The Heartwarming Story of the Father and Son Behind the World's Largest Sock Company: John's Crazy Socks

People engage with those videos.

What day did we open?

SPEAKER_01: Oh we opened on the Friday December 9th, 2016.

SPEAKER_03: So many people think that my story is inspiring.

How I became blind at just 17 years of age.

They always want to know how I've done it and how I've kept smiling all along the way.

Well, I've just chosen to focus my attention on seeing the positive side.

And here on the podcast, that's what I want to do for you.

Because no matter what you may be going through in life, I hope to inspire you to focus on the positive.

And you know what?

I hope that I can also be a source of inspiration for you to just keep on smiling.

What's happening?

How's it going?

How are you today?

Hopefully nothing less than absolutely spectacular.

And well, if you're feeling a little less than amazing, I can guarantee you this.

By the end of this episode, you're gonna be so pumped up with feelings of positivity, feeling energized, electrified, ready to go out and spread some positive vibes into the world that I'm telling you, it's gonna make a big impact, I guarantee you.

Because today, this is episode number 78.

And I'm joined by not just one incredible person, I've got two awesome guys in the studio today.

And that is the amazing father and son duo of Mark and John Cronin.

John, he is the owner of the world's largest sock company.

Why sock company?

Because who doesn't love socks?

But it's more than just socks, it's fun socks, it's crazy socks.

His company, it's called John's Crazy Socks.

You've probably heard about these guys if you watch any of the major TV networks, because, well, they've been on them all.

But there's more about these two than just socks, because it's the story behind the socks that is so amazing.

John, he has Down syndrome, but he knew when it was coming up time for him to graduate high school that he wanted to do more with his life.

He didn't want to fall victim to the statistics of people who suffer a disability becoming unemployed.

He wanted to become an entrepreneur and he wanted to go into business with his dad.

And well, that's what brings me to be sitting down with the two of them today, because they looked at what John truly loved.

And well, he loved his crazy socks.

Those fun socks, because his socks, they're not like what I have in my sock drawer, which are just boring white socks.

No, no, no.

These things are themed.

I'm talking about socks for sports teams based on your favorite athletes, superheroes, whatever it is, they got funky, crazy, fun, insanely amazing socks.

And well, I'm super excited that I get a chance to sit down, have some fun with the two of these guys, and get to share their totally positive, uplifting story of creating the world's largest sock company.

And well, my hope is that by the time you're done listening, not only are you gonna be feeling good, but you're gonna be looking at your own sock drawer, wondering, hmm, maybe it could use an upgrade.

Maybe it could get a little crazy.

And that's what's super awesome about these two is because for listeners of my podcast, they are offering you a special 10% discount if you go to johnscrazy socks.com and be sure to use the special promo code LODON10.

That's all capital letters L-O-W-E-D-O-W-N 10.

All together, all one word, lowdown 10 will get you 10% off on some crazy socks for yourself.

Now, please don't worry, that information along with the link will be provided in the episode show notes.

Alright, what do you say?

I say it's time for us to meet Mark and John Cronin.

Mark and John, welcome to the podcast, guys.

Thank you for having us here.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, well, I'm super just super excited to have the two of you guys joining me today here on my podcast.

Um, it's such a joy and pleasure, and and super excited to get to learn more about the two of your story and and of course about these crazy socks.

SPEAKER_02: So this all sounds good to us, huh, John?

SPEAKER_01: That's great, Dad.

SPEAKER_03: Awesome, guys.

Awesome.

Well, well, before we get into the main topic of the event about uh John's Crazy Socks, I I hope that maybe you wouldn't mind just kind of giving me and my listeners a little bit of like your backstory, you know, about the two of you, kind of, and then leading up to then we can lead up to the point of you guys creating John's Crazy Socks.

SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, a little background, right?

John, you want to introduce us to start?

SPEAKER_01: Sure, Dad.

My name is John, then my partner, my dad, Mark.

We are John Crazy Sock.

SPEAKER_02: And John is my youngest son.

I'm I'm a lucky man.

I have three sons.

John is the youngest of those three.

Let's see.

How would I describe you?

You are an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a dancer, an athlete, a lover, and you happen to have Down syndrome.

Yes, I am.

And what do you say about that?

SPEAKER_01: I have down that room.

Down that's room, never hold me back.

