{"id":45736,"date":"2023-10-20T15:46:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/how-this-founder-turned-socks-and-comedy-into-a-multimillion-dollar-subscription-business-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:46:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:46:02","slug":"how-this-founder-turned-socks-and-comedy-into-a-multimillion-dollar-subscription-business-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/how-this-founder-turned-socks-and-comedy-into-a-multimillion-dollar-subscription-business-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"How this founder turned socks and comedy into a multimillion dollar subscription business – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Foot<\/div>\n

If a sock was to go by any other name, it could be called a foot cardigan.<\/p>\n

At least that\u2019s what founder Bryan DeLuca was banking on when he started sock subscription service Foot Cardigan four years ago. The US-based company sends users a monthly pair of socks with random designs, and it has recently launched Down Under.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started Foot Cardigan we came up with three different names: Foot Cardigan, Rad Foot, and Spiffy Feet,\u201d DeLuca told SmartCompany<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m big on testing things with focus groups, so we presented the three names and had almost 300 people sign up for the name Foot Cardigan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had chosen either of the other names we probably wouldn\u2019t have a company. The reaction was so weak.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeLuca\u2019s goal is to \u201cmake your feet fancy\u201d, and the company has been working towards that goal since its inception in 2012. With 21 employees, the business has been growing by 200-300% year-on-year, with more than $US2.5 million ($3.3 million) in revenue recorded in 2016.<\/p>\n

Learn more about subscription businesses from pioneer Tien Tzuo <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Each month, subscribers to the service receive a random pair of socks sourced from over 50 designs that Foot Cardigan concocts each month. Sock designs are sourced by both in-house designers, and various freelancers.<\/p>\n

This business model has lead Foot Cardigan to be one of the largest and most popular sock subscription service in the world. And it comes with the added perk of eliminating inventory concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have inventory issues because customers never know what sock design they\u2019re going to get,\u201d DeLuca says.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeftover designs will sit in our warehouse to be used for a different set of customers next month.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Australia launch thanks to steady traffic<\/h3>\n

DeLuca says the decision to launch in Australia was \u201ca given\u201d, thanks to unusually high interest in the subscription service from local shoppers. Last year, 13% of Foot Cardigan\u2019s sales were international, and 6% of those sales were coming from Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at our growth and saw something going on with our traffic in Australia, it was climbing steadily month-on-month,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Having tripled its growth in Australia in last year alone, DeLuca believes Foot Cardigan\u2019s success can also be attributed to the company\u2019s resonance with Australians\u2019 sense of humour.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur humour seems pretty on par with the humour Down Under,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The entrepreneurs describes the early days of Foot Cardigan as \u201cslow and steady\u201d. At the time, the company ambitiously had seven different co-founders overseeing its growth, but that number has since been cut back to four\u2014a change DeLuca welcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty muddy for a while, there wasn\u2019t enough for everyone to do,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBringing in four of us made tasks easier to divide and conquer.\u201d<\/p>\n

While maintaining this slow and steady growth, the founders were presented with an opportunity to appear on the US version of Shark Tank<\/em>. DeLuca says the company didn\u2019t need the money but applied anyway to see what would happen.<\/p>\n

In 2015, DeLuca and fellow founder Matt McClard appeared on Shark Tank<\/em>, locking down a $US250,000 investment from billionaire Mark Cuban. While the deal didn\u2019t end up going through, the publicity received from the show put Foot Cardigan\u2019s growth into overdrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty incredible, we grew five-fold in one quarter,\u201d DeLuca says.<\/p>\n

The element of surprise<\/h3>\n

Running a randomised sock delivery service means your business model must thrive off the element of surprise, and this is something DeLuca and his team have incorporated into many aspects of the business.<\/p>\n

Along with eliminating inventory issues, the element of surprise is what DeLuca believes is driving Foot Cardigan\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf customers could pick their socks every month it\u2019d be just like going to the store and buying them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everyone gets fun mail anymore. More often than not, you know exactly what you ordered. We want to build on that euphoric feeling of not knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, DeLuca concedes not every customer loves surprises.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to have a very small amount of people who hate the socks they get. We try to make a design that\u2019s going to be great for our 50,000-plus subscribers, but we know a small amount will always hate them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And while the surprising deliveries may please current subscribers, DeLuca says it is great customer experiences that will attract new ones.<\/p>\n

Through the company\u2019s social media presence DeLuca was alerted to a US customer who had one of his toes amputated and was inquiring on Twitter if Foot Cardigan had socks to fit his foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cut up a sock and kitted other socks for his amputated toe. We got about 35 new subscribers just because of that,\u201d DeLuca says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrands nowadays are going to win with the experiences they give the customers, but it has to be genuine. You can\u2019t come off looking like a dick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a world where you can buy any kind of socks, customers need a reason to choose ours.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants to be the unicorn\u201d<\/h3>\n

As his business looks to continually innovate and surprise its customers, DeLuca says he is \u201cshocked\u201d more businesses don\u2019t operate in a similar way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf companies want to play it safe, they won\u2019t be around for very long. Consumers are getting smarter, and they want to feel connected to a brand,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But in a world of startups all trying to be a unicorn\u2014a company valued at over $1 billion dollars<\/a>\u2014DeLuca says his company doesn\u2019t want to be like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants to be the unicorn, but sometimes a single double or triple is just as good as a home run,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to be a billion-dollar company, and that\u2019s okay. Not every startup has to shoot for this super rare thing, if it happens it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his sights on the future, DeLuca says his ambition is of \u201cowning the sock drawer\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re about to launch shorter ankle socks, called \u2018no-shows\u2019, along with a series of luxury socks with more subdued patterns,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also going to launch some collaborations with designers soon to hopefully bring in some new customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen millions in revenue with just one type of sock, and we\u2019ve still got so much to do. We\u2019re going to keep growing and keep having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on SmartCompany. <\/em><\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, LinkedIn and iTunes.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If a sock was to go by any other name, it could be called a foot cardigan. At least that\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10,11,22,23,1,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45736"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}