The Exchanges

Q Just hold that thought for a moment. I want to go back to David here for a second. David, um, when you graduated from Babson around, uh, I think around 2005, you landed the sort of the quote unquote coveted tech sales job that you wanted. I think it was for an Israeli company called Nice Systems based in, in New Jersey. Um, so how, how did that job go?

A I did incredibly well, um, at the job. I, I hated the product. I find, I found no emotional connection to software. It's not anything I studied. It wasn't anything that I was like personally interested in, um, uh, purely there just for the money. And so after a year and a half there, I kind of gave them an ultimatum. I was like, Either make me an outside sales rep or I'm going to leave and go do something on my own. And by the time I was 24, I was kind of in this, you know, I'd made a bunch of money and put a bunch of money in savings. And I started my first business because they didn't give me the job. I left and I created a social networking site for apartment buildings called buildingneighbors.com.

AI assessment note: “I did incredibly well, um, at the job. I, I hated the product.”

Q fulfill all these orders too, right? Um, and so, yeah, I mean, did you just basically go to the factory and just hit the go button and say, let's go. And I'm assuming you just had one skew, one, just one kind of sock at that point, or did you have multiple colors and options, or, or was it just like, you're gonna get ankle white socks, and that's it?

A No, we had a calf and an ankle in a black and a gray base with four accent colors. You could, like, select what you wanted on, you know, when you, like, fulfill the order, um, And so about halfway through when we were at about 50,000 dollars of sales, um, we, that's when we actually hit the go button on the order. Cause we're just like, well, we've clearly surpassed, right? We've got plenty of time left. Like this is way more than we thought. Um, we placed the production order so that we could at least beat the lead time that we would have on the, on promising people when they would get delivered. And there was a thought, well, get them delivered before the holidays so that if we Have more inventory. People could come back and rebuy for Christmas.

AI assessment note: “No, we had a calf and an ankle in a black and a gray base”

Q really running it. It was being run by your brother in this. Yeah. And, uh, and, and, I mean, eventually you sold, you sold your share of that company, right? All right, so you've got that going. You get a job in a private equity firm. Meantime, I mean, clearly, you know, you were both looking for an idea. How did you land on Sox? How did that come about?

A So, you know, it's like meeting your partner, right? These stories happen in kind of the most Um, interesting and unexpected ways. It was February of 2011. I was still working at Urban Daddy, and I was scrolling on Facebook, and I came across a post from the Salvation Army that said, socks are the number one most requested clothing item at homeless shelters. And I remember thinking to myself, that's both interesting and sad, right? It's like, I never would have thought that would be the most Requested item. I thought would sneakers or jeans or a coat or something like that. Um, and yet here's an item of clothing that I've never spent more than a few seconds a day thinking about. And this is the number one most requested item for someone who's experiencing homelessness. And I remember walking over to Randy's desk and I said, I just saw this thing that was that socks are the most requested item at homeless shelters. Like this was around the time that I think Tom's was in their fifth year of business and, like, growing like crazy, taking over the world. Yeah. This, like, one-for-one business model.

AI assessment note: “I came across a post from the Salvation Army that said, socks are the number one”

Q How, how long did you end up working on this business?

A So I, I worked on it for about eight months and as I watched my savings dwindle, uh, without any cashflow coming in, I kind of quickly got nervous and was like, whoa, if this takes much longer, I'm not going to have much left. Um, so that's when I said, I'm going to go back and get a job. Um, you know, while I continue to work on this thing. And I said, okay, if this is a online digital focused You know, first type of company, I should probably go get some skills or experience in the online space. And my roommate at the time was working on this project with my roommate at the time. And I remember he came home one night and he said, I applied for a job for you. And I was like, what do you mean? It was like, I applied, I sent your resume into this newsletter that I get that I really like. It's called urban daddy. I was like, I have no idea. Like, what this is. I'd never heard of it, and 30 minutes later, like, my phone rings, and they're like, hey, it's Rob at Urban Daddy. Would you like to come in for an interview this afternoon? And I was like.

