On the latest episode of The Seller’s Edge Podcast, Jonathan welcomes Matthew Tesvich, the brilliant mind behind a brand that’s innovating the world of socks. After struggling throughout his youth with smelly feet, Matthew developed a product to solve foot odor problems and took it to market where he has found incredible success. That’s not to suggest the road there was easy or that the road ahead is smooth. Throughout the episode, Matthew shares a lot of valuable anecdotes from his entrepreneurial journey and gives up some really worthwhile insights.
Episode 16 of The Seller’s Edge, Matthew and Jonathan talk about:
- 01:13 – Inspired by Personal Experiences
- 03:11 – Becoming An Entrepreneur
- 03:48 – A Long Sourcing Process
- 06:01 – The Need for Product Testing & Feedback
- 07:43 – Creating a Name for the Brand
- 09:16 – Creating a Product that Solves Multiple Problems
- 10:54 – Understanding What Success Looks Like
- 12:30 – Making National Headlines on Black Friday
- 14:08 – Iterating on Competitive Value Propositions
- 17:30 – Being Driven by Larger Values
- 19:13 – The Importance of Customer Demographics
- 22:05 – Matthew’s Original GTM Strategy
- 25:56 – Listening to Your Customers
- 28:28 – Fighting Counterfeit Sellers with Brand Protection
- 31:57 – An Early Understanding of Shipping Fees
- 33:11 – Valuable Lessons from Initial Order Miscalculations
Key Takeaways:
- Avoid assumptions about customer purchasing behavior
- Ensure your product is durable and effective
- Maximize publicity and press opportunities
- Stay customer-focused at all times
- Authenticity drives sales
- Delegate to the experts
Full Transcript of Episode:
MATTHEW TESVICH: As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. And so I always had sneaky feet growing up, and my family always let me know it whenever I come home from baseball practice or various sports. The rule in the house is I had to take off my socks and shoes before I could join them for dinner. And so it became a habit. And one day in college, my sophomore year, my roommate comes home with this pink towel, and it’s two guys living together in an apartment or house. And I’m like, Dylan, like this, you know, our house is. Everything’s pretty much black and white, right? It’s two guys living together. Where did this pink towel come from? You don’t have a girlfriend. Did your mom leave it? Like, what happened? And he started laughing. He’s like, no, no. My aunt gave it to me for Christmas. It’s an antibacterial towel. And he goes, my cousins have the bath towel version of this, and they don’t use soap anymore. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you talking about? And he goes, you can literally cut raw chicken. Wipe your hands on a towel, and they’ll be clean. And so I started thinking, I’m like, if this can kill freaking salmonella, like, on raw chicken on your hands, I wonder what this could do for odor causing bacteria on your feet. And so that night, I started doing research, and I can put this, this, and this into a sock. And the next day I’m calling manufacturers. And so that’s really where the journey began.
JONATHAN: That is amazing. I love that, all of that. I hope your roommate is now working as, like, a spokesperson for the towel company because he was made for it. Yeah, I had a similar problem, actually, an opposite problem. When I was a kid, I would not wear shoes at all, so I was just running around barefoot, and my mother was just, like, chasing me around to, like, put on shoes, but they ended up calling me Leatherfoot as, like, a result of it. I’m curious, did your family have, like, a nickname for you because of that?
MATTHEW TESVICH: There were, there were a lot of name calling being thrown around, so I don’t know if there’s just one. Jonathan.
JONATHAN: Okay. Okay. You’re unpacking that with your therapist, so I’ll just leave that there.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Right, right.
JONATHAN: You hadn’t done anything entrepreneurial before, I imagine. Or had you, like, even as a teenager, Or as a child, like, started a lemonade stand? Or was this your first real business venture?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, so this was the first real business venture. Um, I wanted to do a little bit of everything. I did a lot of the lemonade stand stuff growing up, trying to resell golf balls. Ebay. EBay was probably my first, uh, venture into it. I was able to not work during the beginning parts of college and just pay for things with, uh, just selling baseball cards, Pokemon cards, various things on eBay. So that’s probably where I really got the start. And then I read rich dad, poor dad my senior year of high school. And that, that was the mindset switch. That’s where I realized that you didn’t have to work up the corporate ladder to become a c suite or a leader in a company. You could do it yourself. And that was the only true way of becoming financially free.
