This is the Empowered Caregiver Show.
If you are a caregiver or know someone who is,
this show is meant to uplift you through education and support,
while also lifting up every caregiver's invaluable role in society.
Now, here is the Empowered Caregiver and your host,
Liza Helen Brand.
You're listening to the Empowered Caregiver
and I am your host, Liza Helen Brand.
Later in the show today, I am going to be talking to the founders,
John and Mark Cronin from John's Crazy Sox.
If you haven't heard of them,
you need to go to the website and check them out.
It's johnscrazysox.com.
They have over 4,000 different pairs of cool and crazy socks.
However, I'm not having them on because I feel like caregivers are in need of socks,
but because of their amazing story.
John has Down syndrome and in his efforts to find meaningful employment,
John and his dad, Mark, started John's Crazy Sox.
In their first month, they shipped over 450 orders
and earned more than $13,000 in revenue.
They stated on their website,
we want to show what is possible when you give someone a chance.
Every day, we demonstrate with people with intellectual disabilities can do,
and we believe in giving back we donate 5% of our earnings to special Olympics
as they've played a vital role in John's development.
They have an amazing story.
They continue to expand their charity partners by offering and creating socks
with specific awareness themes such as autism awareness and Down syndrome socks.
And over half of their employees have different abilities.
And to date, they've donated over $750,000 to charity.
The founders of John's Crazy Sox have given TED Talks.
They've been on just about every major news outlet,
including CBS, Fox, ABC, the BBC, and PBS, just to name a few.
So I cannot wait to learn more from them, more about them,
and to say that we had them here on civic media.
And you know, John's story is a wonderful success story.
But more work needs to be done in the arena of hiring people with disabilities.
According to a February 22nd article of this year from cap 20,
disabled workers still experience unemployment at a rate twice as high
as that of workers without a disability.
And they remain considerably less likely to be employed.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data release from 2019,
which is the latest pre-banned pandemic year, which data is available.
So from 2019 to 2023, there was a 10% increase in number of people
and the civilian non-institutional population ages 16 to 64
that identified as having a disability.
And that's no small number.
That amounts to 1.45 million people.
And it can be compared to, I guess it's almost a 2% increase in population
of their non-disabled counterparts.
So the need to continue to work on making workplaces inclusive and diverse
continues to grow.
There are more people being diagnosed with various disabilities.
There are people with disabilities living longer.
And you know, we've really gotten away from these workshops or warehouses
where they use to bus people with disabilities and to work at below minimum wages,
sometimes barely nothing.
And we've decided as a society, we want to be inclusive and find ways for people
with disabilities to have their own homes, to be part of the workforce,
to do everything that everybody else has the opportunity to do.
And I couldn't be happier having a son with a disability myself that this is the way
that we as a nation as a society is moving.
But it takes some creativity, it takes some thought.
You know, there's some work that needs to be done in this process
to have these employment opportunities available.
And a lot of them quite frankly start with employers.
You know, they have to have the open-mindedness and the willingness
to learn and grow.
And they will come to find out that this is actually a very smart business move.
And if you disagree with me, I would strongly suggest that you check out John's story
from John's crazy socks because it just goes to show.
You know, he will tell you there are probably thousands of places that sell socks.
So why is he thriving to the point where he's donated almost a million dollars to charity?
It's because of his mission.
It's because of incorporating people with different abilities into the workforce
and seeing the value that that brings.
So to help employment efforts here in Wisconsin, in 2018,
the Wisconsin Legislator passed a partners with Business Initiative.
The goal is to help more businesses hire and support workers with disabilities.
The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities
is the one that carries out this initiative.
On the WBPD website, which is a mouthful,
they have a wealth of information on employment for schools
because schools are trying to get students with disabilities to find part-time job.
The best experience is early experience.
I'm going to talk about that a little bit more later.
They have resources for schools, people with disabilities, and for employers.
The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities
even has a whole guide book to support it employment for managers and supervisors.
