“The day profit comes first, we die”: Inside Andreas von der Heide’s unlikely playbook

In the bustling hub of the Les Deux headquarters—what Andreas Christian von der Heide calls his 'playground'—two worlds quietly meet. On his desk lies a green Moleskine, filled with fragments of ideas. But beneath this creative instinct of a man who built a brand now spanning 150 employees across multiple markets from a single white t-shirt, runs the unmistakable shadow of a soldier.

To frame Andreas simply as a successful entrepreneur, however, would be to miss the point. The Les Deux story is not just one of scaling a brand, but a constant, deliberate attempt to build an empire without losing its humanity in the process.

Discipline as an invisible architecture

Before fashion, there was the army. While his peers were navigating the safety of university halls, Andreas was waking up to the cold precision of military barracks.

"I was a wild child," Andreas admits, his voice carrying the calm authority of someone who has survived the chaos of early success. "The army was good for straightening me out." He didn't just endure the structure; he fell in love with it. "I love that there was a structured day... you're not done until you're done. I like that kind of mantra."

It was there that he learned his first lesson in leadership: legitimacy has no age. "What I love about the army is that it doesn't matter your age. If you're good enough, they will invest in you." He transposed this dogma directly into Les Deux. When he launched the brand at just 20, he wasn't a business school student; he was a young man trained in the rigors of the field, convinced that discipline is the only way to protect creativity.

The missing thread and the creative escape

Every entrepreneur has a "red thread"—a silent narrative from childhood that dictates their adult hunger. For Andreas, that thread is defined by an absence: his father, who passed away when he was two.

“That father figure has always been missing,” he says. “It created a kind of hunger—to prove that whatever you set your mind to, you can do it.” He found his balance through two other figures: a grandfather who embodied the grit of entrepreneurship, and an aunt who opened the door to a deeply creative world. Between them, Andreas found his lane. For him, creativity is not just a commercial tool; it is a "place for me to go and just be free."

The alchemy of complementarity

Launched in 2011 with no network and no capital, Les Deux was an act of pure will. In the early years, Andreas and his first co-founder, Virgil, were like-minded and shared the same creative strengths, but they often found themselves treading the same ground. As the business began to take shape, Virgil ultimately left to pursue a salaried role, at a time when the company didn’t yet have the financial foundation to pay salaries, even to its founders, and the relationship remained on good terms.

The real turning point for the business wasn’t a sudden injection of capital, but the arrival of Kristoffer, who joined as co-founder and CEO just a few months after the brand was founded.

While the partnership with Virgil was built on shared vision, the transition to Kristoffer introduced a necessary, almost organic, division of labor. "Everything you can see and touch—that’s me. Everything that is invisible—distribution, warehouse, tax regulations—that’s him," Andreas notes. It isn't a rigid "golden rule" enforced by contract, but an implicit, blind trust that allows them to move faster. "We are good at two different things... and we don’t interfere on the other’s playground." This synergy allowed Les Deux to navigate the murky waters of rapid growth without ever breaking.

“We’re always looking for that extra five percent that makes the difference, and we’re proud to have a team that does the same.”

Recruiting intent: "I can feel them"

In an industry notorious for systematic turnover, Les Deux stands aside. Five of the first six employees are still at the company well over a decade later. Andreas built this circle on an intuition: he understands people.

"People feel alive when they feel energy," he says. When he looks for talent, he doesn't just look for a CV; he looks for "intent." His Creative Director, Mathias Jensen, started as a 23-year-old graphic designer. Andreas didn't care about his background; he cared about his soul. "I look at whether I can 'feel' them. Are they here because it’s just a nice brand, or are they here because they want to build their own journey?"

From "tough love" to meditation rooms

Like many young founders, Andreas doesn't hide the price paid. In the beginning, he worked 80-hour weeks and expected the same from everyone else. "I sacrificed everything... I have been so driven that I also expected people to give their absolute everything." He calls it “tough love.” Whether those early years demanded too much is harder to say. What is certain is that the company still carries traces of that intensity—though, as he puts it, time and fatherhood have “softened the edges.”

Today, the "playground" has evolved to include a meditation room at the brand's HQ, where a Buddhist monk visits to lead the team in mindfulness. "An hour ago, I had a lot of people in the meditation room with a monk... yesterday we had the workout in the gym." These aren't corporate perks; they are essential components of a "healthy culture." Andreas has realized that a brand dies the moment it becomes just a number in an Excel sheet. "The day we do that, it dies."

"We have a rule here: no one is above the team," he says. This is not just a slogan. He has parted ways with high performers over a lack of kindness, believing that "it only takes one person to ruin morale across an entire team." His leadership is deeply personal. Recently, hearing that a new hire was struggling to conceive, Andreas—who navigated a similar path— contacted the employee directly. "I just reached out and said, 'Hey, I know this is a very fragile period... if you want to talk to someone that has tried that, you can basically just reach out.' The people who make my life fun should feel that I really care for them."

Resisting the tyranny of data

As Les Deux grew, so did the role of data. Andreas remains a skeptic. "Data for me is securing the base, but if we only look at data, we're going to be a boring company in five years. Data looks back; it cannot look ahead."

In an industry currently marred by overproduction and a "crisis of truth," Andreas relies on instinct to stay relevant. He wants Les Deux to be a "speedboat, not a supertanker"—agile enough to navigate heavy waters and shift collections to be "straight-to-season" with shorter lead times. While he hopes for a change in legislation to create a level playing field for sustainability, his focus remains on "guarding the magic."

What remains

How does a man who balances a sergeant’s grit with a poet’s notebook want to be remembered? When he thinks of his legacy, he doesn't mention revenue milestones. He thinks of his children and the partners who will one day speak to them.

His answer is disarmingly simple: "Dedicated. Caring. And a bit demanding."

Les Deux is ultimately trying to prove a radical thesis: that you can build a global empire without crushing the spirits of those who lay the bricks. Whether such a balance can survive scale is another question. For now, Andreas von der Heide is still trying to prove it can.