JONATHAN: I mean, walk me through the journey. Obviously, you had this idea, like, where did it go from there? Like, how did you get started? And what were sort of the obstacles or challenges you found yourself in front of?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, yeah. So I’m researching manufacturers, right? I’m like, can you put this in a sock? And there’s no information online about it. And so I recently listened to this spank Sarah Blakely podcast on how I built this, and I heard her story about her calling different manufacturers. That’s exactly what I did. North Carolina is the hub of socks and hosiery in the US. So I start calling them, and I’m like, hey, can you put this, this, and this in the sock? And they’re like, who are you? And then they’re like, sorry, we don’t work with small guys that hang up. They wouldn’t return my voicemails. They wouldn’t return my emails. The people I did get a hold of, they’re like, you can’t put that in the sock. What are you thinking? And so this journey was long, Jonathan. It was about 18 months, and I contacted over 100 different manufacturers. We got 50 different samples, over 50 different samples of socks from around the world. And these packages, when they’re coming in by airplane, like, they’ve got all kinds of crazy color tape on there, right? So my roommate’s like, dude, are you shipping bombs to the house? Like, what is all this stuff? And I’m keeping it a secret. I’m not telling anybody. I didn’t want anybody to kind of burst my bubble with the idea. I thought I was really onto something. And so when he opened the mailbox, he’s like, what is this? I’m like, oh, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. And so anyway, after 18 months or so, we found a good manufacturer who’s willing to work with us. They iterated on some of our stuff, some of our suggestions, and after about the 7th or 8th iteration, we found one that actually worked. And so I called them like, hey, I know we’re on iteration number nine. I said, I promise we’re not changing anything else. Please just send me more. I said, I want to test it with some athlete buddies of mine. And so I gave it to athlete buddies at University of Georgia, Clemson, Georgia Tech. And I said, hey, take this to your wettest, stinkiest practice. Don’t wash them. Like, wear them for a week straight and see if you can get them to stink. And they called me after four, five, six days, and they’re like, dude, these things not only don’t stink, they’re the most comfortable socks I’ve ever worn. Where can I get more? My teammates all want some. And so that’s really, that’s really when it started to take off.
JONATHAN: Yeah. That is a really cool thing. I’m curious. 18 months, you weren’t telling anybody, right? Like, what is that? Are you just a very determined person by nature? Or was there a period of. Or you just knew that this was a good idea, you were committed to it? Or there are moments of doubt when being like, what the hell am I doing?
MATTHEW TESVICH: There were definitely moments of doubt when things weren’t working. But I always remember that Einstein quote about how maybe it wasn’t Einstein, maybe it was Edison. Excuse me? Edison with the light bulb. And it’s like he did 999 iterations, and then each time he failed, he knew he was one step closer to success. And that’s where I knew this was possible. I knew we could get it done. And a lot of people put a lot more time into things than I did with this. I was still a full time college student, so I knew success was evident, but there were definitely defeating moments when I’d wear it and it would stink, or I’d wash it, and it would wash whatever was in the sock out of it.
JONATHAN: At what point did you decide to tell your family and how did they react, especially with the. The backstory of your feet and how it factored into the home?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yes, that’s a great question. So I actually did not tell them. What happened was, we were all sitting down for a movie, and I had my socks on. It was. It was a holiday weekend. I was back home from college, and I had my legs all stretched out. I was relaxed. We were enjoying the movie. In about probably a quarter of the way through. My dad pauses it, and we’re all like, what’s going on? And he’s like, something’s not right here. And we’re all just like, dude, what is going on? And he’s like, Matthew still got his socks on, but I don’t smell anything. And so this was one of the samples I had been testing. And I said, oh, no, it’s no big deal. Like, we can, we’re good. He’s like, no, no, no. He’s like, I don’t recognize you buying those socks or us buying them for you. Like, where did this come from? And so that’s where the secret was spilled and everybody got a kick out of it. And they were very, very thankful that I was addressing a lifelong problem that they had been dealing with second hand.
JONATHAN: You’re a very selfless person, person, person, person. Matthew, I love that you’re just solving these, these problems for families across the country and internationally. That’s great. I mean, along those lines. So we talked about you kind of getting started with the product, but how did you, had you done, have you had some sort of experience in branding or creative? Like, how did you decide to, like, come up with a brand and the sort of mission behind it?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, I never really had that background. I didn’t take many marketing classes, and so I always thought that was interesting. But my mindset was marketing is always changing. I’m not going to take these classes. That was probably a negative, but I wanted a kind of a strong, masculine, gym type brand. And so that’s how we settled on Ox. Ox. My dad actually came up with the name. I was really, really struggling with it. What do we do for the name? I wanted something short and sweet, something with that sound that kind of flows off the tongue. And he’s like, what about Ox? I’m like, ox. Ox. It rhymes, it’s short and sweet. The ox can kind of be an odor X as well. And then the Ox is the world’s most powerful animal and we have the world’s most powerful socks. And so that’s really kind of where it all came together. I’m on Pinterest, looking at different ox icons, minimalist, really trying to figure out what to do. And one day I just drew it out and I put it in a group chat. I said, hey, can anybody do graphic design? I have the logo, I just need somebody to put it on the computer. And a girl responded. She’s like, I could do it. I got a ton of free time this summer. And so she did that for me. And it literally one iteration, it turned out exactly what I envisioned and that’s kind of where we took it, so, yeah, awesome.
