Making a Difference One Sock at a Time

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Michael Mader, CEO of Hippy Feet, GBC, located in Minneapolis, MN, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Hippy Feet is a Minneapolis-based sock and apparel company dedicated to supporting the homeless community. Since its inception in 2016, Hippy Feet has made a few pivots to its mission, all of which have been made with the intention of having the deepest possible impact on youth experiencing homelessness.

When Hippy Feet launched in September of 2016, it did so on a buy one, give one donation model where for every pair of socks it sold, they would donate another pair to a person in need. Hippy Feet donated 20,000 pairs of socks in its first two years of business, but after doing so, realized that this mission only addressed a symptom of homelessness and not its underlying causes. This recognition led Hippy Feet to develop an employment program that focused on providing income and opportunity to youth affected by homelessness. Under this model, Hippy Feet was able to provide transitional employment to young people ages 16-24 through a six-month job readiness program hosted at its Minneapolis office. Participants of the program were hired to manage Hippy Feet's warehouse, completing tasks such as product assembly, packaging, and order fulfillment. After adopting an employment model midway through 2018, Hippy Feet was able to create jobs for 160+ youth affected by homelessness and offered more than 7,200 hours of employment in total.

At the start of 2022, Hippy Feet made the difficult decision to end its employment program. Hippy Feet's founders recognized that it was time to take on a new mission model, one that enabled them to defer to the experts on youth homelessness. Today, Hippy Feet's mission is to donate 50% of its profits towards 501(c)3 organizations that are working to end youth homelessness. Hippy Feet currently funds organizations in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Chicago and plans to expand the footprint of their donations through partnerships with organizations in Denver, Austin, Seattle, and New York City by the end of 2023. In addition to its charitable giving efforts, Hippy Feet is committed to making all of its socks and apparel products in the United States and with environmentally friendly materials and practices. Every pair of Hippy Feet socks is manufactured in North Carolina using sustainable materials such as recycled cotton, recycled polyester, and organic cotton. The recycled yarns used in Hippy Feet products are sourced from a recycling facility in Spain that takes pre-existing materials such as T-shirt trimmings and textile waste and turns them into upcycled yarns. This process uses 99% less water than growing new cotton requires, reduces carbon waste by 52%, and eliminates the need to add artificial dyes and harsh chemicals to the finished product.

Hippy Feet has two sets of customers, one for our e-commerce channels and another for our B2B sales program. Our e-commerce customers are primarily women, either 18-30 or 55-65. They are liberal-leaning, socially and environmentally conscious, and tend to "vote" with their dollars by making purchases from ethical and charitable companies. The older half of our customers have a high household income and often purchase our products as gifts for their friends and family. Our 2nd customer group is for our B2B sales efforts. Hippy Feet has a unique ability to create custom socks for organizations like Oracle, Pixar, Microsoft, and the Minnesota Timberwolves. All of our custom socks are made in the USA and created with sustainable materials like recycled cotton. This customer group is defined as businesses that are in need of promotional products or company gifts. These companies must be able to purchase a minimum of 120 pairs of socks, and they often purchase from us out of a desire to support our mission to help youth affected by homelessness.

Tell us about yourself

The idea for Hippy Feet was born while I was a senior in college at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, in 2015. During the fall semester of my senior year, I suffered a traumatic brain injury after taking a fall from my longboard. This fall caused a number of fractures and a head injury that forced me to take a semester of school off in order to recover and heal. During the months of recovery that followed, I not only had to drop out of school, but I was also unable to work and provide for myself. I was reliant on my family to pay for my rent & groceries and on my friends to drive me to my doctor's appointments. I quickly realized that without my support system, homelessness would have been my most likely outcome. I felt incredibly fortunate and started to think of ways that I could pay my good fortune forward and offer support to folks who fell into homelessness as a result of a lack of support during their greatest moment of crisis.

During this research period, I read that socks were the most requested and least donated article of clothing at homeless shelters. Combine this fact with my personal love for fashionable socks and the soul-searching that happened during my moment of adversity, and the idea for a sock company that helped the homeless emerged. In the spring of 2016, I was awarded a $22,500 grant after winning the Wisconsin Big Ideas Tournament. After securing some seed funding, I called a friend of a friend, Sam Harper, to talk through my business plan and strategy for launch later that fall.

Sam & I immediately hit it off, and in the fall of 2016, we launched Hippy Feet, a buy-one-give-one socks & apparel company. Since launching in September 2016, Hippy Feet has made several iterations to the way we give back to the homeless community. Every time we made a change to our mission model, it was with the intention of having an even greater impact on the lives of folks experiencing homelessness. Today, Hippy Feet is committed to donating 50% of our profits to charities that offer services to youth ages 16-24 whose lives have been affected by homelessness.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

The accomplishment that I am most proud of is the impact that we've been able to have on youth experiencing homelessness. There are young people who have now successfully transitioned out of homelessness as a result of the support & services provided by Hippy Feet. Since our inception in 2016, Hippy Feet has provided more than $160,000 in resources and services to youth experiencing homelessness.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

One of the biggest challenges as a business owner is recognizing when to make a pivot. As a business owner, your original idea is your "baby," and you often get attached to that idea, even if it may not be the best one for the overall success of your business. It's always a difficult decision to make changes to your original business idea. However, making that change can often lead to more success in the future.

Hippy Feet's biggest and most impactful pivot was our decision to terminate our employment program. From 2018-2021, Hippy Feet directly employed youth affected by homelessness. At the start of 2022, we realized that the best way to help youth affected by homelessness was to donate our resources to 501(c)3 organizations that we consider to be the experts on youth homelessness. No longer needing to manage youth in an employment program, Hippy Feet was able to focus on driving revenue & profit, which resulted in higher revenues & profits and a larger donation value towards youth affected by homelessness.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Take risks, especially when you're young. The older you get, the more responsibilities you have and the more you have "to lose." If you have an idea for a business, take the risk and start it.
Find partners who complement your work. You can't be an expert in everything, so find partners who are able to do the work that isn't your strong suit.
Leverage your community. There are people in your network who want to see you succeed. Let them help you.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://hippyfeet.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hippyfeetsocks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hippyfeetsocks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hippyfeetsocks
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hippyfeet/

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