Bombas: David Heath and Randy Goldberg (2022)

Summary

How I Built This with Guy Raz: Bombas – David Heath and Randy Goldberg (2022)
Release Date: January 13, 2025

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Introduction: From Skeptics to Sock Pioneers

In this compelling episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz sits down with David Heath and Randy Goldberg, the dynamic duo behind Bombas—a company that redefined the sock industry with an innovative product and a heartwarming mission. Known for their appearance on Shark Tank, Heath and Goldberg share the inspiring journey of transforming a seemingly mundane product into a multi-million-dollar brand while making a significant social impact.

Early Doubts and Entrepreneurial Roots

The seeds of Bombas were sown amidst skepticism and entrepreneurial experiences. David Heath recounts his initial foray into sales with Cutco, where his exceptional performance was both a blessing and a challenge.

[07:14] David Heath: "And I, like, bought full in. I was like, this is it. I'm like, I could do this. I'm a great salesperson."

Heath's success at Cutco not only honed his sales skills but also instilled a belief that a great product could almost sell itself. Meanwhile, Randy Goldberg's background at Urban Daddy, a men's lifestyle website, provided him with valuable insights into branding and copywriting.

Meeting the Partners: A Blend of Contrasts and Common Goals

Heath and Goldberg met in 2007 while working at Urban Daddy. Initially, their different personalities caused some friction, but mutual respect and shared entrepreneurial aspirations quickly turned them into fast friends.

[25:18] Guy Raz: "And when did you start to... was he just like an office friend and you would just kind of chit chat about ideas?"

[25:32] David Heath: "I think because we spent nine hours a day together, we got to know each other's strengths, weaknesses, you know, what they valued very, very quickly."

Their complementary skills—Heath's sales acumen and Goldberg's creative prowess—laid the foundation for their future collaboration.

Identifying the Opportunity: Socks as a Social Impact Vehicle

The pivotal moment for Bombas came in February 2011 when Heath came across a post from the Salvation Army highlighting that socks were the number one most requested clothing item at homeless shelters. This revelation sparked the idea of combining a profitable business with a meaningful social mission.

[31:22] Guy Raz: "So the spark was, wait a minute. If this is the number one most requested thing at homeless shelters, maybe there's a model we can build similar to Tom's or to Warby Parker."

Randy Goldberg adds that community impact was a driving force:

[32:08] Randy Goldberg: "It was community first, I'd say."

Product Development: Crafting the Perfect Sock

Without prior experience in the sock industry, Heath and Goldberg sought expertise from Steve Lowenthal, Heath’s godfather, a seasoned professional in sock manufacturing. This connection was instrumental in navigating the complexities of product development and manufacturing.

[37:07] David Heath: "He introduced us to this factory partner in Asia. And because of his legacy and credibility in the sock business, they were willing to work with us."

The duo embarked on an exhaustive product development journey, iterating through hundreds of samples to perfect their sock design. Attention to detail was paramount, from seamless toes to honeycomb arch support, ensuring that each pair of Bombas socks offered superior comfort and durability.

[50:19] Randy Goldberg: "Just for the calf sock tension level alone, it took us 137 tries."

Launching Bombas: The Indiegogo Campaign

In early 2013, armed with a refined product, Heath and Goldberg launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise capital for their first production run. Their aggressive and relentless approach paid off, raising $25,000 in the first day—far surpassing their initial $15,000 goal.

[56:58] David Heath: "We did $25,000 in our first day."

The overwhelming response validated their product-market fit and provided the necessary funds to kickstart Bombas. They offered multiple styles and colors, anticipating higher demand and planning for scalability.

Shark Tank: The Breakthrough Moment

Despite their success, the journey wasn’t without challenges. In April 2014, an unexpected opportunity arose when a Shark Tank producer reached out after noticing their Indiegogo campaign. After a poignant moment where Goldberg contemplated skipping the show due to his father's passing, both Heath and Goldberg decided to participate, honoring both their mission and personal commitments.

[68:22] Randy Goldberg: "Dave and I had a conversation. ... We decided we were keeping the date."

On Shark Tank, they pitched Bombas as "athletic leisure socks engineered to look better, feel better, and with a mission to help those in need." Initially, the sharks were unimpressed, but Daymond John saw potential and offered to finance their inventory.

[70:24] Randy Goldberg: "Bombas are athletic leisure socks engineered to look better, feel better, and with a mission to help those in need."

Though the initial deal was not ideal, Heath and Goldberg renegotiated after securing a $1 million seed round, ensuring Bombas retained control and could focus on sustainable growth without diluting their ownership.

Post-Shark Tank Surge: Managing Explosive Growth

The airing of the Shark Tank episode led to an explosive surge in orders, causing Bombas' website to crash due to unprecedented traffic. Faced with fulfilling over 2,300 orders, they outsourced their logistics to a third-party provider, allowing them to scale efficiently without compromising customer experience.

[73:27] David Heath: "We had our website crashed, it was terrible... we were trying to scale up customer service people."

This period marked the beginning of Bombas’ focus on customer service and operational excellence, with team members dedicated to ensuring customer satisfaction and maintaining their mission-driven ethos.

Funding and Growth Strategy: Choosing Profitability Over Rapid Expansion

Despite initial resistance from venture capitalists who viewed the sock market as unexciting, Bombas opted to raise only necessary funds to avoid diluting their ownership. They secured a $1 million seed round followed by a $3 million angel round, enabling them to focus on building a strong, profitable business.

[62:44] David Heath: "We said, okay, like maybe let's not push it as hard as we could and let's just focus on building a great brand with great product and give back to the community."

This strategic choice allowed Bombas to prioritize sustainable growth and maintain control over their brand and mission, avoiding the pitfalls of rapid, unchecked expansion often fueled by excessive venture capital.

Navigating Challenges: Server Crashes and Operational Hurdles

The rapid post-Shark Tank growth brought significant operational challenges, including server crashes and the need to scale customer service. Heath and Goldberg responded by implementing phased order fulfillment and outsourcing logistics, ensuring timely delivery and maintaining their promise to customers.

[76:32] Randy Goldberg: "This was a big issue."

Their ability to adapt quickly and prioritize customer satisfaction helped Bombas navigate these hurdles effectively, strengthening their reputation and customer loyalty.

Maintaining Culture Amid Growth: Building a Resilient Team

As Bombas grew, Heath and Goldberg remained committed to preserving their company culture centered around collaboration, innovation, and social impact. They consciously surrounded themselves with talented individuals who complemented their skill sets, fostering an environment where everyone was aligned with the company's mission.

[76:32] David Heath: "We just started to fill in the gaps around us. So eventually that was customer service marketing, product design."

This intentional approach to team-building ensured that Bombas maintained its core values even as the company expanded, contributing to its long-term success.

Philosophy and Future: Embracing Luck and Hard Work

Reflecting on their journey, Heath and Goldberg emphasize the interplay of preparation, hard work, and fortunate opportunities in building Bombas. They attribute their success to being prepared for opportunities, leveraging their skills, and embracing the serendipitous moments that propelled the company forward.

[83:52] David Heath: "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And so I think for me, we were very opportunistic and we were really prepared."

Their philosophy centers on sustainable, profitable growth and staying true to their mission, allowing Bombas to thrive without succumbing to the pressures of rapid, venture-driven expansion.

Legacy and Commitment: Promises Kept

One of the founders, Heath, made a promise to donate a million pairs of socks, which became a key milestone for Bombas. Fulfilled through dedication and strategic planning, this accomplishment highlights the company's unwavering commitment to their social mission.

[86:03] Randy Goldberg: "We get to a million pairs donated... We thought that this would take 10 years."

Heath honored this promise by getting a tattoo, symbolizing Bombas' commitment to giving back and reinforcing their brand identity centered around community support.

Conclusion: A Balanced Blend of Strategy and Serendipity

Heath and Goldberg's journey with Bombas is a testament to the power of recognizing overlooked opportunities, maintaining steadfast dedication to a mission, and balancing strategic planning with the flexibility to seize fortunate moments. Their story underscores that meaningful innovation often lies in unexpected places and that combining business success with social impact can create a lasting legacy.

As they continue to navigate the future, Bombas stands as a beacon of how thoughtful entrepreneurship, coupled with resilience and a strong mission, can transform industries and positively impact communities.

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Notable Quotes:

• David Heath [07:14]: "I was like, this is it. I'm like, I could do this. I'm a great salesperson."

• Randy Goldberg [32:08]: "It was community first, I'd say."

• Randy Goldberg [50:20]: "Just for the calf sock tension level alone, it took us 137 tries."

• David Heath [56:58]: "We did $25,000 in our first day."

• Randy Goldberg [70:24]: "Bombas are athletic leisure socks engineered to look better, feel better, and with a mission to help those in need."