And so this guide book focuses on strategies and resources to help agencies create
an organizational culture to support competitive integrated employment,
including strategies for hiring, onboarding, training, and building partnerships.
Now, if you're unfamiliar with the term competitive integrated employment,
this means people with disabilities are getting paid wages similar to those
without disabilities and work in the same work environment.
So if you are a business owner that is currently hiring or, in some cases, always hiring,
I would strongly recommend that you go to the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities,
which is WBPD, their website, and apply for one of their grants.
They have actual grant programs.
They want to partner with businesses interested in hiring and supporting workers
with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
These grant funds and technical assistance are available, but you have to apply.
And I want to get this out there.
The application from the next cohort is May 31st, so don't delay.
Go to their website, fill out an application, and get the support that you need,
and you will never look back. You will absolutely never regret it. I guarantee.
One thing that the board has been working on as part of their integrated employment
is reducing the need of job coaches.
So vocational agencies are the agencies that employ job coaches and how people with disabilities
receive gain meaningful employment and help them at their employment.
But they themselves are always looking for job coaches, so that role can be hard to fill.
So the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities solution
was to create an environment in which employers can use their employees to help support people with disabilities.
And they have training and support available to show you, to teach you how to do that.
And then what they can offer is they can increase that employee or perhaps employees.
I'm not exactly sure how it works, but they can increase that employees hourly wage.
And it's at no cost to the employer.
So you have one employee helping another employee with disability and that employee gets increase in their wage for that service.
It reduces the stigma of, I'm sure we've all evolved into places where you've seen a person with disabilities working
and they have the job coach standing there right by their side just in case they need them.
In some cases, that's necessary and it's great that those people are there.
So that everybody can have the work experience.
It's the important part of life to be able to be employed and contribute and earn income of some sort.
But for a lot of people, it's not necessary.
They may just need some additional support here and there.
So this is a great opportunity to get them.
It's a great employment training utilizes current employees to support those with disabilities.
And the cool thing about that is it also saves a ton of money on Medicaid expenses.
Medicaid is usually the one that ends up paying for these job coaches.
So the partners with business investment resulted in 64% reduction in the number of Medicaid funded job coaching support hours.
This saved Medicaid system on average, excuse me, $7,644 annually per person.
And over $61,000 total for the year, for the eight participants.
So as I said earlier, you can apply for this grant program in which the Wisconsin Board for people with developmental disabilities helps you.
Last year, they had eight participants and those eight participants that went through the program saved the Medicaid system over $61,000.
So that is great just in the sense.
Medicaid has a wait list and there's never enough money for Medicaid.
And so that can give back and those funds can be used to help other people.
So just to recap, that hiring a person with disabilities creates an inclusive and diverse workforce.
It lands you a dedicated employee and provides a job for someone that is extremely grateful and it helps reduce Medicaid cost.
So those funds can be redirected to others and needs.
So besides going to the Wisconsin Board for people with developmental disabilities, there are a ton of support and resources out there.
If you want to learn more about this and what your business can do or if you want to share it with a business owner, somebody that you work for, hey, if you thought about this, there's a lot of great benefits.
The US Department of Labor has information on their website, including tax incentives, DVR, your local schools, like I said, are always hiring.
So reach out and see what you can do to do your part to help employ people with developmental disabilities.
When we come back, I am going to be talking with Mr. Caden Krut, a young man with autism who has been employed since he was 14 years old.
You're listening to The Empowered Caregiver and I am your host, Liza Helen Brand.
So a little bit later coming up, I am going to have John and Mark Cronin from John's Crazy Sox on.
I'm not going to want to miss their story.
It is heartwarming and wonderful and just a great organization that I can't wait to learn more about.
John has Down syndrome and was having trouble finding meaningful employment.
So him and his dad, Mark, created John's Crazy Sox and wow, it exploded.
The things that they've done has been just amazing.
But I've been talking a little bit about employment and employment for those with disabilities and I was going to go on and on about it.
But I thought how boring is that when I can have someone that has experienced it, someone that has walked the walk.
