8/3/2023 0 Comments Virtual families 2 socks![]() ![]() When we were receiving 50 orders a day, John would hand write every note. It turns out that posting a 5- or 10-second video is a lot easier than John writing notes. If you post to our Instagram or Facebook page, John responds with a thank you video. When you open it, you’re not just getting socks you’re getting a little dose of happiness. You also get, on your packing slip, some stickers showing the names and the faces of the sock wrangler – that’s what we call our pickers – and the happiness packer who packed that order. To this day, every package has John’s smiling face on the outside, and when you open it up, you get the socks, you get a note card from John whit the story of John’s Crazy Socks on the back, two discount cards (one for the customer and one for a friend), and some candy. The personal touch that started with our home deliveries continues to be so important. We have a social mission and we have a business mission, and they’re indivisible they feed off each other. With this purpose in mind, we have built a social enterprise. Our mission at John’s Crazy Socks is to spread happiness. But early on, that was an important connection. ![]() It was a bit of a mental leap for me to make, because he’s just my third son. Right away we began hearing from families who had children with Down syndrome or other differing abilities. We’re lucky we didn’t get shot! But in all seriousness, customers loved it. We made one of our first deliveries at 10 o’clock at night. We got some red boxes and threw in some candy, along with a handwritten thank you card. Most of them were local, and John had a plan: he wanted to do home deliveries. We opened for business in late 2016, and got a flood of orders right away. He came up with a slogan: “Socks, socks and more socks.” The only marketing we did was to set up a Facebook page and make some videos, starring John of course. We opened bank accounts, registered with the state of New York, built a website and got some inventory. I suggested we could call it Mark’s Serious Socks, but that only ticked him off. To John’s credit, he didn’t just come and say, “I want to sell socks.” He had the name, and he had drawn out what a website could look like. So, we decided to move forward with socks. We figured, if there’s something you love, chances are there are going to be other people who love it too there are going to be other people in your tribe. He would lay his clothes out the night before school and his brother Jamie would come to me saying, “You can’t let him wear that to school.” And John would remind him, “You’re not the fashion police!” John had worn crazy socks his whole life. “They’re fun, they’re creative, and they let me be me.” Then, right before Thanksgiving, John had his eureka moment. He pitched a food truck, but we ran into a problem: we can’t cook. John’s first idea was to open a “fun store” – but neither of us had any idea what a fun store is. We explored a number of ideas for the business. ![]() My son came to me and said, “I want to work with you.” He’s the youngest of three sons, and he’s the one I can actually work with! John came to me and said, “I want to go into business with you.” He’s a natural entrepreneur, and he thought, “If I don’t see anything out there that I like, let me go create it.” Of course, I was excited. You’re taken care of medically, you’re educated, and then… nothing. But he didn’t see anything that he liked. John looked at some jobs, he looked at a college, and he looked at some social service programs. Like everybody else at that stage of life, John was trying to figure out what comes next for him. John was 21, so this was going to be his last year of school. Meanwhile, John was in high school, and the rule in our area is that you can stay in the public school system until you graduate, or you turn 21 – whichever comes first. I was 58-years-old, wondering what I was going to do for the rest of my life. The business I (Mark) was working in shut down overnight. Click here to download the full magazine. Reprinted from 3.21: Canada’s Down Syndrome Magazine (Issue #1: The Employment Issue). ![]()
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