• David Heath [83:52]: "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

Timestamp Index Highlights:

• [03:14] – David Heath introduces the skepticism surrounding building a sock company.
• [07:14] – Heath discusses his sales success at Cutco.
• [13:28] – Randy Goldberg shares his experience of being laid off from a tech consulting company.
• [31:22] – The inspiration behind Bombas is revealed.
• [37:07] – The role of Heath’s godfather in Bombas’ product development.
• [56:58] – Indiegogo campaign success.
• [67:58] – The challenges and emotions leading up to the Shark Tank pitch.
• [73:27] – Post-Shark Tank surge and website crash.
• [83:52] – Reflection on luck and preparation.

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Final Thoughts

The Bombas episode of How I Built This serves as an inspiring blueprint for entrepreneurs aiming to blend business acumen with meaningful social impact. Heath and Goldberg's story illustrates that with the right combination of preparation, perseverance, and strategic decision-making, even the most unassuming products can achieve remarkable success while making a positive difference in the world.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

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[David Heath]

About building a sock company, I was all but pretty much laughed out of the room.

[Guy Raz]

Not exciting exactly.

[David Heath]

Like how big could a sock company be? Or like, you know, it's a pretty boring category. And I think from a confidence level standpoint, that made us like re question things a little bit too. And so as a salesperson, that was pretty hard for me to take.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome to How I Built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz. And on the show today, how two friends decided to take the tools of innovation and apply them to one of the least innovative products, socks. And ended up building a multi million dollar company, Bombus. A great idea is almost never an original idea. It's usually an improvement on an existing concept. You can apply this logic to some of the most innovative brands in the world. Tesla didn't invent electric cars, but it made them so much more interesting and efficient. Google didn't invent the search engine, it just made a better one. And Dropbox didn't invent cloud based storage. It just made it easier to use. Now, all of these examples are technology companies, and many of us typically associate the word innovation with technology. But the reality is the opportunity for innovation is often found in the most boring places, in products that we don't even notice, like women's shapewear. No one really bothered to improve that category until Sara Blakely came up with Spanx. And the same can be said for socks. Socks have been, for the most part, an afterthought. You've got your dress socks, your sports socks, and maybe some thick hiking socks, but no one was really thinking, hey, you know what needs innovation? Socks. That is until 2011, when David Heath decided to do just that. How he got the idea, well, you're about to hear that in a few minutes. But what David quickly realized is that no one was making a product that had the qualities of a high performance athletic sock and a casual dress sock all in one package. So with his friend Randy Goldberg, David began the long process of trying to figure out if there was a market for his idea. They called their brand Bombas. Now, at the time, as you will hear, very few investors were interested. Socks just weren't seen as exciting or profitable. But it turns out socks are very profitable, Almost like popcorn profitable. And over the course of 10 years, David and Randy have managed to build Bombas into a business that does more than a quarter billion dollars in revenue. David and Randy met around 2007, when they were both working for a men's lifestyle website called Urban Daddy. Randy Goldberg grew up in Baltimore, the son of entrepreneurs who ran a business making lenses for glasses. David Heath grew up in Westchester county, just north of New York. His dad was also an entrepreneur who actually pioneered the technology that makes wood chips for playgrounds. And like his dad, David wanted to pursue a life as an entrepreneur. So he went to Babson College to study, well, entrepreneurship. But it wasn't college that turned him into an entrepreneur. It was a job he had during college. A job selling knives door to door for a company called Cutco. David decided to become a Cutco sales rep after meeting a recruiter on campus.

[David Heath]

And I, like, bought full in. I was like, this is it. I'm like, I could do this. I'm a great salesperson. I was, like, very into the product. And I also just felt like, okay, there's something I can do on my own. So I ended up joining, and over the course of the next four summers, I became one of the top sales reps in the Northeast. I'd sold, like, $400,000 worth of Cutco knives over four summers.

[Guy Raz]

What was your sales pitch? I mean. I mean, you'd call me up and you'd say, hey, I've been talking to Susan, and she gave me your number, guy. And I know that from what I understand, you're in the market for some new kitchen knives. And, like, what?

[David Heath]

No, no, no. You don't even, like, you don't even get there.

[Guy Raz]

You're just like, what do you do?

[David Heath]

All I need, you know, is 30 minutes of your time.

[Guy Raz]

You know, 30 minutes of my time. My time's valuable, David. I don't. And then you're gonna say, what?

[David Heath]

I wasn't calling people like you, guy. I was calling, you know, no.

[Guy Raz]

Anybody.

[Randy Goldberg]

See if you can sell guys some knives. Dave, sell him some knives.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, sell me some knives. Okay. Okay. 30. 30 minutes of my time. And then. And then what are you gonna do with that time?

[David Heath]

Okay, 30 minutes, your time. You don't need to buy anything. I get college credit for this.

[Guy Raz]

You get. Oh, you get college credit for it? Okay.

[David Heath]

You really, like, leaned on the college part, right? It's like, I'm a struggling college student.

[Guy Raz]

You're a college student, you're getting credit for being involved in this business. Okay, I got you. Okay, that's interesting. Okay, well, you know, I want to help a college kid. Okay.

[David Heath]

And I'd say, sure. You know, how's Tuesday at 3pm and you know, I come over and I'd have my little roll up of knives, you know, before I even unrolled it. I'd like put them on the counter, kind of create the mysterious of like, what is this thing? And I had a little like, sales pamphlet. And I'd say, actually, I can't even remember these days, but I just remember you'd always start where I'd say, like, do you have a penny? This is one of the big, like, cutco like, things. Do you have a penny? They'd say, yeah, why do you need a penny? You get the penny and you take out these kitchen shears and you cut the penny into a corkscrew.

[Randy Goldberg]

I'm really enjoying this.

[David Heath]

And they'd be like, what is going on? I was like, this is Cutco, right? We make high quality American made kitchen cutlery. And then I'd say, please go get your three best knives, right? And they'd like, get this night knife drawer with like rusty old, you know, dull things. And I'd have a piece of rope and it's like, we're going to start by cutting, you know, with your knife. And like, you cut. It's like you'd give. Ask them to cut it and they'd be like, I can't cut it.

[Guy Raz]

Cut what, like a chicken bone?

[David Heath]

No, a piece of rope.

[Guy Raz]

A rope. Okay. You'd bring the rope?

[David Heath]

Yeah, I'd bring the rope. Yeah. Rope was provided by me.

[Guy Raz]

Yep. And they would try and they'd struggle.

[David Heath]

With their, ah, couldn't get through. Yeah. Then they'd be like, let me go get my sharpest knife, right? They go, yeah, always go get a serrated knife. And like, I got you. They'd cut it and it would like tear the fibers of the, you know, the rope. Like it's all over the place. And I was like, all right, now try with the Cutco, because it had a double edge and it would cut the rope within one, like half of a pull. Oh, my God. Now you've built up this, like, tremendous amount of, like, wow and value. I think, I think honestly the two things that this job told me or taught me was one in the skills of like, how to sell, right. And how to like, yeah. You know, build value, handle objections. Right. Like the, the, like sales 101.

[Randy Goldberg]

They.

[David Heath]

They were incredible at sales training. Incredible. And really kind of teed me up for, you know, my interest in sales, but also my pursuit in kind of in wanting to be really good at selling and kind of that drive and hunt mentality. But I think the other part was always was realizing that it was really easy to sell a good product. Yeah. And I think this idea around, if you have a great product. Right. It almost sells itself.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[David Heath]

And so I just. I believed fully in the product.

[Guy Raz]

But to do that, you know, at 18, 19 years old, and you made $120,000 in one summer selling knives as a college student.

[David Heath]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

That's insane. That's a crazy amount of money. I mean, I mean, you were making. You were making more money than anybody in college by far.

[David Heath]

And not to mention, I mean, I can't underscore the fact that, again, I worked four hours a day, four days a week.

[Guy Raz]

You were the original Tim Ferriss. You're the four hour work week guy. Before Tim Ferriss did it, you could have written that book. All right, so you're doing. And when you graduated, did you think, you know, maybe I should just go to Cutco full time if I made 120 in one quarter times four? I mean, you know, you could be rolling in it right after college.

[David Heath]

So, no, I did not have a desire to continue to sell knives, but I did follow that line of thinking in the sense of saying, wow, I'm really good at sales. And I think like every broke college kid that comes out of school especially, I think as well, being a product of the 90s and the MTV Cribs generation, everything was about make as much money as possible. Right. I think the newer generation of Gen Z Millennial, that's like, do what you love. I'm like, thank God that they figured that out a lot earlier than I did. And so I remember approaching graduation, I looked at sales jobs, and I figured out what industry do salespeople get paid the most amount of money? And pretty consistently, it was in software sales.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. All right, so, Randy, let me turn to you, because by the time David was making like $120,000 on knives in college, you had already graduated from Georgetown University in, I think, around 2000, and went straight to a job at a tech consulting company, I think, in Boston, which was, I guess, right, sort of before the dot com crash. Is that right?

