tour in Singapore. [6. “PBA Legends invade Singapore”. – philstar.com] [7. “PBA LEGENDS in SINGAPORE” – www.wherevent.com.] [8. “PBA LEGENDS ARE COMING TO SINGAPORE” – PinoyClassifieds] [9. “PBA Legends to show wares in Singapore Tour” – philstar.com] [10. “Philippine Basketball Legends and Team Sure Win – Team Sure Win Sports Uniforms” – Team Sure Win Sports Uniforms. ] The tour featured Philippine’s biggest basketball legends including Alvin Patrimonio, Nelson Asaytono, Benjie Paras, and Jerry Codinera. The event was covered by major news companies including GMA 7, PhilStar News, ABC 5, and Solar SportsDesk.[11. “BT: PBA legends, muling maglalaro…” – YouTube.com] [12. “PBA Legends to …” – YouTube.com]
Sports Institutions
Team Sure Win has been providing the soccer jerseys for English Football School since November 2013.[13. “English Football School” – englishfootballschool.com.sg]
They have also been providing basketball uniforms for Proform Basketball. [14. “Proform Basketball” – proformbasketball.com/]
Team Sure Win also has provided baseball and softball uniforms for the Singapore based Japanese baseball club WSR, and the Singapore based Philippine baseball and softball club, Aztigs.
Private Companies
Customers include multinational companies such as Citibank, DBS, UOB, Abbott, Capitaland, Hogben, Nasdaq, Palawan Sandcastles, Sentosa, World Sport Group, Adrenalin Events, Certis Cisco Management Group, Jardine Schindler Elevator Corporation, ONG&ONG. These companies participate in inter-company tournaments.
Government Institutions
Customers from government institutions include Central Provident Fund, Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Education,People’s Association, United States Embassy in Singapore.
Educational Institutions
Customers from the education sector includes Singapore Japanese School, St. Joseph Institution International, Singapore School of the Arts (SOTA), East View Secondary School.
League Representations
Their clients have represented their teams in leagues such as:
- Singapore Baseball Softball Association (SBSA) Leagues
- Blessed Cup Basketball League
- Pinoy IT Basketball League
- Inter-company Basketball League (ICBL)
- Noble Life International Basketball League (NLI)
- IMPinay Volleyball League
- US Community League
- US Embassy Youth Basketball Program
- FilOrg Basketball and Volleyball Leagues
- Home GSA Basketball League
- D’ Filipino Friendship League (DFFL)
- Australia Softball Invitational
- National School Games (Singapore)
In Popular Culture
Two Boys and a Mermaid – Team Sure Win provided the basketball uniforms for the basketball collegiate teams that were featured in a 90 minute Singapore telemovie starring Aloysius Pang. The uniforms and the end credit uses the old logo with the stylized design of the brands’ initials “TSW”. [15. “Two Boys and A Mermaid” – MDA ] [16. “Two Boys and A Mermaid” – Toggle] [17. “Two Boys and A Mermaid” – Irismi]