JONATHAN: Curious about, like, sustainability from that standard or, like, social responsibility. It seems like I know that I go through socks like nobody’s business, and especially because every pair of socks I have, like, just kind of, like, falls apart eventually. Yeah. I also find that I favor socks. So, like, I’ll find a new sock that I like, I’ll start wearing that sock, and then I’ll forget about all the other socks that I have until they just get lost somewhere. So I’m curious, how is that factor into Ox Sox and how do they perform?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Just to start a data point is there’s 11 million tons of sock waste a year, and that’s just socks. The textile market is terrible. People in, with the way fashion cycles change and, and stuff, so constantly moving around the world. Textile waste is one of the biggest, if not the biggest in the world. So that’s definitely top of mind for us. Um, from just doing customer research, we found that our socks are about two times as durable as a traditional sock. And so, like you said, socks are ripped. Socks get holes in them. And so that’s a big leading cause of waste. Um, they’ll start to get crusty and nasty, as you know. And so we, when we were designing the socks, we kept the quality in mind, and then we’re, we’re also looking at putting plant based materials in there. So there’s things like rayon, there’s things like bamboo that are naturally antimicrobial, and they’ll, um, decompose properly in the landfill. And so we’re starting to experiment with things like that with our stock manufacturer to see if maybe we could be in the forefront of innovation here with antimicrobial materials, as well as something that’s better for the environment. And so we’re trying to keep that front of mind with our customers and to keep the planet running smoothly.
JONATHAN: I had mentioned before, when we had chatted before about you winning me over as a customer by the end of this, and I feel like you already have five or ten minutes. And so, yeah, that is. I mean, that’s a lot of value propositions, and especially from the sustainability and social responsibility viewpoint, that’s insane. I know, like, when I’m working on something, a project, I’m always kind of, like, moving the end zone or the goal line on myself, where it’s just like, I’m going to do this, and it’s like, all right, but I can also do this. And it seems like I’m always kind of moving that marker and I’m curious, do you feel like, have you felt like you got somewhere or were those moments and then you kind of set a higher benchmark or how did you approach that?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yes, it’s funny you say that. I was literally going to use the same exact example. I feel like I’m constantly moving the goalpost to myself, which some of my friends would argue that’s not the healthiest thing to do. But it keeps me motivated. I’m a very driven, achievement oriented person. But I’d say the first major milestone that we had is after we put in that first order of socks. I’ve got a ton of socks delivered and I mean thousands. And I don’t know how I’m going to sell this stuff, right? I just spent my savings on socks. I don’t have money for marketing. And so I started asking the question, how do we get as many eyeballs on this product as possible? People don’t know odorless socks exist. We’ve got this new brand, this new product nobody knows anything about. How do we get eyeballs on here but for free? And so I start thinking that creatively I’m like, what can we do? What can we do? And I landed on the media. I’m like, I’m a young kid. I didn’t mention this but I was going to play baseball, University of Georgia. I ended up getting hurt. And so I’m like, maybe I can leverage. I was going to go in, be a college athlete, transfer, and become an entrepreneur. I had this good story behind it. That’s where I started selling it. So I started with the local regional press and then I started getting into the state and then nationally. And so believe it or not after three days of launch. So we launched on November 22, 2022. After three days we were on the front cover of USA Today nationally. And so I would say that’s our, that was milestone number one because I wake up early, it was like 5-5:30 in the morning. It was Thanksgiving break. It might have been on Black Friday actually. And then we already had like 17-18 orders. And I’m like where did this all come from? We’ve put out a couple Instagram posts that go viral. I checked that, no. And orders just start flooding in. It’s every three to five minutes. And I’m like, where is this coming from? I’m emailing customers, hey, where’d you hear about us? Nobody’s responding. And finally at the end of the day somebody’s like, dude, did you not know? And they sent the picture and it was USA Today. Young student entrepreneur Sol stinky feet. And there’s a picture of me holding up a mannequin with a sock on it, and it had gone national, and one of the local press was part of the USA Today Network. And like I said, it is global. And it was just such a blessing because we ended up selling hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of orders through that little holiday span there. And it really validated the idea and got us off to a good start.
JONATHAN: Wow. What a twist of fate and turn of fortune, right? Like, it’s funny. I was talking to another seller, and they were talking about how they have a partnership with a celebrity, and I feel most of the time, brands will reach out to celebrities to get a sponsorship or a partnership, and the celebrity actually reached out to them, and they were like, I love your product. Like, what can I do? And I just really. Yeah. And so it’s just great that people are always looking for exciting new things to share with the world and especially on such national platforms.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yep.