So I have with me today a young man, Mr. Caden Krut, who is also my son, was diagnosed with autism at age 2.
And I knew that employment was key.
If he wanted to have any shot of independence and making out on his own in the world, it had to include employment and quite frankly being employable.
So the mean mom that I was sent him out to get his first job at the age of 14.
So Caden, what do you think? Was it a terrible decision of me or tell me a little bit about your first work experience?
How was that mean? I think that's good that you wanted me to get a job and I think it's good that I wanted to get a job.
I mean, I know back then you would push more, but that's only because it was my first time getting jobs.
Right. Sometimes my attempts for looking out for your best interest kind of fall flat.
But I'm glad that you saw the importance of that as well. Why? Why is having a job an important?
So having a job is important because you got to make money in case you're going to school later in your life.
And I started at the age of 14 years old. And I thought it was important because I could get job experience and see where I could go from where I was.
You know, just that point of my life, but you know, I think where I've gotten work wise.
Ever since like, I don't know, the school switchups and everything like that, I think I've got it pretty.
I'd say under control, but also working towards some things, you know, things I want to do in life, I guess.
Yeah, you have some big dreams and ambitions and you're going to be starting cleaning a new cleaning job actually hopefully coming up soon overnight.
But can you just tell us a little bit what are some of the jobs that you've had over the years?
Well, I mean, I mean, at least I'll have a summer job.
But some of the jobs I had over the years were first I had my internship at Jet's Pizza at the age of 14 and you said internship.
And that's a great thank you so much for bringing that up because that's another thing I want to throw out to those people that are, you know, considering hiring people with disabilities DVR offers an internship program.
Yes, and Fist is the vocational agency that you worked with here in Madison, but they will offer an internship program.
It typically I believe last around 90 days and it's where DVR plays for the hourly wage of the person with disability and the goal is to have it lead to a full time position.
But it gives you three months to work with that individual at no cost to you to see if it is a good fit.
And that's exactly what Kaden did first first job.
You did a 90 day internship at a pizza restaurant and then you went on to work at another pizza restaurant.
Help rolls pizza rea.
Yes, and then you landed what was your dream job at the time.
So at the time it was Marcus theaters and I had to work at a fell rolls during the pandemic because I had a job interview at Marcus theaters at the age of 16.
So I could have started working there myself for your high school, but inside started my junior year of high school.
But then like, um, fell rolls was going out of business anyways.
So, um, that kind of happened.
Yep, so you went, uh, you went over to Marcus theater and I periodically would check in with them to see how, how you were doing and they always said great because you know what, reliable, always on time, you took that job serious.
You kept that place clean and they even had you training training new people along the way.
So you worked your your way up.
Uh, and now you're going to college to get a pair of educator certificate.
Want to tell me, tell me a little bit about that.
So ever, so like ever since my senior year of high school, I think I knew what I wanted to go to school for.
So I started going to edge with college to prepare educator, church certificate and I started taking classes for those my sophomore year, which was just this last year and I did practice.
So I had to do experiences experiences at other schools with younger kids and that can also add up to like employment because they have you do that.
Yeah, yeah, it gives you, it gives you job experience. Let me tell, let me ask you this.
Why should an employer give an employee that has a disability a chance or give somebody with a disability a chance to work for them?
Well, to start off, um, it sounds like so I wasn't I was an employer with a disability and it sounds like based off of like, especially Marcus theaters reviews that I pretty good.
But like, that's another sign because I'm other people with disabilities could do good at their jobs too.
And you know, you shouldn't really focus on the word disability so much like they could also have like good inner abilities.
Other abilities and you have a lot of great other other abilities as well.
And that goes just the same with any person general, you know, it's like, I guess that kind of falls under don't judge a book by its cover kind of thing is, you know, that also kind of goes with other people as well, especially with people with disabilities.
So just think of it. It can't be as much different.
Absolutely. And you know, a lot of people with disabilities don't have a job or struggle finding a job.