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah. Things started to unravel pretty quickly, and I got laid off in April of 2001. So seven months into my first job, I'm out, you know.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So seven months you're out and living in Boston.

[Randy Goldberg]

Living in Boston.

[Guy Raz]

And so what'd you do next?

[Randy Goldberg]

So this was a moment where I had to decide, am I going to move home and figure things out there, or am I going to sign a new lease and try and figure things out here? And I felt like if I moved home, I might get a little stuck. I wasn't really certain what I wanted to do, but I made the decision to move into a new apartment with some friends, sign a lease, and then start interviewing. So I got two jobs in the meantime, just to pay the rent. I got a job at a wine shop, and I got a job at a bar. I started out waiting tables and then eventually worked behind the bar and helped manage the place. And I learned a lot pretty quickly. But the whole time I was there, I was interviewing, you know, because I wanted to be doing something else.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. How long did you stay there?

[Randy Goldberg]

Well, I ended up meeting some people who would come in regularly, and we became friends, and they worked at an ad agency, and they said, you know, I think you would kind of be good at what we do, you know, do you want a chance to, like to do a project with us as a copywriter? And I took a job as, like, a copywriter working on a brand book for Johnston and Murphy, so. The Shoe brand?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

I had never done this before, and it went really well. It was the kind of thing where, you know, it felt sort of natural to me to do this type of work. Couldn't believe it was a job, that type of feeling. And I thought, maybe there's something here. So I started pursuing writing more regularly. And I was still working for this restaurant group for. For a while after that, for a couple years, as I started to build my career as a copywriter, like, freelance, doing freelance work. All freelance. All freelance. So, like writing a campaign or picking a song for a commercial, things like that. And a lot of the work was working on brand books for companies that had sort of lost their way. Right. So larger companies that needed to be reminded of why they started in the first place, what was special about them, what was unique. And you're doing this for companies that had once been great but had maybe lost their way. That's a very interesting practice.

[Guy Raz]

All right, just hold that thought for a moment. I want to go back to David here for a second. David, when you graduated from Babson, around, 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 New Jersey. So how did that job go?

[David Heath]

I did incredibly well at the job. 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, 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. 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.

[Guy Raz]

And how did the social network, how was it supposed to work?

[David Heath]

So I just broken up with my girlfriend of a few years and I was in this massive building with mostly young post college people in it. And it was like 32 floors, two towers, like 100 apartments each floor type of thing. I mean, this was 2006 or 5, 2006. So Facebook was not what it is today.

[Guy Raz]

It was out there. It was out there, it was out.

[David Heath]

There, but it wasn't as prolific as it is today. And so I was like. And I also think this was the time when everyone was like a social networking site for dogs, for apartments, for people who like to cook. You know, I was just like, oh, maybe this is an interesting way, you know, to meet other connect my building.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[David Heath]

And I worked on that for a year and put about $50,000 of my savings into that.

[Guy Raz]

How long did you end up working on this business?

[David Heath]

So I worked on it for about eight months. And as I watched my savings dwindle without any cash flow 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. So that's when I said, I'm going to go back and get a job while I continue to work on this thing. And I said, okay, if this is an online, digital focused 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? He was like, 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 what this is. I'd never heard of it. And 30 minutes later, 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?

[Guy Raz]

And I was like, wait, sorry, back up. Your friend applied to Urban Daddy on your behalf. What? Why? I mean, you were not.

[David Heath]

Because. Because he knew that I was, like, Wanted to get back and find something in the online space.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[David Heath]

And again, we were. We were roommates, and we were working on the building neighbors project together, and I was bankrolling the whole thing. And he knew that I was, like, stressed out about, like, my savings going away, and, you know, so I became pretty focused on, like, let's find a job. And like, within, like, a few days, he just, like, was, like, applied for this job for you, kind of thinking it was a lark. Like, I don't know. They're kind of. They're not gonna, like, reach out or apply. Like, 30 minutes later, they called me.

[Guy Raz]

And so you had that obviously experience as a salesperson, and this was a just a. Did you know anything about this site? Was it.

[David Heath]

Was it nothing? I'd never seen it. I never knew. I didn't know anything about it called Urban Dad. I was, like, blindly walking into an interview.

[Guy Raz]

So, yeah, it's a. It's a horrible name. It's a horrible. It's a horrible name. Horrible name. Urban Daddy.

[Randy Goldberg]

I spent days.

[Guy Raz]

It's like, it's Sugar Daddy. What does it mean? Is. It is like, this is my sugar. Urban Daddy. I don't understand what it means.

[Randy Goldberg]

It's not just weird. It's terrible. It's aggressively terrible and terrible name.

[Guy Raz]

It went on to be successful. I know, but it was an aggressively terrible name. Keep going. Sorry.

[Randy Goldberg]

I spent days trying to convince them. Days trying to convince them to change it. Branding exercises. We just tried so hard. And the founder was. You know, it was his name, and he loved it. So.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. All right. Okay. So, David, you get this interview to be. To do business development for. For this website.

[David Heath]

And this is an important part of the story because, like, you do when you get a job interview, I put on a suit and tie, and I go downtown, and I show up to this office. Office is a. Is a stretch. I, like, open this door, and there's, like, six people sitting at desks and, like, four interns sitting at a big table. And then like, one small office in the corner. There's a single chair.

[Guy Raz]

And this is like, 2005-2007-2007-2007. Okay. Yep.

[David Heath]

So there's a single chair by the door, and they're like, wait, here. And I'm like, full suit and tie in this, like, cool, hip publication. Everyone's, like, super stylish, like, staring at me.

[Guy Raz]

It's New York. It's New York. Of course.

[David Heath]

This is so embarrassing. I'm like, I'm never getting this job. I'm leaving. This is awful. I go into the meeting, I meet with the head of sales and the founder, and 30 minutes later, I had a job offer. And I showed up, like, whatever, two days later.

[Guy Raz]

A job offer to run business development.

[David Heath]

I was the second salesperson. And, like, business development and partnerships to.

[Guy Raz]

Like, grow our email list and sales would mean trying to get advertisers, basically, for the website.

[David Heath]

Yeah. And then also try to get people to partner with us to share email lists so we could grow our email list and distribution. And this is a key part of the story because my chair, like, backed up against Randy's chair.

[Randy Goldberg]

I remember Dave walking in for that interview as well, in his suit and thinking, who is this guy?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And you were. And Dave and Randy, you were a writer, right? You were writing articles or, like, pieces.

[Randy Goldberg]

I was. I was writing the New York edition. Right. That. That was. That was my job. And I had started a month earlier, so it's not like I had been there for a long time. You know, there was six of us, and then Dave was seven.

[Guy Raz]

And just to be clear, Urban daddy still exists, But. But at the time, it focused on. And it was basically like, cool places to go eat, cool clothes to wear, like place, cool places to travel.

[Randy Goldberg]

Like, it was mostly about using the city.

[Guy Raz]

New York. Okay.

[Randy Goldberg]

Like, what is a new restaurant, a new club, something happening. You know, if you. If you were trying to go out or go on a date, it was a resource of, like, someplace to go to impress your friends or impress a date or take your parents. Like, it was really about, like, getting out.

[Guy Raz]

And it was for men. It was designed for young men, geared towards.

[David Heath]

It was like a male vibe.

[Guy Raz]

So tell me about how the two of you. I mean, you were. It was an office of seven, eight people, so presumably it wasn't that hard to meet each other. Did the two of you become friends right away? What do you remember about that, Randy?

[Randy Goldberg]

You know, Dave has one of the loudest voices in America. Right. So he comes into this tiny office. There's seven people now in this small office. And we're all in one room, right? So his chair is backed up against my chair. There's no space. It's tiny. It's New York, right?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

And he's sitting on sales calls all.

[Guy Raz]

Day and just talking people's ear off.

[Randy Goldberg]

It's like he was screaming inside of my head.

[Guy Raz]

You're hearing it all day. Yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

You know, he's on a sales call, and I'm sitting there trying to formulate an angle to write a story, which is the exact opposite environment.

[Guy Raz]

Open space, offices are not good, not good. Bad trend, Bad trend.

[Randy Goldberg]

So there was some tension at first, and I just. I remember being like, who does this guy think he is? And then you have an office of seven people. So we went out to lunch, and I soon figured out who this guy really was. And I realized that we couldn't be more different in a lot of ways. Right. Like, there's a lot about the two of us that's super different, but we have a very similar outlook on the world, and we're both pretty entrepreneurial, and Dave's got a big heart. And I was like, I like this guy. And we became fast friends. You know, it didn't take long to get over that the guy bumping his chair in the loud voice and just realized, like, this is one of my people.