JONATHAN: Very cool. I mean, that’s a hell of a benchmark, though. Like, I feel like the ceiling is USA Today. You have to make, like, the COVID of Time magazine now.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Right. It’s tough to beat that. It’s tough to beat that.
JONATHAN: I know that a lot of apparel and fashion accessories often leverage influencers. Was that something that you incorporated, and how did that come about?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, we tried a little bit of everything. I mentioned playing baseball, so a lot of my friends have a lot of followers on Instagram. My buddy Dylan, who I lived with, who ended up, he was the one that brought home that towel. He’s a professional race car driver, and so we’ve done stuff with him and, you know, tried it, but believe it or not, our market, we found our target demo really is not on Instagram. That’s not really where people are buying. And so we have not had a ton of success there, and we’re going to keep exploring, but we found other avenues to be more successful than influencers.
JONATHAN: I mean, you found success. So, I mean, when you have USA Today in your corner, you don’t really word of mouth buzz, because, again, I didn’t wear shoes as a kid, but my brother did. And he had your problem where we were, like, constantly mocking him. And I remember my mother just buying every product under the sun, trying to make his shoes not smell.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yep.
JONATHAN: And everything was always, like, a temporary fix. Like, it’s something that had, like, a really strong scent that, like, disappeared after, like, two days or whatever. It was so, like, to have a solution that solves it long term is amazing. Was your expectation for this thing to take off, or did you think it was going to be more of a gradual sort of on ramp to success?
MATTHEW TESVICH: I definitely thought it was going to be a more gradual on ramp to success. Um, like I said, it was such a tremendous blessing that it hit as quickly as it did because I’m sitting here and I’m like, I just spent all my money on socks. And every day that went by, I was feeling more and more pressure. Like, I gotta sell. And I, you know, you know that feeling as an entrepreneur, it’s like, what am I going to do? Like, all my money’s right now in inventory. And so it really was a blessing. We were able to get a lot more cash in bank, and there were just a lot of positives that came from it, and we were able to experiment and try new avenues, new channels to sell. So I definitely did not expect it, but I’m very optimistic, and I was confident that we had to sell a product, and once the world knew about it, that we’d be able to sell.
JONATHAN: And so, I mean, as this thing grew, like, how did you find balancing that? Because I imagine you weren’t thinking that it was going to be like a full time job right away. How did you find balancing that with other responsibilities in life or professionally or anything else you had going on.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah. So by the time that I had finished doing the R and D and we had gotten this in, so this would have been November 22. This is right around the time of finals of my senior year at University of Georgia. And we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of orders to pack right from USA Today. I mean, it turned into thousands. And I had finals that next week, and so I ended up having to miss some school. I think I ended up missing, like, seven to ten days of school. I wasn’t there for the final review, and I’m just, like, trying to pack orders. Thankfully, my family was helping me out, and so we came together. Like, we need to make a change. And I’m like, can I drop out of school? And my parents like, you’re not dropping out of school, dude. You’re not dropping out of school. You got one semester left. You’ve only got to take two or three classes to graduate. You’re not dropping out of school. I’m like, you’re right. You’re right. I. But that last semester was brutal. I was constantly flying all over the country, doing different pitch competitions to try to raise non diluted funding, unpacking orders, I’ve got all kinds of different calls and stuff I’m on. I mean, like, we’ve got a fully functional business now, and so that was tough. I definitely was not my best grades wise, but I got through it. I ended up graduating, and then I was able to pursue it full time once I finished up, so. Yeah.
JONATHAN: And you enjoy it, obviously, because I can sense that.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yes. I love it. It’s something new every day, and it’s a lot of fun. It really is a lot of fun.
JONATHAN: Yeah. And I imagine people like my mother would have been forever grateful to you. So I’m curious, how did the customer reaction and customer testimonials factor into everything?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yes. It’s so funny that you say that, because moms are our number one customer, our number one fan base, and moms around the country love it. They send emails and say nothing else works. I mean, it is literally. I wish I could just, like, create a snippet of it and just put it on repeat. Right. Everyone says we’ve tried everything and nothing else works except for these socks. Yeah. Moms around the country love it, kids. And I think one of the proudest moments that we had as a company was there’s this little girl who loved to dance, and she wanted to quit because she was so embarrassed about her odor. She got singled out in her class, and the teacher was like, hey, you got to put your shoes outside the classroom because you’re stinking up the room. And so she was embarrassed. All her friends were there, and she wanted to quit. And so they tried to pair of our socks. They saw one of our posts on LinkedIn or various form of social media and absolutely loved it. The mom got her new shoes, and so she solely wore Ox Sox with her new shoes, and she never had a problem again. Now she’s confident. She loves dancing. And so it really, it really put a smile on our face. And I think the biggest transition, personally, was seeing that, like, with baseball, it was so much self glorification. Right? You’re living for yourself. Like, you hit the game winning home run, you had the strikeout. Yes, it’s a team sport, but there’s a lot of. A lot of self in there. And with this, it’s really selfless. And you can see how many people you’re impacting. You’re literally empowering people from being embarrassed to confident overnight by wearing these socks. And it’s just magical.