SPEAKER_02: No, it certainly does not.

And if you want to know about me, I'm the old man in the crew.

I guess you'd call me an entrepreneur now.

I've been an entrepreneur for a while, which is another way of saying I better start some businesses because nobody will employ me.

But I've I spent most of my career in the healthcare field, starting off in uh Medicaid and running the Medicaid Health Services Program in New York City.

I ran some consulting firms and some management firms.

We're always trying to figure out better ways to deliver health care to the poor, better ways to organize health care.

But I've also, what else have I done?

I've done a lot of things around.

I've taught school, both in the high school level and uh in graduate school at NYU in Columbia.

I've organized political campaigns.

And you stay.

I started a software, ran a software company, a couple of other startup ventures.

I've written and published lots of fiction.

So I I guess I've done a lot of different things.

And now I'm I'm working in socks.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Well, that's awesome.

So so so, John, how old are you?

How old are you?

I I'm 26.

In fact, you just turned 26 on Friday.

Awesome, awesome.

Mark, we we won't ask you to reveal your age, okay?

SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm an old man.

I'm just if you cut the tree down and count the rings, you'll count 63 rings.

SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, it sounds good.

Well, you guys sound like quite the pair.

So that's so awesome.

Now, so I guess you know, diving right into it, because I'm super excited to to learn about your company, everything.

Where did the idea for John's crazy socks come from?

SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll we'll tell you the the origin story, right?

Origin stories matter because that's what gives us our DNA.

So our story starts in a small log cabin in the woods.

SPEAKER_01: No.

SPEAKER_02: No, not really.

It starts on suburban Long Island just over five years ago.

And where were you, John?

SPEAKER_01: I was in high high school.

I could be in my last year of school.

SPEAKER_02: John was in his last year of school trying to figure out okay, what am I gonna do next?

Like everybody else.

And what were you looking at?

I I look at job, program, and school.

SPEAKER_01: I don't like the option I don't like.

SPEAKER_02: He didn't see anything he liked.

And this is an unfortunate reality for people with differing abilities.

They often have very limited choices.

And in fact, you know, one number to to put out there: fewer than one in five people with a disability in the United States are employed.

So there aren't great choices out there.

But John here, you're a natural entrepreneur.

Yes, I am.

If you didn't see a job you wanted, what'd you say?

SPEAKER_01: I want to uh create one, I want to make one.

What'd you tell me?

I said, I want to go intervening with my dad.

And I felt I'm been together.

SPEAKER_02: So I had I had told you, Kevin, that, you know, I've got three sons and and this is one I could work with.

So but then we had to come up with an idea.

What were we gonna do?

And and John, like most entrepreneurs, you know, we have lots of ideas.

Uh some of them are even good ideas.

And what was one of your ideas?

SPEAKER_01: One of them in a food truck, a couple idea from the movie Chef, uh John Farrow, that movie about Avala's son buying a food truck.

SPEAKER_02: Right, so opening a food truck, that seemed like that could be fun.

And we started thinking, what could we make?

Where would we do it?

But we ran into a problem.

SPEAKER_01: We can't cook.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we can't cook.

That would that would be a problem.

Yes.

But then, right before Thanksgiving in 2016, John had his eureka moment.

SPEAKER_01: I did.

I wanted to style crazy socks.

White socks, it's fine, it's colorful, it's crazy.

I'll always make it be mean.

SPEAKER_02: We used to drive around looking for these socks for John.

So we figured if he loved these socks that much, surely other people did too, and we could find our tribe.

So we said, let's go get this, let's go get this started, let's go test the idea.

And we went the lean startup route.

So let's just get something up and running, and we'll see how customers respond.

So you already had the name.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I got a name, I got a website.

SPEAKER_02: We built a website on the Shopify platform, we got some inventory, we were bootstrapping, so you gotta make do with the resources you have.

The only marketing we did was set up a Facebook page, and I would take out my cell phone, and we made videos.

And who was in those videos?

SPEAKER_00: I am sock, sock motsocks.

SPEAKER_02: So I would make these videos, and we noticed people started sharing those videos.

People engaged with those videos.

And what day did we open?

SPEAKER_01: Uh, we would be on the Friday, December 9th, 2016.

SPEAKER_02: We didn't know what to expect.