[Guy Raz]

And when did you start to. When did you start to think in your head? Like, 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?

[David Heath]

I think because we spent nine hours a day together, we got to know each other's strengths, weaknesses, 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. Add to that the commiseration that we had over what was a 50% amazing office environment with super talented people that were doing great work, with a 50% pretty toxic culture 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 or deceived or confused around things that were promised to us that weren't delivered upon, and just this kind of feeling that if we ever had the chance to do something together, that we would take the lessons learned from this experience and do things completely differently on the culture Side, but, but, but realize the emphasis on what great talent can actually do and a great product.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, for sure. While you were, while the two of you kind of became better friends at what. And started to talk about like things that you might do because clearly both of you were motivated by this idea of one day having your own business. What kind of ideas would the two of you talk about?

[David Heath]

I remember Randy came to me and was like, I think there's an idea for a universal gym membership.

[Guy Raz]

And he's like, oh, class pass.

[Randy Goldberg]

There you go.

[David Heath]

Class pass.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

We did not start class pass, but.

[Guy Raz]

You know, no, Pyle's been on the show before. Yeah, so that was an idea.

[David Heath]

And then another one I came to Randy and I was like, you know, because I was like a single guy living in New York and I was like, I think there's an interesting idea around selling like pre portioned food, like for menus, like, for like recipes. Cause I was like, I don't need a whole onion, you know, I just need a quarter of an onion.

[Guy Raz]

You founded Blue Apron, so we founded.

[Randy Goldberg]

ClassPass and Blue Apron and Blue Apron.

[Guy Raz]

While you were dreaming of ideas, I.

[David Heath]

Had another idea where, you know, I lived in a walk up building with no doorman and I'd have to like be home to get my packages. And so I thought of this other idea where it'd be like Last Mile delivery service that would aggregate all your Amazon packages and then like fresh direct, you could schedule a two hour window when you'd actually be home to get them. But no, that didn't turn into anything either.

[Guy Raz]

And then Amazon Locker kind of just.

[Randy Goldberg]

Yes, Dave also invented Amazon Locker, so. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Wow, Amazing. You guys are unstoppable. But actually, I mean, for real, David, I think around 2012 you left urban Daddy and you did start a business with your brother Andrew. Right. Which was based on truffles. Not chocolate truffles, the kinds that pigs look for in the woods. Right, like that you shave on pasta or scrambled eggs.

[David Heath]

Truffles, caviar, wild edibles, like rare mushrooms and different types of, you know, greens and fiddlehead, ferns and ramps, the usual.

[Guy Raz]

And what did you call the company, by the way?

[David Heath]

It was called Regalis.

[Guy Raz]

Regalis, okay.

[David Heath]

Yeah. And I ended up getting another job at a private equity firm that paid really well. I was like, this is kind of interesting, but I don't have the time to run this. So my brother really stepped in to kind of run that business. My brother had just come out of MBA at Babson and was looking for a job And I said, well, why don't you step in and run the operations and finance component of this business?

[Guy Raz]

So. So you were basically a kind of a founder investor in Regalis, but you didn't have. You were kind of sort of in running it, but not really running. It was being run by. Yeah. And. And. And I mean, eventually you saw you sold your share of that company, right?

[David Heath]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

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?

[David Heath]

So it's like meeting your partner.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[David Heath]

These stories happen in kind of the most 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. 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. 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 socks are the most requested item at homeless shelters. This was around the time that I think TOMS was in their fifth year of business and growing like crazy, taking over the world. This, like, one for one business model.

[Guy Raz]

Shoes. Yeah.

[David Heath]

Warby Parker had just launched in December of 2010.

[Guy Raz]

The one with the one for one glasses, eyewear.

[David Heath]

Mandy and myself kind of put two and two together, and we were like, oh, like, maybe there's an interesting idea around solving this problem in the homeless community by building a brand around a sock company that donates socks for everybody. Sock item that we sell, that was really kind of the initial, like, spark.

[Guy Raz]

And so the spark was, wait a minute. If this is the number one most requested thing at homeless shelters, maybe there's a model we can build similar to Tom's or to Warby Parker. I mean, were you thinking along those lines, or did it just kind of come to you? What do you remember?

[Randy Goldberg]

It was community first, I'd say. So first we asked, why. Why are socks the most requested clothing item in homeless shelters? So we made a call, we called a shelter, and we said, is this true? First of all, and why? And they said, well, you know, if you're living on the street, you might not take off your shoes at night. And, you know, a fresh pair of socks means a lot. You walk everywhere. You have hygiene issues around your feet, and then it can be a huge issue if it rains. This is a big issue. And because socks are a wear through item, we don't allow people to donate them. So you cannot donate used socks to the majority of shelters and organizations that help in the homeless community. And they said, so we end up having to buy socks. So it's a big issue.

[Guy Raz]

All right. So it was around 2011, you read that quote and it sparked the idea of whether socks could be a one to one business model. But you didn't launch right away, Right? Like that wouldn't happen for another two years. Officially, David, you had left Urban Daddy. And Randy, I think you hung on. So what made you guys actually take action and pull the trigger?

[David Heath]

So, Randy, do you want to jump in or.

[Randy Goldberg]

No, go ahead. I mean, we should probably at some point talk about the Godfather.

[David Heath]

Yeah, yeah, I was going to. I was going to get to that.

[Guy Raz]

The movie or a person called the Godfather?

[Randy Goldberg]

No, no, no. This is a person called the Godfather.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment. How a key connection gave Randy and David a leg up in the sock industry and how they struggled but eventually found their footing without venture capital. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built this. While you're away, your home could be an Airbnb, just like the incredible home I stayed in in Mexico City just a couple weeks ago. It was absolutely beautiful and the perfect base for exploring the city. Maybe you're planning a trip to for a long holiday weekend. And while you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra income toward the trip. Maybe you want to go somewhere warm over the winter. While you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money to spend on souvenirs. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home or spare room might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host nerds. When it comes to finding the best financial products, have you ever wished someone would do the heavy lifting for you? Take all that research off your plate? I sure have. And with NerdWallet's 2025 Best of Awards, that wish has come true. The nerds already did the work for you. Reviewing over 1,100 financial products like credit cards, savings accounts, and more. To bring you only the best of the best, check out the 2025 Best of Awards [e-mail] awards. This episode is brought to you by American Express. We speak with a lot of business owners like you about pursuing their passions and about how it's important to have the right tools to do that. Tools like the American Express Business Platinum card, the card that works just as hard as you do. With its world class business and travel benefits, you can get more for your business wherever it takes you. The amex Business Platinum card offers a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business. Plus, you'll have complimentary access to more than 1400 airport lounges worldwide, including the Centurion Lounge. And with the ability to earn 5 times Membership Rewards points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on amextravel.com, pursuing your passions is even more rewarding. See how the Amex Business Platinum card gives business owners like you the tools and rewards to do more of what you love. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply. Learn [e-mail] AmExBusiness hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2012 or so and Randy and David are starting to put together a team to launch and run their sock business. But they realize pretty quickly that they know nothing, really nothing about the sock industry. So enter stage right, the Godfather.

[David Heath]

I remember sitting down for dinner with my dad one night and I said, you know, I'm thinking about starting this sock company. It's going to donate a pair for every pair of purchase. But I don't know the first thing about making a pair of socks. And he turned to me and he said, well, you know, your godfather spent 40 years in the hoshery business and did incredibly well. I don't know what.

[Guy Raz]

Huh?

[David Heath]

I don't know what he did, but you should give him a call. And so I didn't talk to this guy in 15 years. So I give him a call.

[Guy Raz]

Where did he live?

[David Heath]

He lived in Westchester. I call him up and I said, hey, Steve, I have this idea for a sock company. And it turns out that Steve Lowenthal was the president and CEO of Gold Toe in the late 80s and 90s.

[Guy Raz]

Which is like gold toe socks. I remember gold. They must be still around, right?

[David Heath]

Yeah, definitely.

[Guy Raz]

Big time gold toe socks. The toes were gold?

[David Heath]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, not real gold. They were gold colored, gold colors, gold fabric. And the idea was that, that's quality. You got your toes in the gold part of the sock. That's the quality sock.

[David Heath]

He left Goldtoe and then started one of the first and largest private label sock manufacturing, like distributors in the country. He worked for brands like Nautica and Polo and, and he would make their.

[Guy Raz]

Socks like white label.

[David Heath]

Make their socks as a white label. So he understood global supply chain when it came to socks. And so me, Randy, Andrew and Aaron sat down with him in this meeting once.

[Guy Raz]

Andrew is your. Just a.

[David Heath]

Just a. Andrew's my brother.

[Guy Raz]

Andrew's your brother. And Aaron is the fourth co founder.