JONATHAN: Yeah, that is very admirable. So that’s awesome that you’re doing that. It’s interesting because you mentioned earlier about the masculine brand and how has that affected female versus male customers? Are you guys split down the middle? Have you looked at ways to expand that?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah. So believe it or not, we actually have had more females buy it. Yes, they’re buying for their daughters, but they’re also buying for their sons. We’ve kept the socks pretty gender neutral, we’ve got the ox horns on there and then we keep it black or white so it’s not super loud in your face. And we actually are going through a rebrand right now. So we’re going to rebrand it a little bit, add a little more energy, add a little bit more spunk and then it’s going to be fun. So we’re keeping it a secret right now, but it’ll be out soon and we’re really excited about it. I think this is going to be fun. Awesome.
JONATHAN: I’m excited for you. That’s awesome. I can’t wait to see it. I’m always interested in how products rebrand so I will definitely be on the lookout for that.
MATTHEW TESVICH: And to answer your question too, this one we actually had some professional marketing help with. So this one wasn’t me trying to use Google marketing different various sources to help put together a complete brand.
JONATHAN: Yeah, that’s awesome. I think most people try to do it themselves, so that’s nice to hear. It’s nice to. One of the most important things as an entrepreneur is to know where your limits end and what your strengths and weaknesses are because there are many people that try to make a strength out of their weakness and they just end up shooting themselves in their foot. So it’s nice that you have the self awareness to be like, nope, this is not something I can do myself. I’m going to go to the experts on this.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Right. Absolutely.
JONATHAN: When we initially spoke, I was talking about it’s a competitive market and I mean there’s sort of well established brand recognition and loyal customers. So like, you know, any of the biggest sock companies, I’m curious. I mean obviously you have a value prop that they don’t have, which is super cool, but how has that worked in your favor or against you in various parts? And how people’s loyalty to other brands, have you been able to break any of them or do you have some plans too?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, we’ve definitely gotten people who said, oh, I was a lifelong bombas customer, I was a lifelong stance customer and now I’m a lifelong Ox Sox customer. And I definitely think the value prop brings something, but I really look up to liquid death as a brand because I think what they’ve done with water is just so crazy. I mean, I don’t know if there’s any other word to describe it. It’s just, it’s crazy what they’ve done with water. And they didn’t try to narrow down and corner the water market, but they built a brand, and I think that shows the power of brand. And Bombas has built this brand with, you know, they give one pair to the homeless for every pair that they sell. Stance has, you know, all the different crazy branding and patterns on their socks. But we also want to have that loud, exciting brand in a boring sock market because nobody’s really doing this in socks. And so we’re going to be the first, we’re excited, we’re going to be loud, we’re going to be fun, we’re going to be spunky, and then we’ve got the value proposition to pair with that.
JONATHAN: What was your initial approach? You had a website, or did you take an omni channel approach and you went immediately on Amazon, or was there a rollout for that?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah. Yeah. So with Amazon, we waited probably eight or nine months before we launched on Amazon. So we started in November and we didn’t get on Amazon. We didn’t even explore Amazon until probably mid, late May of 23. And so we started working with an agency that we got connected to. And things were just slow there. They weren’t really moving. And then I ended up. I’ll give a shout out to Steven Pope, who was on your podcast last week. I ended up getting to connect to him. So we ended up cutting ties with our old agency. They’re doing great things, but we needed to move a little bit quicker and so we moved on. We went with Stephen and his team in my Amazon guy. I mean, within a week, we were up and running. We were selling product and it was amazing. We had a team of eight people fully focused on our team, our product. They were super communicative. It was incredible. They were showing us how to do it, showing us the ropes. And for anybody who hasn’t been on Amazon, Amazon is an amazing platform. But at least for me, it was a struggle. It was a bear to try to get onto. And so they made it a seamless process. And it’s been fantastic ever since we’ve been on there.