And we were incredibly grateful.

We got 42 orders the first day.

And what we decided, and most of them were local, which made sense, right?

You know, people that knew us or knew of us.

So what we decided to do with those first orders, John?

Uh on home deliveries.

Made home deliveries.

We got red boxes, we put the socks in the boxes, and we looked at it and said, it needs something else.

Uh I mean I mean taking a road and candy.

We got bags of Hershey and poured them in the boxes, loaded up the car, and we drove around, and you knocked on doors, handing out socks.

I did.

Uh, how'd the customers respond?

SPEAKER_01: Cotton lobster, uh they took a uh file and take a pictures, uh, and shared on show mea.

Uh I guess I spread.

SPEAKER_02: It was great fun, Kevin.

We'd be out at 10:30 at night.

John's knocking on doors saying, just John with your socks.

But word began to spread.

We had customers ordering again just to get John to come back to their house.

So by the end of that month, really two weeks, we had shipped 452 orders and had 13,000 in revenue.

And we said, we got something here.

We could grow this business.

And we, just by trying it, just by testing it, we learned some things.

One.

Well, I people wanted by stocks.

They wanted to buy socks.

SPEAKER_01: Uh, people wanted to buy sock for me.

SPEAKER_02: They related to John.

They liked John, they liked the fact that we were donating 5% of our earnings to the Special Olympics.

They liked the personal touch.

And something that surprised us, people responded with a great emotion.

They were inspired and encouraged by seeing a young man who had Down syndrome start this business.

And the other thing, and this matters, is you learn by doing.

So by simply by doing that, we learned that this young man That's this old man.

This old man, yeah, we we could sell socks.

So that's how we got started.

SPEAKER_03: Wow, wow.

You got you guys are so awesome.

And and I mean, talk about, and I mean, I mean, I have to back up and say, I mean, it's one thing, like such an awesome idea.

But then what I really loved about the start to this was the fact of going with that personal touch right off the bat with the red boxes and the Hershey's kisses, and then the the hand delivering.

Were people in shock when you guys showed up at their front door?

SPEAKER_02: They loved it.

People were waiting.

We'd hear from it.

They'd call, what time are you coming?

Because they wanted to take pictures with their families.

But, you know, this was right from the beginning.

We knew what we were going to be about.

What's our mission, pal?

Explain happiness.

And starting on day one, but you still keep doing it.

You just keep finding ways to make that happen.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.

I love it.

So, so when you guys started out, how many different varieties of socks did you have about?

SPEAKER_02: So when we started, and this is great stuff, we had 37 different types of socks.

And we could put everything on one table.

But get this.

Today, how many different socks do we have, John?

We have a 4,000 democracy socks.

We have over 4,000 different types of socks, which makes John the owner of the world's largest sock star.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

Wow, John, that's awesome, man.

That's so awesome.

SPEAKER_02: And all this started because John believed he could do this, and because you love these socks.

I do.

And you share that love with other people.

SPEAKER_01: I I couldn't, I do.

SPEAKER_02: What a what a way to run a business.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

Yeah.

So so I'm curious after after that initial rush and and and you guys started out and started out with a bang, then then at what point, I mean, because you guys, you know, have continued just to grow and in notoriety and continued to grow.

I mean, was there any other kind of pivotal moments that you can trace back to be like, wow, that's when things could, you know, grew to another level for us.

SPEAKER_02: We have had, so we just celebrated our fifth anniversary.

We knew from the start that we could make a go of this.

And we knew how we wanted to shape it as a social enterprise, and we could share our five pillars.

It has been a wild ride where we had tremendous growth.

At one point we were virtually bankrupt.

We had to find a strategic partner.

So now we're stabilized and growing.

But it, you know, it's it's not always easy when you go to start something.

And if you're an entrepreneur and you're running a business, it's not a question of will things go wrong.

It's only a question of when.

No matter how smart you are, no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you plan, some things always go wrong.

You know, just consider this one.

Who planned on a pandemic?

SPEAKER_03: Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

So tell me a little bit about these socks.

Because when we talk about crazy socks, I'm wondering, what do these crazy socks look like?

SPEAKER_02: Well, we have something for everybody, and that's why we have so many.

There are many businesses that operate on the 80-20 rule, where 20% of your product or 20% of your service generate 80% of your revenue.