Do you have any advice from your personal experience that you would give to maybe one of your friends that has autism that says, oh, I want to have a job, but I don't know I'm kind of nervous.
I would say it's not a rush. Don't think of it like a rush because, um, you know, that can happen to certain people at points, but just, you know, see what jobs are a good fit for you.
See what's a good fit for you and what you would like to do.
I like that, Kate. And let's expand on that a little bit. Good, a good fit for you because if you have disabilities or some areas that that you may struggle with, I think finding the right job is really important.
And in a lot of times, um, people that support people with disabilities, just try to find them a job, any job, but a right job isn't important for you. What does a right job look like?
So a right job would be like a job that you like wanted or something that fits you or just stuff that you maybe do in general, like for example, if you really like sports, maybe dig sporting goods would be a good place to work.
Or if you like being active jumping and trampolines and maybe like urban air would be a good place.
Yeah, you're giving out a exact locations, huh? Yeah, that is important though. You got it. It has to be a good fit. So, Kate, and thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your job experience and what is up next for you for you and your drop job career.
I think you can help inspire a lot of parents that have kids that are maybe coming up to be 14 on getting jobs. So thank you and happy mother's day to all the moms out there.
You are listening to the empowered caregiver and I am your host, Liza Helen Brand. I am joined now with John and Mark Cronin from Johns Crazy Sox.
If you haven't heard of them, you need to go to their website and check them out. It's johnscrazysox.com. They have over 4,000 different pairs of cool and crazy socks.
However, I'm not having them on because I feel like caregivers need crazy socks, although I have to say it went hurt.
I am having them on to share their wonderful and amazing story.
John has done syndrome and in efforts to find meaningful employment, John and his dad, Mark started Johns Crazy Sox.
In their first month, John's Crazy Sox has shipped over 452 orders and earned more than $13,000 in revenue. Wow.
So I just want to jump right in. I was going to say head first, but we'll jump in crazy socks first and welcome Mark and John.
Thank you so much for joining me today. It is a real honor to be able to learn and grow from you. So I am so happy that you're here.
Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it on your side. We're excited to be here.
Yes. Yes. So I have to start out by asking why socks?
Why socks? It's fun. It's colorful. It's rare. It always name me be me. I want to present my whole life.
We used to drive around looking for these socks. They are fun. Yes. Yeah.
So when the time came to try to figure out, you know, and it's a little story about how we even got to the point of wanting to start a business.
When John suggested we sell socks, it was like, oh, okay. Well, if you love them that much, surely other people do too. And we can find those people.
They do. They're out there. And you know what? I love it when somebody has a crazy pair of socks on because you're right. It's fun. It adds fun and joy to your day. So John, great idea. Love it.
Thank you very much.
Yeah. So I saw on your website that you have five different pillars that you kind of operate by.
What are your five pillars and how do you think they've contributed to your success?
Um, I just said, uh, well, give it back a bunch of projects you can have. Make it partner. Make it quickly to work.
And we have to put this in a contact. We have a different type of business model. It's a social enterprise.
So we have both a social mission and a business mission. They feed off of each other. And overall, what are we doing?
It's really happening.
So you got to know your purpose. You got to know your values.
We built a business on dogs. That's what those pillars, those values enable us to connect with our customers.
But it also differentiates us in a marketplace. If what we're doing is selling socks, you're not talking to us.
There are a gazillion companies selling socks. And at that point, what do you say? Are there better than yours?
I don't smell like yours. No, that's not it. But for us, we may be the world's largest sock store.
But at the end of the day, we're not really a sock store. The socks become the physical manifestation with the story and the mission.
Does that make sense to you? That makes sense. And John, can you can you rattle off those five pillars against real quick?
It's really in hope.
Spreading hope.
Give it back.
Giving back.
Fine pliacs.
Fine.
You can love.
Okay.
Make it personal.
Make it personal.
And I'll make it safely to work.
So it's kind of simple. We can walk through them, right?
If our mission is to spread happiness, we have to start at home.
So that's where that fifth pillar comes from. Let's make this a great place to work.