JONATHAN: How long did you struggle with it before you’re like, nope, not for me. I’m going to find somebody.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah. So I had heard from many, many people with different products, don’t try to do Amazon yourself. Like, I don’t even know if you should be on Amazon. Right. Because so many people had so many issues there. And so some of my advisors were like, dude, just stay as far away from Amazon as you can. But we, like you said, we knew we wanted to be on more channels. We needed to be selling. And so we started with that first agency. We worked with them for exactly 60 days. And when there really wasn’t much progress, um, that’s when we jumped to My Amazon Guy. And like I said, it took about a week and we were up and running. And, I mean, they made it so easy for us. They, they did the heavy lifting, and then we just plugged and chugged for them.
JONATHAN: Yeah. I mean, Steven Pope and his team know, like, Amazon better than Amazon does in some ways. So, like, you can’t really beat that as somebody to be in your corner. So that’s great. Yeah. And then, I mean, your go to market strategy specifically, was there a way that you were thinking about rolling out? Was there like a plan? Or did you just kind of adopt the Napoleon strategy where youd show up and see what happens?
MATTHEW TESVICH: I think I thought I had a plan, but I think it turned into the Napoleon strategy. I was so excited about this product. And originally it was just to solve the issue for myself. I went on several dates with girls where id take off my shoes after the date and theyd be like, what is that smell? And I realized that it was my feet. So I’d have to bring an extra pair of socks in my backpack or my car or whatever because I became self conscious of it. So initially was solving the product for myself or solving the problem for myself. And then I’m like, millions of other people around the world suffer from this as well. And so I realized I could turn a business into it. And so, like I said, I had thousands of pairs of socks and I had to figure out how to sell it. And I thought going viral on social media, I thought all these different things were easy. I thought it was, you know, an overnight success like we talked about earlier, but that’s really not what it what it is. So there was no Napoleon strategy of just firing darts in different directions, see what sticks, see what hits a, and then starting to pour into that if it’s working.
JONATHAN: Yeah, I think that’s also a great lesson for entrepreneurs, just because I think people are setting their ways and they’re like, no, this is the way I want to do it. And you’re like, no, you have to test things and see how the world is going to accept you rather than how you plan to introduce yourself to the world. I love that you keep referencing these really personal stories from your family and dates and the story of the girl who was being kind of embarrassed at school. I love that more and more products are doing and are kind of working towards that specific level for individuals rather than being like, were going to mass produce a product for everybody and its really going to be like, have no identity. And I like that you have such a personal connection with customers.
MATTHEW TESVICH: So having the leverage at USA Today was invaluable because after we got through that first Christmas season, that first Black Friday rush, one of my mentors, who I’m incredibly thankful for, his advice was, you need to talk to everybody individually, do customer discovery, and see why they bought the socks and what the reasoning was. So we made over 1000 phone calls and I personally talked to these people on the phone. I mean, I have a book full of notes, I have Apple note pages full of notes with all these customers. And we started seeing consistencies in the data and we started seeing they bought for the same reason they saw from the same place they had the same issues. And so as we started doing that, we were able to narrow down and be like, okay, these people are outliers. This is our consistent market. This is how we’re going to target them. Here’s some of their suggestions. Here’s how we can improve. Here are some of their questions they have for us. And so as we started to talk to more and more people, we saw consistencies. And I think talking to your customers, being personal, that’s so important.
JONATHAN: Yeah. I mean, you have the best free marketing that anybody can have, which is just word of mouth. And I imagine parents that are buying this product for their kids, who are athletes are just at games talking to other parents and being like, you need to get these socks for your child. Which is just. Yeah, that is just like invaluable. Yeah. And then what kind of trends have you observed in customer behavior or preferences? And has that kind of given you any insights into where you’re going to go next or how to anything that you’ve done to change the product at any point in time previously?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, absolutely. So as far as trends, I think most people think it’s too good to be true. Right. They think it’s fool’s gold. They think, oh, we’ve tried everything, nothing’s going to work. I cant imagine that a sock would actually neutralize odor. Right. Because nobody knows that odorless clothing exists. Were trying to educate the masses here. And so we typically find that somebody will order a single pack, try it out, they think, oh, Im going to get this and its not going to work. And then theyll wear for a week and then we get a review in all caps. Its always in all caps. This actually works. I cant believe it. Exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. Ive thrown out all my other socks. Im buying a ton. And then well get another order for a three 6912 pack of socks. And so that’s typically the behavior is they’ll try it out first with a smaller pack and then they’ll order a bunch more or they’ll start, you know, start with a three pack and then they’ll phase out the rest of their drawer.