AI assessment note: “I worked on it for about eight months”

Q I mean, you know, you're growing every year over year over year, and COVID hits in 2020, and most D to C companies were freaking out. Of course, it turned out to be a good year depending on the company, um, including for, for you guys, but, but before you started to see a spike in sales, were you preparing for the possibility of layoffs and, and of, of retrenching?

A A hundred percent. I mean, we watched our business go from like 50% year over year in growth in that January To a -12% year over year growth in March of that year. Um, and I'm grateful that within a matter of weeks it had rebounded and we were back at like 30% plus year over year and then 40% and then, then we're like, had comps that were insane. Um, but yeah, I, I don't think anybody was prepared for that moment. I actually think the biggest fear for us is that we had built This amazing, incredible culture that we felt like fostered innovation and efficiency and was so collaborative. Um, and we just built out a brand new 33,000 square foot office in union square, you know, millions of dollars of investment took over a year to build it. And then two months later, everyone's remote. And we're just like, how, how do we operate? How does the, you know, are people going to Show up to work anymore. Are they, you know, just going to mail it in or turn their videos off or whatever. And probably one of the proudest moments I've ever had as a leader was we shut the office down on that Friday and by Monday, everything was like up and running and like people were showing up to meetings and they were like, Yeah. It was almost like, it almost like rallied us. Um, I think people were like, and, and, and this is a point actually where I think the mission comes back, right? Because it became t…

AI assessment note: “A hundred percent. I mean, we watched our business go from like 50%”

Q And when did you start to, when did you start to think in your head? Like, was it, is it early on when the first, when the two of you met where you thought, he might be the guy that I could start something with, or was that, was he just like an office friend, and you would just kind of chit-chat about ideas?

A I think because we spent nine hours a day together, we got to know each other's strengths, weaknesses, um, you know, what they valued very, very quickly, and Then from a creative standpoint, we started just sharing ideas, right? That would like pop into our heads randomly. Um, add to that the commiseration that we had over what was a 50%, like, amazing office environment with super talented, you know, people that were doing great work, um, with a 50%, like, pretty toxic culture, um, that was built on a lack of transparency and a lack of trust, and I think Our bond was further forged by the fact that we both felt mistreated a lot of the time, um, or deceived or confused around things that were promised to us that weren't delivered upon. Um, and just this kind of feeling that if we ever had the chance to do something together, that we would, we would take the lessons learned from this experience and do things completely differently. Um, on the culture side, but, but, but realize the emphasis on what great talent can actually do, um, and a great product.

AI assessment note: “feeling that if we ever had the chance to do something together”

Q And while you were working with this factory to just get samples, I mean, presumably you had to pay them something, so what did it cost you?

A Luckily, the sampling was like the inexpensive part. Um, I think they were thinking longer term, like, oh, if this is, Turns into something. We'll get the business. And again, by having my godfather tied to this, I think they were less concerned or they had a higher degree of faith that it would be successful. Um, you know, we, you know, I had to incorporate the business, right? So I hired a lawyer and ultimately when we decided to, um, launch on Indiegogo, we had to pay for the, you know, video and some of the creative assets, but our whole approach To launching this business was try to bootstrap as much as possible. Um, I think by the time we launched on Indiegogo, I had about, I don't know, 12 to 18,000 dollars of credit card debt.

AI assessment note: “sampling was like the inexpensive part... 12 to 18,000 dollars of credit card debt”

Q to gain Experience, and that was a gateway in, and then you had this great product that you could also sell, and it seems to me that there's a connection between what you were also offering here, which was the Indiegogo campaign was saying, hey, you can help give people socks, and you can also get a pair of socks too. Is that, is that a fair kind of analogy?

A We felt like this was really our one shot to get it, and so Being relentless. I even think to a certain degree, shameless. Um, you know, I found a way to download my entire Gmail contact database. And I don't mean like just the people that are like in my contacts. I mean, every single person that I'd ever emailed with ever in my Gmail, you can like find a way to do this in Gmail. And I remember downloading this like 12,000 person email file and sending it out, not knowing who was on it entirely. And I got response back from people who are like, this is awesome. I sold you a set of concert tickets on Craigslist four years ago. Like I'm going to buy a pack of socks. And then I had people.

AI assessment note: “I found a way to download my entire Gmail contact database.”