How can we spread happiness if our colleagues aren't happy?
Right.
And that's make sure we offer people a mission worthy of their commitment.
Something bigger than ourselves.
Yeah.
Something that matters.
Something you feel good about.
And it can't just be we're going to make money.
And don't get me wrong.
We want to make money.
Sure.
It turns out we like to live indoors, right?
And we do.
And you like lots of wolves and those are expensive.
Yeah.
But what you got to have that.
Yeah.
You got to make sure everybody knows why his or her job matters.
There's no cognitive machinery.
There's no make-work job.
Everybody's job is connected to that mission.
Our entry level job.
There are the sock wranglers in our place.
If I go to any of our sock wranglers and ask them, what are you doing?
They're going to tell you.
We're spreading happiness.
I love it.
Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
I just I just feel like I want to throw out there.
Those five pillars.
Those are really things that we should all live by.
I mean, they might take little tweaks, but I think you guys, you nailed it.
Well, every company, I would suggest everybody, every organization,
and you got to know your purpose.
You got to know what you, why are you doing what you do?
You know, the author Simon Sinek puts, you know, know your why.
It's not what you do.
It's why you do.
And you got to know your values.
And you know the values are real when they cost you money.
But why?
When the hard times come and they will come.
When it becomes difficult, that's what keeps you going.
Your purpose becomes your north star.
Your values become the rails that keep you going in the right direction.
And each company is going to have a different set of values.
We love working directly with our customers.
Google's not going to have that.
They don't care about working with their customers.
That doesn't make them a big company.
You got to know who you are.
Absolutely.
And you're right.
It is near impossible to get a hold of anybody at Google.
But, you know, along with your purpose and your mission,
you have given some TED talks about employing people with disabilities.
And having a child myself with the disability,
I know I personally could go on and on about how important it is.
And all of the values around it for all parties involved.
But if you had to narrow it down to like an elevator pitch,
let's call it, why is it good for business?
It's simple.
It's not all tourism.
It's good business.
Business benefit because they get great employees.
They get people that bring a different perspective.
And it adds vitality to the business.
We don't make the moral argument.
We think that's obvious.
We make the business argument.
The business is that learn how to hire people with different abilities,
have a competitive advantage over other businesses.
Do what business is going to help you with business?
Well, what are some of the benefits of hiring a person with different abilities
that you maybe don't see in a typical worker?
So, you know, I'll take our situation.
And much of our employment involves running a pick and pack warehouse.
In much of this country, we have a growing labor shortage.
You're in Madison, Wisconsin.
There are not enough workers to fill all the jobs in Madison, Wisconsin.
Correct.
You know, I hear all the time from employers.
I can't find enough good people.
Well, at the same time, we have this vast, untapped pool of labor,
people with different abilities that are ready willing and able to work.
And yet, only one in five people with the disability are employed in this country.
It's awful.
But if you tap into that pool,
now we fill all of our jobs.
And here's a concrete example.
So, we've been around a little more than seven years.
Yes.
And we've hired for our warehouse from three different labor pools.
People with different abilities, moms, there are some dads in there.
But we schedule people in four hour shifts so that you can put your kid on the bus
in the morning, come to work, be home to pick your kid up and eat them.
And then general laborers who are, you know, starting at 16, 50 an hour
and want to be treated well.
By far, the best labor pool of people with different abilities.
They want to be here.
They're focused.
They don't miss work.
They care about what they're doing.
They do agree.
They do agree.
But he said it could be one other example from kind of the other end of the spectrum.
And we're small business.
IBM.
IBM has started a neurodiversity hiring program.
They started in one country.
They've expanded it to 11 countries.
So, one of the people they hire is a guy named Dylan Ratley.
They assign him to a client site to work on some quality assurance program.
He calls them up after two weeks.
There's a team of people already working there.
It says, would you mind if I made some alterations in the code?
So, people have been there for years.
He had a different insight, a different view.
Overhauled the code.
Got new patents for the company.
It was named employee of you.
Wow.