JONATHAN: Yeah, I’m just so, uh, like, I really admire that just because, you know, you see so many, especially in this stage and age with people this day and age with people just going for money reps. Like, it’s nice to know that you’re approaching this from a customer centric place and they’re responding from it. So that’s just really nice because it’s a great product and you’re filling a niche. Have you found a lot of sort of dupe sellers trying to recreate the product in some way and hijack your spotlight?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yes. So I will say when we first started, this would have been, we got a big airing with Mark Aram, who’s one of the biggest radio hosts in Georgia, in the Atlanta area. And I get on the radio and we sold a ton of product through that call. It was right before, right after Black Friday. And everybody gave me the advice, you have to buy all the domains. Right. For our domain is getoxsox.com, comma Sox. And so they’re like, buy everything. Well, I was being cheap. I didn’t believe them. And so I left socks out there. And so right after that airing, somebody had bought the domain, they created a copycat site. And so I think a lot of people probably went there to try to order socks to them. And they had some cheap Amazon knockoff that was chemicals. Our socks are all natural and it was some cheap knockoff socks. And so we were able to report them and get the site shut down. But, you know, it was a valuable learning lesson. Right. Like you have to be defensive as well as you need to be offensive and defensive.
JONATHAN: Yeah. And I, especially for brands that, I mean, you want like brand protection and all that, especially when you have an innovative idea. I think it’s less important when you don’t have you know, a specific niche, like, but, like, with you, like, that’s huge. Yeah. The socks thing, I’m thinking about it now because if you had, if I had just heard ox Sox, I totally would have probably spelled it sock.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah.
JONATHAN: Yeah. That makes sense.
MATTHEW TESVICH: And for our new brand, we learned from that, too. You know, everybody’s like, you got to do, you got to spell it the wrong way. It makes easier trademark, all these different things. But if the average consumer is spelling it one way and you’re trying to change the english vocabulary on them, it makes it tough. And so we, we kept that front of mind for the new branding.
JONATHAN: Alright! See. Lessons learned.
MATTHEW TESVICH: That’s right.
JONATHAN: Fool me once.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Exactly.
JONATHAN: And then, I mean, other than the rebranding, how do you see oxygen stocks evolving in the future? Do you see it leading into other avenues? Or. I mean, retail is probably something that is largely unexplored. And how do you approach that?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, so we’ve not even touched retail yet. Like you said, we’re going to start small there. I know we’ve heard that retail is a beast. So we’re focusing direct to consumer online right now. Socks are lightweight, easy to ship. It’s really tough to break a sock, right? You could throw that package as hard as you want, but I could pitch a sock and it won’t break. And so that’s really, really nice for us. Thankfully, we’re not doing beverage or something that’s fragile, and so it makes it super easy to ship. So we’re going to stay direct to consumer for now. Retail definitely be a little ways down the road. And I see this brand becoming fully encompassing, like a spanx or like a gymshark, where they completely transformed the industry. Right. And I think that we can take things like deodorant that are really bad for your skin. We see all these studies and see how bad it is for you. And imagine if you didn’t have to wear deodorant anymore because you had an odorless shirt or antibacterial underwear. And we are able to help eliminate skin problems and things like that. So I think we can build an all encompassing brand. I fully believe that. And as far as what’s next on the product roadmap, we’ve been testing a few things. We’re going to talk to our customers like we did before, see what they want the most, what they’re the hungriest for, and then we’ll release that. But I’m super excited. I’m super optimistic, and I think that this is, this is hopefully going to pave the way for the future for the textile industry and make things more sustainable on top of that.
JONATHAN: Your enthusiasm and passion is just infectious. So im just really glad to just talk to you and feed off of this because its going to set me kind of buzzing for the rest of the day. I didnt even think about being a socks product, just how the margins play out with shipping weight and stuff, because its such a lightweight product. So you also just have that in your favor too.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yes. I worked some different internships early in college with different entrepreneurs. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur by that point. And I was working with my buddy who started a beverage brand, and I saw that his shipping was through the roof. He was losing money on a lot of these shipping orders. And I’m like, hey, I think you got your shipping information wrong. The shipping costs more than the product itself and we’re losing money on the shipment. He’s like, no, that’s just how it works. We have to focus on, we’re direct to the consumer now. We’re trying to get into retail, and when we get distribution, that’s when things are going cheaper. And that always stuck with me. I’m like, how can you lose money on an order? And so I just kept that front of mind. And then once we did the socks, I mean, it was just an added benefit. It was such a blessing that it was lightweight, it’s small, it’s easy to ship, you can fold it. You don’t need any kind of special packaging there. And so it allows us to stay direct to consumers and avoid a lot of the hassle with retail for the distant future.
