Where was the idea of your socks born?
While studying law, my friend and I went to Norway to earn extra money as a chef. One day he injured his leg there and could not wear normal shoes. He started walking down the street in socks. At that moment, I wondered why there was something on the market that would provide protection for the feet and be as durable as shoes, but at the same time as comfortable and foldable as socks. That evening, with the help of travel sewing donated by my mother, I hurried and tested the first prototype, and socks were born.
In recent years, your company has been successful on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, where you once raised over $ 2.3 million. What did you use this amount for?
We already had two campaigns on Kickstarter, where we shipped goods worth more than three million dollars in total orders. Because it is a sale of goods sold, most of the money goes to the production of goods, their marketing, transportation, international patent protection, taxes, customs and the operation of the company. The rest goes to the expansion of stocks, the development of other products and the development of the company.
Have you tried to succeed on HitHit?
We were de facto established on the Czech crowdfunding platform HitHit in the summer of 2015. It was the first time we let the world know about our intention to make socks. Product crowdfunding was in its infancy in the Czech Republic at the time, and after the BagoBago seat backpack, we were only the second company to successfully complete the project on the Czech Internet. Instead of the required 90 thousand crowns, we finally chose more than 540 thousand. The Kickstarter campaign came a year later, when we again needed to expand production and expand beyond the borders of the Czech Republic.
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During the pandemic, people began to withdraw more into nature, began to walk and run more. Is it also known about the sales of your socks, which are also intended for nature hikes?
To know it was, and fortunately in the end, quite the opposite of what we feared. At the beginning of the pandemic, like many other companies, we preferred to switch to crisis management as a precaution, trying to minimize expenses and predict what will happen next. The growing trend of e-commerce, international operations and customer demand for leisure products eventually meant that, despite a pandemic year, we managed to complete development and launch a new version of Skinners 2.0 (again) through Kickstarter. The campaign eventually succeeded, and within a month, more than 17,000 people worth more than $ 1 million had ordered the new Skinnersky.
Did you notice any significant difference in annual turnover compared between 2019 and 2020?
In 2019, it was about 35 million crowns. In 2020, 62 million crowns. This year we would like to overcome the mythical goal of one hundred million crowns.
What were your initial investments in the whole project?
Thanks to crowdfunding, we managed to avoid the most common mistakes of startups, ie they spend a lot of time and spend a lot of money producing something that no one cares about as a result. We tested the campaign to see if there was any interest in the product at all, and in the form of pre-orders we received money to launch it. In order to meet the minimum quantity for orders from suppliers, we traveled hundreds of thousands of crowns – from savings and, for example, from the money I earned as a chef in Norway. The total value of the investment in the project in its first months was around one million crowns.
Are your sock shoes sold as a Czech product mostly in the Czech Republic, or is there more interest in them abroad?
The Czechia is a great market where the trend of minimalist footwear is well known. However, it accounts for about twenty percent of the company’s total sales. Most of the production goes to “first world” countries where there is a demand for premium sports and outdoor equipment, ie the USA, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Japan, but also Qatar.
Do you plan to expand to countries other than the one in which you currently operate?
With regard to the uniqueness and globality of the product, we have been continuously expanding since our inception. This year we would like to strengthen our position in Germany and the USA and expand within the product line. There are other plans, but we will see how things will develop further with regard to the ongoing pandemic.
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