[David Heath]

Who I'd worked on Regalis with from the branding perspective. So the four of us sit down with him and we say, here's our idea. And he said, tell me the product you want to make and I will introduce you to the best factories in the world.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[David Heath]

And so we start working together on figuring out what are the components from each individual sock that we like the most. You know, the toe from this one, the calf from this one, the fabric from this one, the arch support from this one. It kind of Frankensteined this sock together. And we like cut up a bunch of socks, put them in a plastic bag, and handed them to the Godfather. And he said, let me come back to you in a few weeks and see what I come back with. Ended up introducing us to this factory partner in Asia. And because of his legacy and credibility in the sock business, they were willing to work with us. I mean, this is a factory that produces for Nike and, you know, Saucony and Smartwool and some of the biggest sock brands in the world.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[David Heath]

And here they were talking to us and we, we don't have like two nickels to rub together, let alone like a full blown brand or concept.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[David Heath]

And their willingness to work with us for almost a, almost two years on product development, where we would go back and forth and say, we like this, we don't like that. Send us some samples, we try them out, we'd give them to friends. And this development process that ultimately led us to a product that we thought was pretty great.

[Guy Raz]

All right. It reminds me a little bit of, I mean, Warby Parker saw a gap, right. And the gap was glasses shouldn't be so expensive. I mean, the markup is crazy. And they figured out a way to make them more affordable through this direct to consumer model. How did you identify? Now you look back on, you're like, of course, because socks were like made by Nike or Adidas or they were tube socks. You'd buy in packets at Target or dress socks that you would buy, you know, or whatever it was, thin dress socks, athletic tube socks and, you know, but, but now I can look back and say, of course there was a gap. But it didn't, I can't imagine it was super clear to you at the time, was it?

[Randy Goldberg]

I think it was pretty clear pretty quickly. I mean, we didn't have the data, we weren't in the apparel business, you know, and I think this was a big advantage for us. We just looked, we took a look around and we just saw what was available. And what was available was always the same over and over and over again. And it just, it felt like an afterthought. I don't know, Dave, maybe you have a different perspective on this, but I think we knew pretty quickly.

[David Heath]

Yeah, I think the sampling process for us was a pretty big eye opening experience. Right. We didn't go into the product development process with margin or pricing targets or, you know, this speaks to Randy's, you know, comment around us not having any experience in the manufacturing or, you know, retail apparel world. So we kind of came at it from a pretty blank slate of just saying, like, what's the best product that we can make? And then as part of the development process, we would give samples out to friends and family and they would come back, back and they'd say, wow, these are really great. And then be like, yeah, but maybe they say that because they're our friends and family. And so I very distinctly remember bringing samples to the gym with me. And I'd walk up to complete strangers and I'd say, I know this is really strange, but I'm developing a sock company. Would you be willing to try these socks for me? And, you know, if I see you next week, tell me what you think and I get a lot of really weird looks. And inevitably though, I'd show up the next week and those same people would come back and be like, where can I get those? Those are amazing. Like, what are they?

[Guy Raz]

All right, I want to talk about the design process because the four of you are working in. This factory is in China.

[David Heath]

China, yes.

[Guy Raz]

And so they agree to work with you on product development, which meant that what they, they had a designer there. Or you would sort of send them socks you liked and say. Or sort of email them pictures and say, I want a sock that looks like this but has these features More the latter. So you'd send them a photo and say, I like this, but I want these features in the sock.

[Randy Goldberg]

We'd Also send physical samples and we would send pieces of socks and they would, you know, they started with a prototype and they'd send us things.

[Guy Raz]

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?

[David Heath]

Luckily, the sampling was like the inexpensive part. I think they were thinking longer term, like, oh, if this 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. I had to incorporate the business, so I hired a lawyer. And ultimately, when we decided to launch on indiegogo, we had to pay for the video and some of the creative assets. But our whole approach to launching this business was try to bootstrap as much as possible. I think by the time we launched on Indiegogo, I had about, I don't know, 12 to $18,000 of credit card debt.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. So it was not insignificant, but it wasn't like it was doable. I mean, there was four of you involved. And by the way, how did you. How did you decide how to divide up the business? Was it based on how much money each person could put in in terms.

[Randy Goldberg]

Of the ownership or the work?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, the ownership.

[David Heath]

So it was pretty. It was pretty easy because. Well, I say it's pretty easy. A lot of hard conversations early on.

[Guy Raz]

That's a fraught conversation. I've had this conversation with my business partner, so I know it's not easy.

[David Heath]

Yeah, a lot of hard conversations early on that I think were determinant of. You know, I had kind of put most of the capital up front in terms of, you know, paying for the legal incorporation and some of these other things. Think the, the rest of it was kind of determined by, you know, who could take the risk to, you know, jump first. You know, Aaron had a family at that time, right. So he was like, he valued being able to keep his day job and.

[Guy Raz]

Keep a steady as a graphic designer, As a creative. Yeah, yeah.

[David Heath]

Andrew was working at Regalis, so he had a paycheck coming in.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[David Heath]

So the most likely, you know, person to kind of take the leap first. Like, I didn't really have anything else going on and I didn't really like the job I was working at. So I kind of took the leap first and kind of front loaded a lot of this stuff.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[David Heath]

And I just think naturally, you know, while certainly difficult, it wasn't, it was never like argumentative or contentious. And I think everybody kind of Just agreed to let, you know, kind of made separate agreements and decided to divide the business up, you know, the way we decided to divide it up.

[Randy Goldberg]

We had the luxury of time, guy. Right, right. Because, you know, like, we took two years. There was no pressure from anyone but ourselves to build this at that time because it was bootstrapped and it gave us time to develop the idea. And, you know, like Dave said, he leapt first. And then in early 2013, when I was no longer at Urban Daddy, we sat down to write the script for our indiegogo campaign.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

And that was sort of a moment where we felt like we were writing the covenant of the business. It took three months for us to write that and something today that would take, you know, three hours for a copywriter to do. But it was putting all of our ideas down on paper in the right way and getting our storytelling, you know, around this product that we believed in at the time.

[Guy Raz]

And by the way, the name Bombus, was that the name from the beginning?

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah, that was the name from the start.

[Guy Raz]

And it means bee. Bumblebee, Right? It's like the Latin word for bumblebee.

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah. So the word bombus comes from the Latin word for bumblebee. You know, obviously, we're a company that's community based. Bees live in a hive. They work together to make the world a better place. We love, like, the inspiration and the idea of things coming together in a hive to work together to improve their world.

[Guy Raz]

How did you. Did you just come up with a name or did you work with like a branding agency to help you come up with a name?

[David Heath]

So I think when we got to the point where we were ready to like, name it Randy and Aaron said, give us the weekend. Right. Let us. We kind of know what this company kind of feels like and stands for. Let's throw a bunch of things up on the wall and come back and present, you know, me and Andrew in the group with a broader set of ideas. And the. The two that kind of. They came back with that were the most, you know, at the top were something around bees or ants, because these are two animals that are naturally altruistic that work together as a community to collaborative. Collaborative. And so didn't think that ants were that marketable. Bees tended to be a little bit more playful and fun and so kind of landed on bees. And I think it was mostly. Aaron had kind of come up with this idea of naming it bombus. The Latin word for bumblebee is bombus, but with an A B, a M B a b U S. Right. And kind of our thought was, well, if you Google Bambus, you're going to get a bunch of, like, beekeeper information, you know? And so we thought, all right, change the A to an O and make it a little bit more unique and ownable.

[Guy Raz]

So you guys came up with a name over a weekend. It's a great name. I mean, it doesn't. Doesn't. Like, I'm sure there are people who are like, well, but it doesn't scream socks. Just call it, like, call it beat Mittens or call it you're hired, you know, whatever, like. Right. Did anybody say that to you? Like, call it something that screams out socks.

[Randy Goldberg]

We had somebody tell us that you have to write socks with an X Sox. It's the only way you're gonna stand out in the market.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, people Spanx.

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah, people sell you crazy, crazy things. You know, you have to have conviction around, you know, the. The reasons you put a brand together and how you build the world of a brand.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, fair enough. All right, so. So how. I mean, you get. You're getting all these samples back and forth and. And. And I guess we should say, like, I mean, doing some. Doing research about this interview, I discovered a lot about socks, you know, like this arch support in socks and, you know, these, like, honeycomb weaves and stuff like that. When did, like, at. At what point, you know, because I know you landed on, like, mainly cotton and merino wool. I think you also do some synthetics now, right?

[Randy Goldberg]

Yes.

[David Heath]

Yeah. Cotton was what we launched with cotton.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And a different kind of toe seam and like this honeycomb arch support. So how many iterations of the samples did it take? Do you remember before you were like, that's it. We got it.

[David Heath]

Hundreds.

[Guy Raz]

Hundreds.