JONATHAN: You don’t have to share, but I’m curious, what do you find is your biggest challenge or obstacle to overcome?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, the seasonality is definitely a big one. Like I talked about, you know, how do we get people wanting socks year round? Summertime, if people aren’t wearing shoes, then, you know, they might not be wearing socks if they’re always in flip flops. So trying to figure things like that out, and then I would say one of my most valuable lessons that I learned was, and there’s really, I don’t know if there’s a whole lot I could have done to change this, but I assumed that everything was going to sell evenly, right? Our large black sock was going to sell just as much as our small white sock. And so when I had put in that first order and we had our moq, I evenly dispersed everything and we instantly sold out of one of our skus and then the other sku we still have inventory from. And so I learned my lesson there. And now we’re looking at customer data for, okay, we’re selling x percentage of this. This is how much we need to order this and then smaller numbers here.
JONATHAN: That is a solid lesson. Outside of that, like, is there any. Because you’ve, I feel like you’ve one had great twists of fate, but also, like, you’ve learned from lessons. And I’m curious, is there any sort of advice that you would give to other entrepreneurs who are just starting out that you haven’t really talked about yet?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, I would. First thing would be to go for it. I think so many people are all talk, and they never want to go for it. They’re nervous. They feel like now’s not the right time. There is never a better time than right now. You can always make an excuse. There is never a better time than right now. And then I would highly, highly, highly encourage you to get a strong group of mentors in different areas. And not just yes men, but people who are there to push you and help you grow. The one that I mentioned earlier, he is always, I send a weekly email with KPI’s of what our units sold are. And he’s the one who told me to do this. I never would have ever thought about that had it not been for him. He’s like, we’re getting you ready for investors. When you’re ready to take money. We’re getting you ready for this, that, and the other. And it’s just, you know, it’s keeping everybody engaged, keeping everybody in the loop. And so he always pushes back on my weekly email, why did you do this? And it’s always given me thinking. It’s always given me a different perspective. And so I think having these mentors we can lean on. I had some manufacturing issues and some questions there, and I leaned to one of our advisors who built a massive CPG brand and exited a huge apparel company. And then another one of our advisors, I’m like, hey, we’re kind of running into this issue. I know you ran into it with your business, X. Where do we go? And he gave me really, really good advice. So I would encourage anybody who’s listening to this. Any young entrepreneur has those mentors you can lean on. You might be like, well, they’re this big Whig entrepreneur. They don’t want to talk to me. They love to see people who are hungry. And in a society today where people are lazy, they’re looking down at their phones and they just are expecting handouts, things for free. People love to see someone who’s young and hungry and trying to get after it. And so I’d encourage you to get a mentor network that you can lean on and reach out. People want to help you. People are good.
JONATHAN:I like that. One of the best pieces of advice I got was, if you’re stupid, surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart, surround yourself with other smart people who disagree with you.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yes, that’s great advice.
JONATHAN: So Matthew, you mentioned the backstory of your family and shoes and that you actually were an athlete. And I love that you actually also decided to stay and stick out the rest of the time at school just to get it done with, which is really great. And I’m curious, are there things from those experiences of whether it’s sports or school that has influenced this?
MATTHEW TESVICH: Yeah, absolutely. I think I’ve learned the most from playing baseball. And the reason I say that is because we had to wake up early. I learned discipline and now I’m up at 434 45 every morning and I go to the gym and then I start working and I think that discipline I never would have learned had it not been for baseball. And then you have to compete against guys who are better than you. And I never threw very hard. Right. And so I’m competing against these guys who are on the verge of getting drafted, these guys who are on the just signed their letter of intent to go play at a huge division one college baseball school. And I’m here throwing as a left handed pitcher, not very hard relative to everybody else. And I got to figure out how to get them out. And so you have to develop that bulldog mentality. You have to learn how to, you know, play with guys that are better than you and learn to compete. So I would attribute a lot of success to sports. And then I’m super thankful for Bob and the rest of the team at UGA and Mike Myers as well, just for the entrepreneurship help and guidance that they’ve given me and continue to give.
JONATHAN: I love doing this podcast because I get to learn a lot and talk to interesting people, but I also, the real payoff is when I get to talk to people like you who have had these really personal stories and how they’ve created, you know, made, taken lemons and created lemonade. So it’s just really great that you’ve done this. And I’m definitely a customer. I’m going to go order some of your socks and. Yeah, and I just wish you the best of luck, man. If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Awesome. Thank you so much, Jonathan. I really enjoyed this. It was great to get to talk to you and get to know you, and let’s definitely keep in touch for sure.
JONATHAN: And, uh, yeah, I definitely will be keeping in touch with you, and we’ll have to have you back on some day. We’ll have to, like, chart the evolution of Ox Sox and how it all turns out.
MATTHEW TESVICH: Absolutely. Let’s do a post rebrand.
JONATHAN: I love it.
MATTHEW TESVICH: That’s right.
JONATHAN: Fool me once.
