From Socks to Dollars
A Clayton man is turning a common family frustration – an inabililty to keep socks matched – into a business with the potential for serious revenue.
Kevin Bunn was inspired to create the SockDock by his son, Kanaan, who has Down Syndrome. Bunn saw an opportunity to manage the usual sock scramble for his family of four and also help Kanaan develop fine motor skills.
Bunn struggled with the design until he found an approach that included a “simple but effective string prototype.”
He says he sold approximately 12,000 units from March 1, 2017 to Feb. 28, 2018, with $96,725 in gross income, but those numbers are rapidly climbing. “Insider” did a video on his idea and sales started pouring in.
“When my website gets a sale, my phone dings like its an old-timey cash register,” Bunn tells Biz. “Within five minutes, my phone began to ding – to the point it sounded like a woodpecker pecking on wood. Just that fast. We were selling over 2,000 units per day until we sold out.”
He was scheduled for an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” recently, which should boost sales even more. Bunn projectes revenue of 1.4 million for SockDock’s second year.
He says he has more than 50 new vendor applications and is negotiating an international distribution deal.
“Everyone wears socks,” he says. And everyone hates sorting, matching and searching for socks.”
