Flashback: Bombas

Socks are hard to sell. 

For one, they are usually being covered up by shoes and pants legs, making it difficult to show them off. But even more so, there aren't really too many ways to make your brand of socks better than others. You can add a design like stripes, but there are thousands of socks out there with stripes (and of course many other patterns).

But what if you can make them unique in other ways. What if you spent two full years on researching ways to re-engineer socks to improve everything from the material to the stitching? And what if every time you sold a pair of socks, you gave away a pair to a homeless person?

Well this is exactly what Bombas did.

In Season 6, Bombas entered the Shark Tank asking for a $200,000 investment in exchange for 5% equity in their new sock company, placing a $4 million valuation on it. After spending two years on research and development, Bombas created a sock that is truly the top of the line in terms of quality, comfort, and design. And not surprisingly, their numbers showed it, as they did $450,000 in sales in their first year with spending no money on advertising. The quality, along with the goodwill of the company's mission generated these sales organically. 

Now although these sales were impressive, the Sharks gave the founders a hard time with this valuation, and all but one dropped out. Daymond John, the fashion guru in the Tank, was the only Shark who believed in both the product and the entrepreneurs enough to invest, and they ultimately agreed on a deal for $200,000 plus uncapped inventory financing in exchange for 17.5% of the company.

Since then, it has been one success after another.

In the two months after airing on Shark Tank, Bombas did over $1.2 million in sales. And to date, they have reached the $50 million sales mark. But what's even more impressive is the amount of socks the company has given away. In less than five years Bombas has donated over four million socks to people who need them, and have been a supportive force for other non-profits as well.

$50 million in sales. 4 million socks donated to the homeless. 

That is entrepreneurship.

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Click here to read more about socks!

Recipe For Success: Grace & Lace Flashback

By: Matt Turner, 
Writer and Entrepreneur 

To kick off 2014 as our most prosperous and expansive year yet, I thought it would be great to start by recapping one of the most successful pitches of 2013.

As entrepreneurs, we always have to be on top of our game. We have to know our business better than anyone, must have a very specific vision for where we are going, and always be taking massive daily action on our game-plan that will get us from where we are to where we want to go.

The power couple behind Grace & Lace did all of that and more, which is why we are going to use them as an example of how to make 2014 your best year in business yet.

This couple demonstrated a perfect recipe for success. Their business is less than two years old, and not only have they generated well in excess of $1 million in sales, but they are growing fast, and they had several Sharks offering them exactly what they were looking for. They had their choice of partners.

Here are four steps to take to initiate or enhance your business game-plan this coming year:

Step 1:
Create a product for YOURSELF. The best businesses or products are often times created for the entrepreneur first, as a need they had in their own life. This ensures the authenticity of the product, that it will be designed effectively for personal use, and it ties the entrepreneur in emotionally and passionately to the idea.