[Randy Goldberg]

Hundreds and hundreds. I mean, guy. Just for the calf sock tension level alone, it took us 137 tries.

[Guy Raz]

Tension on the foot, on the calf.

[Randy Goldberg]

Like if you pull up a sock. Like on a calf sock, you pull up a calf sock, right? You want it to feel comfortable and not too tight, but not so loose that it'll stay down. And you want it to be supportive, but you don't want it to leave a mark. So we just were. These are the types of details where once you're in it and you have the luxury of time, like, this is the type of. This was the approach, right? And this is still sort of the way we approach product design today, but that is it, right? Like, thinking about each little detail and the idea that all these little things that nobody thought about or Cared about could, when you put them together, just come up with something that's greater than the sum of the parts. Right. Like, you don't have to remember the honeycomb arch support or a seamless toe or a Y stitched heel or that we used, you know, Pima cotton. But when you put it on, the feeling is, this feels different, and I like it more, and I want to wear this every day. That's what we were going for.

[David Heath]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

You know, it's interesting. I'm looking at my sock now here, and I got a seamless. Yeah, I guess. I guess that toe right there's like that little. Little toe thing there. And I never thought about that, really. You know?

[David Heath]

Yeah. This is a product that we discovered most people don't think and. Or care about. Yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

This is where the opportunity comes in. Right. Like, you're a thoughtful guy, but you haven't spent a lot of time thinking about. Well, it's not something people think about. It just wasn't right. Like, we didn't. Dave and I didn't grow up dreaming of being in the sock business. I mean, nobody did. Right. Like, this is something that we stumbled upon.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

But it was. It was an opportunity to test out an approach and a brand and do something great. And it was all really motivated because we wanted to make a difference. Right. The idea looming out there was, how can we donate as many pairs of socks as possible? And that's a real motivating factor when you're building a product.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you have this. So you land on this idea, you land on this sock, and at what point do you feel, Randy. Comfortable quitting your job and quitting your steady paycheck to actually go into this full, full time, full force?

[Randy Goldberg]

I think things were coming to an end for me at the end of 2012 at Urban Daddy. You know, it was time to move on. It wasn't a good situation at the end. There was conflict. There was. It wasn't ideal, but we were also, you know, things were moving, Moving pretty quickly compared to how they had started with Bombas. We started to get a little momentum, and Dave had left his job. And, you know, there's that moment where you have to say, like, okay, now's the time. Let's. Let's do this thing. And again, we. We had other things going on, so we had a little bit of safety. But, you know, after having a job for six years, to be in a position where you're just building something, building multiple things, even, it's a moment. And I think A lot of people face that moment when they're doing this. And you just have to, you have to give it a little bit of a leap and you have to, have to have put in the legwork.

[Guy Raz]

I think, you know, it's interesting because you launched this product as an indiegogo campaign essentially, right? You went out on indiegogo to raise some money to see if you could get the capital to do a. Presumably to do a first run of socks. But it's interesting because now that I think about that, I want to talk a little bit more about this in a second. It's kind of. David, it kind of reminds me of your job at Cutco, right? Because you would. You weren't selling people knives. You were a college student who was genuinely earnestly trying 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?

[David Heath]

We felt like this was really our one shot to get it. And so being relentless, I even think, to a certain degree, shameless, 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 gonna buy a pack of socks. And then I had people, wow, everybody you would ever person that I went to like sleepaway camp with eight years ago was like, haven't heard from you since. This seems interesting. I also had a fair amount of people be like, bleep you. Don't ever email me again. Stop spamming me. And whatever.

[Guy Raz]

It's actually amazing because you really, I mean, you really had developed all of these tools that would lead you to this moment, right? Like Randy, you know, you're sort of copywriting and David, like selling, just selling stuff and understanding, like how to sell stuff. And it all kind of coalesced. It all kind of arrived at this moment on Indiegogo. I'M just making the observations on a question. It's just so smart how you sort of landed on this, this approach because, you know, Indiegogo, you're not going to raise that much money, you know, but if it works, if it catches fire, it can get a lot of attention.

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah. And it's a tent, it's a tension attention that we were after. Validation. Right. You know, our friends and family said we loved it. But you know, your mom loving your socks is not that hard. But a complete stranger putting their money in to say, I will, you know, buy this product before it's available to me and wait however many months to get it. That to us was enough validation to keep going.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you launch it into Gogo and I think the goal Is to raise 15,000. But you had raised within, I think the 30 day period, like 140,000.

[David Heath]

We did $25,000 in our first day.

[Guy Raz]

I mean it now the idea was to do how many like initially, what was your idea? How many socks, pairs of socks were you going to make?

[David Heath]

We weren't. $15,000 was the minimum amount we needed in order to place the minimum order production run for like all the styles and colors that we had.

[Randy Goldberg]

But we, we knew that if we only got $15,000, it was probably curtains.

[Guy Raz]

So you needed to make more money to raise more money. 100 with $140,000, that's. Now you got to fulfill all these orders too. Right? 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 sku one, just one kind of sock at that point. Or did you have multiple colors and options? Or was it just like you're going to get ankle white socks and that's it?

[David Heath]

No, we had 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. And so about halfway through, when we were at about $50,000 of sales, that's when we actually hit the go button on the order because we were just like, well, we've clearly surpassed. We've got plenty of time left. This is way more than we thought. We placed the production order so that we could at least beat the lead time that we would have on the unpromising people when they would get delivered. And there was a thought, well get them delivered before the holiday so that if we have more inventory, people could come back and rebuy for Christmas.

[Guy Raz]

And what was the plan once you got the socks delivered? Because this is like, I mean, Shopify is around and kind of, this, these, you know, these kind of drop shipping thing is starting to happen. But. Well, I mean, I'm assuming you're going to get a huge container maybe or half a container, you know, full of socks, and then what, are you guys going to package it yourself and slap on UPS labels or USPS labels and send them to people?

[David Heath]

Well, Randy, do you remember we like looked each other and we did the math and we said to pack 2,300 orders. And this is where my brother came in with his, like, finance brand. He was like, well, it would probably take the four of us two weeks in a garage to pack 2,300 orders.

[Guy Raz]

No way.

[David Heath]

And we looked at each other and we were like, no, I don't think that's a good use of our time.

[Randy Goldberg]

That's not us.

[David Heath]

So Andrew went out and found a local three plus that was willing to do what at the time was a very small run.

[Guy Raz]

What's a 3 PL again?

[David Heath]

A third party logistics provider. Third party logistics, like a warehouse that would do the pick, packing and shipping of the product.

[Guy Raz]

And so they would handle all that. Okay, so you had 2,000 plus orders to fulfill. Was it quick? You're just reminding me now about all the indie Kickstarter campaigns I've contributed to and never got my product.

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah, this was a big issue.

[Guy Raz]

Where's my damn. Where's my damn drone that I bought in 2014?

[Randy Goldberg]

Sorry about your drone.

[Guy Raz]

Yes, I know I got to go back to my Gmail account and find that thing, but how quickly were you guys able to get these socks to people?

[Randy Goldberg]

Well, Dave was smart about this, right? Because he said about halfway through the campaign he hit go on the order. That's a little risky because we don't know exactly how much it's going to be. But we were very, very adamant about trying to deliver our product within the window that we promised and then following up every person that ordered with a personalized email thanking them. And listen, you launch on.

[Guy Raz]

How did you do that?

[Randy Goldberg]

We did it in phases, right? Like every week there would be order.

[Guy Raz]

Did you use the AI software that you were selling back in the day, David, to make that work? Or was it human beings typing thank you for your order?

[David Heath]

We used some of our old email tricks from Urban Daddy to personalize.

[Guy Raz]

Personalize them. Yeah, but you wanted everybody who ordered to get an email.

[Randy Goldberg]

Listen, we had a product and now we had customers and we had orders to Fulfill. But we didn't have a website and we didn't really know what to do next because we weren't sure how this was going to go. Right. And we started to see it happening. We started to plan. Yeah, okay, what do you do now? Okay, we know how to build. We know websites. We've done. I've done this for lots of other companies, but now you got to do it for yourself. And what are we saying and how are we putting it together? You know, Shopify was not the Shopify it is now. So we had a lot of, like, technology decisions to make at the time, and we needed to move quickly.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Randy Goldberg]

You know, so this was like a little bit of a period where you say, we've got something here. We've validated it in the marketplace. We've got these 2,500 customers. Let's build something and then just take one step at a time.

[Guy Raz]

All right, you guys. So you have this momentum, and I think pretty not too long after in 2014, you decide to go out and raise a little bit of money. Initially, I think a seed round, mostly from friends and family. It's about a million dollars that you raised. Because now you've got to stand up a website and try to get the word out. Because even with the customers that you got from Indiegogo, you now have to build a customer base. Right. You need to create awareness around this product. So you need money to do that. And tell me. And then I know that later that year you raised another 3 million. And this is from angel investors, but tell me with that, I mean, was that money primarily for marketing or was it just to make more product?