It's not what we see.

Everything is spread out because people can personalize things.

So we have wild, crazy colored things.

We also have calmer things that are that are simpler.

That's so we can appeal to everybody and be your one-stop shop.

And John, we have everything from no-shows to cruise socks to knee highs.

SPEAKER_01: I uh yeah, uh, and game tax.

SPEAKER_02: We have over-the-knee, we have fuzzy socks, we have socks with grips on them and booty socks.

We got a little bit of everything, don't we?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_03: That's cool.

So now tell me about like the designs.

Because I mean, are some of them themed after different, like, you know, sports teams or or stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02: We have athletic ones, we have food ones, we have ones around animals and drinks.

And, you know, in the beginning it was just John and me.

But now we have a whole team of folks.

Everybody here helps pick the socks.

We our customers help pick the socks.

We do have many, we're making more and more of our own, and we're coming out with full minds of our own socks.

But many of the ones that we've already made are awareness socks that celebrate causes and raise awareness of issues and raise money for those issues.

What was the first one you designed, John?

The first awareness act.

SPEAKER_01: The first one is a down syndrome awareness stock.

SPEAKER_02: Down syndrome awareness act.

John designed the world's first Down syndrome awareness.

But now we've added autism and cerebral palsy.

SPEAKER_01: And we have health care super five hundred.

SPEAKER_02: In 2020, when the pandemic was extremely bad here in New York, we introduced our healthcare superhero socks to say thank you to the frontline workers.

And those have raised over $50,000 for the American Nurses Foundation and for uh Good Samaritan Hospital, local hospital, for their frontline workers.

We have Pet Rescue Socks, we have PS I Love You socks.

And we're introducing more and more of those.

SPEAKER_03: Wow, I love it.

That's so cool.

You you guys definitely take the people like myself who has a drawer of boring white socks, and we're thinking, wow, this is kind of lame.

SPEAKER_02: Well, think of it this way most of us wind up wearing some form of uniform.

You know, it might be a suit and tie, it might be khakis and polo shirt, but your socks, as John says, let me be me, they let you express yourself.

And you know, we'll we'll cater to everybody for Christmas for this past holiday season.

We introduced some new gift ideas.

One of them was a sock drawer full of uh socks, and a whole bunch of people bought that as we think as gifts, but it was a month worth of socks.

We also introduced late, so it'll be available this year, right?

A year's worth of socks, 356 different socks picked out by John and delivered by John in a trunk.

I mean, that's really the gift for somebody who has everything.

SPEAKER_03: Yes.

That's so awesome, guys.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

So so then I know you guys um well, I let me back up.

As far as the actual making of the socks, how does that work?

SPEAKER_02: So we don't directly manufacture our socks.

Socks.

We have stocks that come from different suppliers.

And in that sense, we're the store for everybody.

Most suppliers are only, you know, they only sell their own, or a department store has a limited number.

We carry from everybody.

Plus, we make our own.

We now have a strategic partner, a third-generation family business that manufactures socks for department stores and for brand names.

And they're now making our socks.

We make those together.

So we design them and they arrange to have them manufactured.

SPEAKER_03: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Well, guys, so amazing, such an amazing story.

You know, and I can't help but but think, I mean, is as amazing as an entrepreneurial story this is.

It's also just a really awesome story of a father and son.

I mean, I can only imagine how blessed the two of you feel to the fact that you get to get to spend so much time together.

SPEAKER_02: We're incredibly fortunate.

We get to share this adventure together.

We get to share so many things together.

I mean, we've we've testified twice before Congress.

We've spoken to the United Nations.

To be sitting next to my son doing that, how awesome.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: It is an opportunity for us to go and do things the way we dream of that.

Like we have no excuses.

We can't blame this on the board.

We can't blame this on headquarters or investors.

We are responsible for what we create.

So more than half of our colleagues have a differing ability.

And we're always working to show the world what they can do.

We've baked in giving back into everything we do.

Because that's the way you want to be.

We're always looking to make personal connections with our customers.

We're so grateful that we want to do anything we can to make them happy.

And part of it here is it's one of our pillars of making this a great place to work.

I mean, how are we going to make other people happy if we don't start at home?

SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now I'm curious, you you mentioned your your five pillars earlier.

What are the other pillars?

SPEAKER_02: Well, there so there are five.