Because not only was he competent, but he had a different perspective.
And when we have those different perspectives,
then it's strength, vitality, to our kind, to our business.
Absolutely.
And I have to take a step back with this being the empowered caregiver show
and give a shout out not only for the work that you do,
making it a diverse and inclusive workplace,
but also the comment that you made about working moms and dads.
Because along with supporting people with disabilities and getting employment,
I'm a strong advocate for creating caregiver friendly workplaces.
Because so many caregivers themselves have trouble finding or maintaining employment
due to their caregiving needs.
And it sounds like you really took that into consideration.
Yes.
Yes.
We have to be one of one of the thing,
one of the things we urge businesses to do.
Even though they're one house smaller business,
is to recognize the capabilities they have and the impact they can have.
You're a small business.
If you hire just five people, that's such as five people.
That's five families.
Right.
That's five families in a community.
And so that gives you a power and a presence,
but it also means you have to be cognizant of the whole person,
of the person and their family.
And how is that going to operate?
And how can you support that?
That makes such perfect sense.
And thank you for saying it.
And you know, your values that you're talking about,
I think you can see the results.
Right.
You guys are thriving and growing.
Thriving and growing at the same time when you merge those two birds,
I guess, is throwing.
But you're not throwing.
You're thriving and growing.
And I've got to feel like it has to do with what you're speaking to
on the employment and not only employing people with disabilities,
but really taking into consideration all your workers
and who they are and the needs that they have.
Look, we depend upon our colleagues.
Without them we're nothing.
And so we have to...
Nothing we're talking about is rocket science.
It's common sense.
Just treat people well.
Respect them.
Treat people well.
And a payoff is huge.
Absolutely.
And I want to talk a little bit more about that when we come back,
about just the impact that your organization has made.
But it has it to open that can of worms when we're coming up on a short break.
But what I do want to talk about is a little bit about some of your products.
Can you let people know where to go to get your socks and maybe some of your top sellers
or what do you have the spotlight on this month?
Where do they go?
Okay.
This month we have all sorts of things happening.
We've got graduations.
We have graduation socks.
We just pay us Mother's Day.
We'll have Father's Day coming up.
Well, I shouldn't say.
It's Sunday's Mother's Day.
So you have graduations, weddings, feature appreciation socks.
Celebrate nurses week.
We have healthcare superheroes socks.
And celebrate nurses and raise money to support the American nurses.
Socks for every reason.
Socks for every season.
When we come back, we are going to talk more with John and Mark Cronin from John's Crazy Socks.
You are listening to the empowered caregiver.
And I am your host, Liza Helen Brand.
I am joined here today with John and Mark Cronin from John's Crazy Socks.
If you have not heard of them yet, you need to go to their website and check them out,
johnscrazysocks.com.
And I have them here today not only to share their wonderful products and that they offer
all the different crazy fun socks that they have for every season and every reason,
but I have them here because they have such an inspirational story of hope and empowerment
and they're eager to share it.
And I couldn't be happier because it's a story that I could listen to again and again.
So John and Mark, your success of John's Crazy Socks has been huge.
And I am so happy for you.
And I know that giving back is really important to you in your mission.
Your giving back has greatly impacted many different non-profit, excuse me, non-profits.
Can you talk a little bit about the people that you were able to help along the way?
What's our mission?
Stay having it.
And what do you say are the keys to happy?
So the more we can do for others, the better off we are.
We're in the organization with the sense of gratitude and we're so fortunate to get to do what we do.
So here's an example.
We've created a whole line of what we call awareness socks that celebrate causes and people
raise awareness and raise money for those causes.
So what were the first awareness socks we had?
Down syndrome awareness socks.
Down syndrome awareness socks.
And John designed the very first pair.
And those raise money for the National Down syndrome society.
We have autism deemed products that raise money for the autism society of America.
A several policy theme socks raised money for UCP.
It's not enough to just sell stuff.
You've got to give back.
And that's part of our commitment.
It's part of our core values.
But it's also something we share with our customers.