[David Heath]

Yeah. So after Indiegogo, we launched the website, shipped the orders, and we kind of wanted to see would people come back, would they rebuy, would they tell their friends about it? The following few months, we did another couple hundred thousand dollars in sales. In the beginning of 2014, we said, okay, feels like we have something here. As you mentioned, we ended up raising money from angel investors. But at first, I went out to the broader venture community. I met with First Round Capital, General Catalyst, Mavron, all the names that we know today of backing of some of the biggest and best brands and companies. And despite having connections or relationships with people, when I showed up with a deck talking about building a sock company, I was all but pretty much laughed out of the room.

[Guy Raz]

Not excited.

[David Heath]

Could a sock company be or. It's a pretty boring category, I think, from a confidence level standpoint that made us like, re question things a little bit too. And so I think as a result of that, we said, okay, like maybe let's not push it as hard as as we could and let's just focus on building a great brand with great product and give back to the community and kind of see where it goes. Right. We kind of were tempered our expectations a little bit.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[David Heath]

And so as a salesperson, that was pretty hard for me to take, but.

[Randy Goldberg]

It ended up being good for us. Guy, you know.

[David Heath]

Oh, amazing, right?

[Guy Raz]

Because you didn't, did you, did you raise beyond a Series A? Did you ever raise any more money after that?

[David Heath]

We brought in a private equity partner, but we never raised any more primary capital.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So that's. You got incredibly lucky that those, those venture firms decided not to invest because it didn't dilute your ownership stake. I mean, in the end it worked out great.

[David Heath]

And it also, yeah, it also allowed us to focus the business on sustained profitable growth versus go out raise $50 million, build a multi hundred million billion dollar brand, but be losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Which we're starting to see how that's playing out for those companies today.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment. How against all odds, a truly lucky chance at a TV show changes the scope of bombas literally overnight. And how that momentum is nearly derailed with a very unlucky server malfunction. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to how I built this. You know, every year I think to myself about the new goals I'm going to set for myself. But did you know that only 8% of us will stick with the resolutions we make? Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns is a simple tool that makes it easy to lock in years and years of healthy money habits in just five minutes. Head to acorns.com built or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future. Today, paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns tier 5 compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor view important [e-mail] so you want to be a marketer? It's easy.

[Randy Goldberg]

You just have to score a ton of leads and figure out a way to turn them all into customers.

[Guy Raz]

Plus manage a dozen channels, write a.

[Randy Goldberg]

Million blogs and launch 100 campaigns all at once. When that's done, simply make your socials go viral and bring in record profits.

[Guy Raz]

No sweat.

[Randy Goldberg]

Okay, fine, it's a lot of sweat.

[Guy Raz]

But with HubSpot's AI powered marketing tools.

[Randy Goldberg]

Launching benchmark breaking campaigns is easier than ever.

[Guy Raz]

Get [e-mail] marketers. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2013, and Randy and Dave have raised some money and they're feeling pretty good. But at the same time, they don't have an easy way to get their products noticed in a bigger way.

[Randy Goldberg]

You know, my dad, he said, at some point, you guys should go on Shark Tank. And we said, yeah, good luck with that. You are crazy.

[Guy Raz]

And then they get probably a thousand pitches a week.

[David Heath]

Absolutely.

[Randy Goldberg]

I mean, what do they say, Dave, 30,000 people? Companies apply every year? Something like that, yeah. So it seemed like a long shot. And then out of nowhere, In April of 2014, Dave got an email and it was from a Gmail account. So we weren't sure if this was somebody like a friend of ours that was just pranking us or if it was real or not, but it was. It was a Shark Tank producer reaching out and asking about our company. They had seen our product on Indiegogo, our campaign, and they were curious about where we were in the process. And that started the conversation for us, getting on Shark Tank.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. Did all four of you fly to LA to film it or just the two of you?

[David Heath]

All four of us went, but Randy and I went on the show.

[Guy Raz]

All right. And I know the way it works is you don't meet the sharks until they, like, open the screen. They're like, and welcome. And here are the sharks. Like, right. You don't really, like, schmooze them beforehand.

[Randy Goldberg]

No. There's no contact. You are basically in a bubble for a week.

[David Heath]

They know nothing about us. We only know what we know about them from the TV show. That's it.

[Guy Raz]

Right, okay. Nervous. You must have been nervous as hell.

[Randy Goldberg]

I'll tell you this. The week that we were set to film Shark Tank, my father passed away. So he passed away on Father's Day in 2014, and we were supposed to fly that day to LA. So we almost didn't go. Dave and I had a conversation. They, you know, we talked to the show. We decided we were keeping the date. I went down to Florida, where my parents were living at the time, and my mom and I dealt with the arrangements and we had like, a really, like, interesting conversation. And I said, you know, I'm not going to go. Dave will go on by himself. We'll figure this out. And she said to me, you know, if your father knew that you were skipping this opportunity because of him. He'd be furious at you, and you have to go, and we've done all the work, and the funeral will be next week, and, you know, go. Which was very hard. And I got on a plane. Dave picked me up at the airport with Aaron and Andrew. And the four of us had a moment where, you know, we'd been preparing for this, so we felt prepared. In a weird way, this took a lot of the pressure off because it just. It was an important moment, but it also was just in a very different space. And Dave and I were sharing a hotel room that week, right? And so I was there with my friend, and I was away from my family, and it was really hard, but we were here to do this thing, and it sort of. It galvanized us and at the same time, took the pressure off. But, yeah, to your point, you get to that moment, and it is a moment of nerves. You know, they open those doors, and you walk down that hallway, and you look. You think to yourself, hey, that looks like Shark Tank. You know, and you're like, oh, okay, like, I'm on Shark Tank. And you walk in that room, and then, you know, it's. It's on.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you guys are on the set. Make your pitch on Shark Tank.

[Randy Goldberg]

Bombas are athletic leisure socks engineered to look better, feel better, and with a mission to help those in need.

[David Heath]

The mass market athletic sock hasn't changed in decades. Same basic colors, same styles, same cardboard feel. Until now.

[Guy Raz]

But as soon as you finished with your pitch, you got, like, lots of pushback from the Sharks. I think at first, like, not a single one was interested in investing, but then, like, at the last minute, one of them, Daymond John, who's been on the show, he kind of stepped out.

[Randy Goldberg]

Okay, guys, I'll tell you what. I'll try to meet you somewhere in the middle. I'm going to finance the inventory. $200,000 for 17.5%.

[David Heath]

That's it? No line of credit.

[Randy Goldberg]

I'm financing the goods. I'm already. I'm on the hook for the goods right now.

[David Heath]

Can we. Can we take a moment and call our cfo?

[Randy Goldberg]

No. Your CFO gave you the bad advice.

[Guy Raz]

Already to ask for that valuation. Damon John did make an investment. I think the deal, the original deal, was like, 200 grand for, like, 17.5% equity. I guess what a lot of viewers don't realize is that you don't actually have to take the deal, even if you accept it on the show. And then sometimes you can renegotiate the terms, which, from what I understand is what happened. Right. You accepted that deal on the show, but then you renegotiated the terms.

[David Heath]

Yeah. You accept the deal in good faith. It's kind of a good faith clause. And a big part was, let's even see if the episode airs because they film something like 150 businesses and then they air like 100. Right. So there's a 33% chance that we weren't even going to get on air. And so we told Damon, or Damon told us, let's see if this thing comes on air and then we can talk about it. Because kind of no sense in doing anything if it gets cut. And we were out fundraising at the time, and so we were like, all right, we're going to run our business as if we were never on Shark Tank. And we never got a deal and continued to fundraise over that summer. And beginning of September, we get a phone call that says, your episode is going to air in three weeks on the season premiere. Get ready.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[David Heath]

So pick up the phone call, Damon. We said, all right, well, we've got to get a deal done. And we just closed our million dollars of seed funding and basically said, look, we don't need any more cash, so can we renegotiate the deal to provide you with some upside with no kind of cash investment? And the two of us, Damon and Bombas, came to an agreement that both parties, I think, were pretty amicable with and set the foundation for a really, really amazing relationship that has only built over the years. And I think both people feel really happy with what they got out of it.

[Guy Raz]

All right, that episode airs and what happens? I mean, do you see an instant spike?

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah, our website crashed, guy. And it was terrible. That was, you know, it was like a super joyous moment and a huge moment and then a moment filled with dread and terror. I think we were. We had a viewing party. I mean, do you remember this, Dave? Like, just looking at each other and.

