The Ambition Project – Calgary Entrepreneurial Podcast

The Ambition Project is a video series in which we interview successful and ambitious Calgary entrepreneurs and talk to them about their struggles, what they’ve had to overcome on their journey and valuable insights they have to share with up and coming business owners. The series will premiere on September 18th, 2018. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay updated or stream an episode on Spotify or iTunes.

Jonathan Hafichuk: Welcome Adam, thank you so much for joining us today. Adam is the owner of Friday sock company. 

Adam Thompson:   Yeah. Pleasure being here. Thanks for having me. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: They sell a ridiculous number of mismatch socks 

Adam Thompson: A lot of socks, a lot of socks. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So, tell us a little bit about what your company does. 

Adam Thompson: So, we designed purposely mismatched socks. Um, and uh, we do it in a way that, um, they’re, they’re complimentary of each other. So we look for themes and patterns that are the same but different. Um, and we sell them in a about 300 stores in Canada, in the U S right now we do a monthly subscription, um, and we do make some custom product for companies that need swag. Uh, it’s a small part of our business and um, yeah, that’s kind of it. Uh, it’s a socks. Yeah. Socks. Yeah. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Welcome to the ambition project podcast where we interview local entrepreneurs and find out their stories, struggles, and what did this take in them to become successful. The purpose of this podcast is to provide education, inspiration, and motivation to business owners and ambitious entrepreneurs. I’m your host Jonathan Hafichuk, and before we get started, a quick little bit about our sponsors who make this show possible.

Our first sponsor is Symbol Syndication, which is a business that I started which provides creative corporate video production, photography and online marketing.

The series is filmed at Gravity Espresso and Wine Bar in Inglewood, Calgary. It’s one of my favorite places to go and hang out. I have most of my meetings there and it’s also an awesome place to catch live music three nights a week.

Our next sponsor is the Better Business Bureau. Your BBB helps business build visibility, credibility, savings, leads and community through BBB accreditation while funding free marketplace services with more than a million instances of service to consumers every year. Visit bbb.org/Calgary to learn more today.

Another sponsor of the ambition project is Business Link. Business Link is Alberta’s entrepreneurial hub. They’re a nonprofit organization that helps people navigate the steps towards starting their own business. Just because you’re in business for yourself doesn’t mean you’re in business by yourself. Business Link’s team of inhouse startup experts are there to support you all along the way. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So how did you to into the sock business? 

Adam Thompson: Yeah. Uh, so I get a lot of ideas and, um, I sometimes drive my wife crazy, uh, with, uh, with lots of different things that I want to do. And so this was just one idea that I had and she said, just, just please do it and shut up, um, please just see what you can do with it. And so I, um, put some money on a line of credit and I started with six designs that I look back now and they’re pretty rudimentary designs. But anyway, we went out to markets and we started selling them and people were, people responded to the idea and, and the Calgary community is amazing. So the community supported us and we made a little bit of money and we made I think 20 designs and then we kept going from there and learned a lot about socks on the way. A lot. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So previously you were a headhunter? 

Adam Thompson: Yeah, before, um, before Friday socks I worked for a, a big company doing headhunting for finance and accounting and then technology. Um, and then when I left, I was, uh, had a small team for the technology side, so developers and um, and that kind of thing. Uh, and uh, that was amazing. It’s probably, I was there for a long time and the reason I think is, um, because he had quite a bit of autonomy and it was real sales focused and so you were awarded based on your, um, your work ethic and your, your ability and, and so that really spoke to me and now that I’m an entrepreneur, now that I’m a small business owner, I understand that, um, that that’s why I was able to do it for so long because that’s my world. Like, um, work hard and, and uh, think of interesting stuff and you’ll be rewarded for it. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: How’d you become a head hunter? 

Adam Thompson: Uh, I applied, I think I got referred by somebody who said, I think I’d be really good at this. I think they were called to, to, um, cause it was very focused on referrals. So I think they did post ads back then, but it was really referral-based. So somebody got called for this job. And they’re like, no, I’m busy, but, um, Adam would be great for this. And then I dunno, I can’t really remember, but that’s kind of how it got set up. And I got involved in that and I was in London, England, so, no, that was in, uh, Vancouver. Oh, okay. I was a currency broker in London, um, while I was there. But uh, no, that was in Vancouver. And then I was there for three years in Vancouver and then I moved back to Calgary and I was in the role for four years in Calgary. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Okay. And what did the transition look like from head hunting to selling socks? 