When you buy from us, you become a philanthropist.
You know what the giving back is going to, right?
And we start, you know, before we talk about special Olympics.
We start by pledging 5% of our earnings to the special Olympics.
Yes.
So now we've donated over $750,000 to our charity partners.
And more than 150,000 to the special Olympics.
John has donated more to the special Olympics than any one special Olympic athlete.
Congratulations, John.
You'd like to say we're just getting started.
Wonderful.
You know, I am thrilled and so happy that this all came together and worked out well for you.
I'm sure there were many challenges in road bumps along the way.
But if a parent at home would like to start a business with their child with different abilities using your experience,
could you answer maybe three important things to know right out of the gate regarding the first steps if you want to do this at yourself?
One, what are you looking to do?
Because there's a whole spectrum here.
Are you looking for something that will engage your child and keep them kind of busy and naked and show things to people?
That's great.
That's a hobby.
Are you looking for something where they can get a little bit, you're going to cover costs and maybe get a little bit of money coming in?
Okay, that's great.
You can do that as a crafts person, as a single person.
Are you thinking of creating a business or a role that's really going to provide a true income source for your child?
And is it just your child or you're going to grow a true business?
So you have to know where you are on that spectrum.
So you know what you're willing to do and set up.
I think that's the starting point.
That makes good sense.
So I would imagine a lot of people kind of go into this seeing, let's see what happens, right?
And you're saying, no, you kind of have to know what you want your outcome to be before you go into it.
Right.
So when we started John's crazy socks, which was added in necessity, right?
John couldn't find meaningful work.
Right.
You were the one who said he's all right.
He's a natural entrepreneur.
I can't find a job.
What do you say?
I said, I'm okay with it.
I want me going.
I want to be with my dad.
And nice.
For us to be together.
But when we set it up, we said, okay, we're going to, we went to lean startup route.
Let's get something up, quick and dirty, but test the idea.
But it had to succeed as a business where we were at.
If it wasn't going to do that, we weren't going to keep doing it.
That's not to say that's right for everybody.
Right.
And you have to be willing to, you have to recognize how much time you're willing to commit to this.
Is it something your child can do alone?
Most likely not.
Particularly if you want to grow something.
So who's going to put the time in to do that?
Those are key things.
If you do want to grow the business.
If you really want to business.
To me, there's a sweet spot.
You've got to find something that you know about or love.
You've got to find something that people are willing to pay for.
And that's key.
Your friends will, you know, I don't want to say they're going to lie to you.
But friends and family who say, oh, this is wonderful.
You need strangers willing to reach into their pocket and pay for whatever you're selling.
Be it a service or a product.
And then it's something you've got to be able to replicate.
And it's the overlap of those three circles that's your sweet spot.
Makes perfect sense.
What about avoiding the unexpected?
What is one thing you wish you would have known before you started this whole big adventure?
We should have sought capital earlier.
And that hurt us not having given the size we were growing to.
Not having capital behind us.
That makes sense.
And you know, we only have a minute left.
So I want to be able to share a little bit more about your socks.
Now, the producer Aaron had said that he found that on your website that there was compression socks.
And he was happy to learn that.
I'm not even sure I know what I've seen him.
I'm not sure I know what they are.
So tell us a little bit more.
Let's end on what are your products.
And then again, where can people find you?
Well, we have something for everybody.
You can personalize, you know, so what type of different socks do we have?
We got.
We have a lot of groups of knee eyes.
So these.
We have an audience that are teams and images so you can personalize.
So we have that selling director consumer through our website.
We also sort of businesses.
We may custom socks and we've made those for Microsoft, special Olympics for all sorts of organizations.
And we're now starting to get into retail stores.
So if you know somebody who's got a store or wants to carry our product, they can.
Absolutely.
I will.
Thank you so much for being here.
And where do people find us?
Yeah, I'll go at johnscrazysocks.com.
johnscrazysocks.com.
johnscrazysocks.com.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
You have been such an inspiration.
I learned a lot and thank you for everything that you do.