[David Heath]

Thinking we'd been up for the last 48 hours. We didn't sleep the night before because we were working on the website and we were like, trying to get the website ready for this massive event. We were, like, trying to scale up customer service people, because that's the one thing we heard was like, people are like, oh, hire a bunch of temporary people to answer the phones and answer emails because, like, you will not be able to do this on your own. And so we didn't sleep for almost two days. We're at this, like, viewing party that we had put on like zombies. And then we're getting phone calls that the website's crashing over and over and over and over again.

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah, it was a nightmare.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so this happens. The orders start coming in. And is it. I mean, at this point, what are the hires that you're making? I mean, are you thinking about. You got to come up with new designs. You got to come up with a. Do you start to kind of expand your team and designers and marketing experts, and what do you start to think about in terms of expansion?

[Randy Goldberg]

Well, I think in that moment, there was sort of a new floor for the business. It's kind of the way we thought of it. We had all these new customers, and we had made a lot of promises through this business. Right. We promised we'd be donating a pair of socks. And how do we show people the work that we're doing on the donation side? We promised a certain level of comfort and quality with our product. How do we ensure that people understand that and what we're communicating and how do we back that up? So customer service became super important. Dave mentioned he took every customer service call for the first, you know, year plus of the business. We would be out at a bar, he'd get a call, and he'd go outside and disappear for an hour talking to a customer. But in that Shark Tank moment, we brought in a team, and that was the beginning of our customer service team and our happiness guarantee. And then we realized that we had brought somebody on to help fill that marketing gap. Right. We just always wanted to surround ourselves with people that were smarter than we were about the things that we didn't know a ton about. We had our skill sets. Right. Dave was a great leader, a salesperson. Right. Aaron and I could handle the creative and the design. Andrew was running the finance and operations side of things, and we just started to fill in the gaps around us. So eventually that was customer service marketing, product design. Right. These were. And then we had a sort of, like, GM and PR figure who was our first employee, Emily. And like, this early team started to really galvanize around what we were doing. And all with the same attitude of let's figure out the things that we need to do to keep building this, to keep pushing it, to keep growing it, and be really honest about what we don't know.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[David Heath]

I think this is an important moment to, though, interject that at a pretty high pinnacle moment. So in the first 13 months before Shark Tank, we did about $900,000 in sales pretty organically. And then in the two months following Shark Tank we did 1.2 million. It sold out of every single item of product that we had leading into Holiday. And we felt like we were on top of the world. And we just closed this million dollar seed round. And I think you put, you know, three people like me, Aaron and and Randy in a room, right? We're pretty optimistic, you know, growth focused. And we were like, like, let's go for it. And Andrew really became like the voice of reason from a CFO perspective and.

[Guy Raz]

Kind of, this is your brother.

[David Heath]

Is my brother. And really instilled this moment of, you know, let's focus on continuing to build a good foundationally unit economic positive business that generates profitability. And we weren't going to sacrifice profitability at the expense of growth. So because we didn't feel like we were getting the recognition or validation from the venture community that this might be a little bit of a harder road for us to go down. And I think it was also the moment where we looked at the brands and companies that we admired most, right? The Nikes, the Lulu's, the Under Armours, the Patagonias of the world. Right. Brands that had endured the test of time over decades and decades and decades of growth. And the one consistent thing that we found in those companies that was, was different than our peer set of, you know, the Aways and the Warby's of the world is that they didn't grow by raising hundreds of millions of dollars of capital and trying to skyrocket the highest valuation possible in a short amount of time. They did it brick by brick, slowly over time, sustained growth year over year over year over year. And that was the playbook at that time that we kind of at that moment was a pretty pinnacle moment for us to say that, you know, we're not going to try to be the biggest company as quickly as possible. We just want to be the best company and be around as long as possible.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, I think you reached profitability by year three.

[David Heath]

We did. We were profitable in year one. In year two, we made a lot of capital investments in inventory. Mostly that, you know, because we were growing so fast that we were just like, sure, got to stay on top of inventory. And inventory became the cash crunch for us always every single year heading into Holiday where we do about 50% of our business. That September PO order was always very expensive because we were front loading these costs and wouldn't really get those back until the books closed at the end of the year.

[Guy Raz]

So I Wonder you're growing every year over year over year and Covid hits in 2020 and most D2C companies were freaking out. Of course, it turned out to be a good year depending on the company, including for you guys. But before you started to see a spike in sales, were you preparing for the possibility of layoffs and of retrenching 100%?

[David Heath]

I mean, we watched our business go from like 50% year over year in growth in that January to a negative 12% year over year growth in March of that year. 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 we're like, had comps that were insane. But yeah, 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 fostered innovation and efficiency and was so collaborative. And we just built out a brand new 33,000 square foot office in Union Square. 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 that, 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. I think people were like. And, and this is a point actually where I think the mission comes back. Right? Because totally it became this moment where we're like, wow, this is actually a time where we can step up and use this other arm that was mostly used to just distribute socks. And now here we are as a, you know, as a platform that's helping a lot of our peer brands learn how, what it means to give in times of need.

[Guy Raz]

What, what, what is the ultimate. I mean, you do have investors and people who put in some seed money and, and you're profitable. But, you know, at some point, you're right, you either sell or you, you go public. So I know there's been some chatter about maybe going public. Tell me about, about, about the possibility, possibilities of selling the company or going public or, you know, something along those lines because obviously you have, you do have investors. You have some investors involved.

[David Heath]

Yeah, I think the way we think about that is we're incredibly opportunistic. We didn't, didn't design this business from day one to say, oh, it's got to be X billion dollar valuation or we're going to sell it to this person. Or I think again, in hindsight, looking back, by not having influence from large institutional partners early on, it allowed us to really kind of make up our minds and decide that, like, we're just going to run a great business and if someone comes and is interested in buying us, we'll talk to them and, you know, if it's a good fit and we feel like they'll be good stewards for the product, the brand and the mission going forward, then we'd entertain that. If not, you know, and there's an opportunity in the public markets to kind of fortify, you know, what we've built and, you know, help us kind of build the dream that we're looking to build in the future. We'll go that route too.

[Guy Raz]

You know, when you think about this, this, you know, the partnership and you guys sort of meeting at this company and kind of batting around ideas and then coming together and building this brand that is really big, you know, and even the fact that you got, you couldn't raise capital and all these things that happen along the way, the fact that your godfather happened to be involved in the sock business, how much of this do you think has to do with, you know, all the work that you put in, the skills and that you brought to the table? And how much do you attribute to luck?

[David Heath]

So I practice stoicism, and one of the great stoics is Seneca, and he has a quote that says, luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And so I think for me, we were very opportunistic and we were really prepared. We put ourselves in a lot of these positions. We saw this quote and decided to do something about it. We went out and researched product, but then led us to my godfather. So I think a lot of certainly luck that played in part to the moment in time in which we formed this company, to all the fortuitous events that have led us here.

[Randy Goldberg]

Right, yeah, it's a combination, of course. Right. That's kind of the only answer we time things well, which feels like luck. But everything that led us here personally, the two of us to that moment, the four founders to this moment to start the company, and then the things that we committed to doing and that we stood by through the years, things that we've put against tough decisions and those core values Dave mentioned understanding what we're great at and what we need help with. Being humble leaders, really committing to doing something that benefits our neighbors in need. All these ideas, that feels like the hard work. And then it lets you be opportunistic around some of the lucky moments and capitalize on some of the lucky moments and things like that. So it's a wild combination and it's been a good ride because of that.

[Guy Raz]

That's David Heath and Randy Goldberg, co founders of bombas. By the way, didn't one of you guys, like, make a promise to customers that you would like, that you wrote into your FAQs, like, really early on? Can you tell me that promise if.

[Randy Goldberg]

We get to a million pairs donated? Dave wrote this in. He's promised that he would get a tattoo to celebrate. And we thought that this would take 10 years. Right?

[David Heath]

And mind you, I had none at the time. Like, so this was not like a, oh, whatever, I'll go get another tattoo. I had zero.

[Guy Raz]

Right?

[David Heath]

None.

[Guy Raz]

Right?

[Randy Goldberg]

Yeah. So at about the two year mark, we started to look at each other and we'd say, yeah, we're about to hit a million pairs donated already. And, you know, a promise is a promise. A promise is a promise. Right, Dave?

[Guy Raz]

And yes, if you're wondering, Dave did get the tattoo. It's a bee, like a bumblebee, which has become kind of a mantra for the brand. The phrase be better is stitched on the inside of every pair of BOMBA socks. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce with research help from Sam Paulson. Our production staff also includes J.C. howard, Devin Schwartz, Alex Chong, Katherine Cypher, Elliot Lane Coates, John Isabella, Chris Masini, and Carla Estevez. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built this. If you like How I Built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey. 3, 2, 1.

[David Heath]

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[Guy Raz]

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[Guy Raz]

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