We should walk through the five.

What are they, John?

SPEAKER_01: I put it in hope, give it back, five prize, and you you can uh I'll make it part of it.

SPEAKER_02: And make it a great place to work.

So you make it a great place to work by offering people a mission worthy of their commitment.

Everybody knows why their job matters, why what they do is important.

There's no cog and machinery.

Put people in a position to succeed.

Don't ask them to do what they can't do.

Recognize the work people do.

Say thank you.

And say it, stay the hell out of the way.

Let people do their jobs.

The making it personal, to this day, every package gets I get I'm digging your candy.

So, and John's still doing home deliveries.

We've shipped over 365,000 packages to 88 different countries.

But if we get an order between our office and home, what are you doing with that order?

SPEAKER_01: Our home delivery.

SPEAKER_02: John is knocking on doors.

He's delivering those socks.

So the fun products you can love.

Yes, we have a very strong social mission, but we have to be a great uh e-commerce business.

We've got to have a great website.

We've got to have great choice, that's those the 4,000 socks.

The product has to be great.

We have over 29,000 five-star reviews.

And the service has to be great.

We do same-day shipping.

If an order comes in today, it's going out today.

We do better shipping than Amazon.

And and Jeff Bezos, he's he's not putting a thank you note and candy in those Amazon places.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

SPEAKER_02: And all that adds up, you know, the giving back, the showing what people can do with different abilities can do.

It all adds up to John's crazy socks.

And with our customers, it's not just a transaction, it's an experience.

They know when they buy from us, they're helping us employ people with different abilities.

They're helping us give back.

They're helping us spread happiness.

So the socks, even though we're, you know, we are a sock store, we've got great socks.

But at the end of the day, they just become the physical manifestation for the story and the mission.

SPEAKER_03: I love it, guys.

I absolutely, absolutely love everything about you guys' story, about John's crazy socks.

I guess I I have one last question for you.

And that is for the person who's listening to this podcast today.

And maybe there's somebody like John, or they're like me, or they're like so many people who have these varying degrees of abilities.

And maybe they're sitting there thinking to themselves, gosh, man, I I wish I could could think of something like that, you know, to do with my life.

Do you have any piece of advice for them?

SPEAKER_02: Well, I we each can offer some.

You know, to me, it's don't focus on what you can't do.

Don't focus on what appears to be a limitation.

Focus on your strengths and build on that and persist.

Understand that we need you.

We, you know, everybody depends on everyone to be able to contribute, including people with differing abilities.

So maybe they've been excluded in the past, but we need you.

So persist.

Keep at it, keep showing us what you can do.

Knock down walls if you have to.

What advice do you have, John?

SPEAKER_01: Uh find your heart, find your dream, uh work hard, show you can do.

Yeah, that's pretty good advice, buddy.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Well, listen, the two of you guys just totally inspire me to focus on something that I try to do as it is, is is live life to the fullest, to enjoy every moment.

And you guys, the two of you just further hit home for that for me.

And so I just want to thank you for for doing that, for being such just this awesome source of hope and inspiration and joy.

You guys, you guys just light me up inside.

And, you know, I just I thank you for that, and I thank you for for sharing your story with me and my listeners.

SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for having us.

We appreciate the opportunity.

And you want to tell people you want to put a little plug in, John?

Sure.

Can people get great socks?

SPEAKER_01: I'm glad it's Sean's CrazySocks.com.

SPEAKER_02: John's CrazySocks.com.

You help us employ people with different abilities, you help us give back, and most of all, and spread happiness.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, spread happiness.

Awesome.

Well, I can just imagine that come next week's episode, I have a bet that most of my listeners are gonna be rocking some awesome John's Crazy Socks by the time next week's episode rolls around, because link is in the show notes for John's Crazy Socks.

Get your pair today.

Guys, thank you once again for being a guest here on The Lowdown with Kevin Lowell.

And uh, for you listening, as always, thank you for supporting the show because, well, this show is here for you.

And I hope today's interview has just been another one that just, you know, inspires you as much as it has myself.

So, as always, hope that today's interview can make your life tomorrow a little bit better than today.

And that's the lowdown with Kevin Lowe.

I hope today's episode inspired you, motivated you, and excited you to get out and enjoy life, no matter what obstacles may be standing in the way.