Adam Thompson: Yeah. Um, I, uh, I worked really hard and, uh, so a typical day would be coming home from work and, uh, eating dinner and then working, um, on Socks until one or two in the morning and going to bed. And it was Groundhog day every day, the same thing. And then on weekends we would be, uh, trudging off to markets with bins of socks and, and trying to sell socks at markets. Um, and that was a period of a year and a half or almost two years, probably the, I did that and, uh, I was a, it was hard because you don’t see the monetary value of, of doing that. You, you work hard, but you actually don’t get anything. You don’t get any cash. You’re just working hard and you’re, um, you’re trying to build more inventory so that you can build the business.  So it’s a pretty hard thing to do because you’re not really seeing the fruits of your labor other than, um, the business growing marginally at that time anyway. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: You mentioned that you worked and operated very lean for the first couple years 

Adam Thompson: For a long time. So, um, and it was because I don’t really just had the instinct that, um, I, you could try to get, um, money outside of the company to invest or you could try to do all this different things. But I just wanted to, I wanted to grow slowly and I felt like it was a responsible thing to do because I wanted to grow in conjunction with the feedback of my customers. Um, so, and, and I’m glad they did that because, um, if I made a mistake, it was kind of at a small scale, whereas if I went fully into it when I wasn’t ready, it would have been a really negative impact on the business and harder to recover from it. But because I was slow and I kept it going and small and adding to it every month, um, when something big happened, you know, that wasn’t the greatest thing. It was, it was hard. But we could over come it, we could, we could continue on. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So, so with the inventory, you said there’s some struggles that come along with that, like tax implications, you have to put a bunch of money into inventory. You want to have as much as you can. What, what kind of struggles did you find with that and how did you deal with those?

Adam Thompson: Yeah, it’s just like, it’s always a game of I’m, and this is also comes back to being as lean as possible. Every single dollar that, um, I would make would go back into inventory. And, um, when you run a maybe a services business, you can see, you know, you have your overhead and stuff, but you can see some of the profits there. But with, with an inventory based business, you know, speaking to mine, I would put everything back in because you really just, you got to build the inventory and what happened I think our first year and then our second year actually we would, because we were lean, we were growing slower. Um, we would run out of inventory mid December because we didn’t have the capital going into that busy holiday season. So we’d buy as much as we could and then it would sell out and then stores would say, Hey, it’s still really busy, whereas you have the stock. And I would have to say, no, I have this, this and this. And that’s all we have. Um, but that, um, so that, I overcame that by being careful what stores I added to our list of stockists and how many, um, and even today we have targets and goals and we don’t try to get into every store, we try to get into the stores we really want to be in and we were able to not run out of inventory at this stage. Um, but yeah, and that goes back to being lean again. So I don’t want to necessarily spend a ton of money on getting help because I’m fully capable to work 16 hours a day. So that’s what I’ll do, you know. Um, and I think I broke it down when you’re, if I paid myself like, and actually paid myself what compared to the hours I was working to kind of make like $5 an hour or something. Like it’s crazy, but that’s, that’s the sacrifice I made so that I could keep money in the business and I knew it would build it based on the inventory I could get. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So how many weeks or months of inventory kind of on average do you like to have out? 

Adam Thompson: Uh, so there’s two kind of busy seasons. Um, one’s one falls around June, uh, aligns with father’s day and then one is in, uh, December. Um, and so I focus on, on getting a restock available that will last me through June. July, August are kind of slower months and then by September, by late August, September I want to have a ton of inventory that I feel like will take me through till November. And then I have a delivery that comes in say late October. That’ll take me the rest of the way through. That’s kind of what I’ve done in years past. And uh, so this year it just depends on what, what product categories we’re going to expand into. Because once you expand into a product category, a different kind of sock if you will, then now you’ve got to stock inventory for that product category. At the same time you don’t want to take the eye off the ball for your, for what you’re known for or what stores are selling your product. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: At what point did you realize that you could transition and quit your, quit your day job and just do socks full time? 

Adam Thompson: Um, I remember it really clearly cause it was a monumental time in my life. I, I it started to what I was doing for socks and my business started to really leak into my, my day job. And I tried to balance that as much as I could, but you got to the point where I had to, I kind of looked at what I was doing and I said, you know, um, I think that I think that if I can get three months worth of safety, I think I can keep it going. Um, and what happened was I ended up leaving my job and I was, it’s really scary. You feel like you’re wearing a sweater that’s too big and you’re like, what am I doing?  And you’re, you’re waiting for your paycheck to come at that certain day and you’re, you’re now paying yourself. It’s so weird. But, um, so that time came, and then what happened was, um, a company in Calgary asked me if I could make custom socks for them and I hadn’t done, I’d only done like one project, a really small project up until that point. So of course, I said, yes, yeah. Um, I can do that. And so, uh, I managed to do it and it was great and it provided enough revenue that I could kind of feel safe for another three or four months and then it just keeps building and you try to just keep that line of sight three or four months ahead of time. And even now, even with the business way it is now, I still, when I do my budgeting and forecasting and stuff, I will, I will put out like four months worth of, okay, is a warehouse paid for four months is my salary, is our employee salary, everything’s good for four months. Good. I can spend whatever’s left because whatever happens in four months, I’ll figure it out and we can, we can make stuff happen. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Smart. I think a lot of business owners tend to be a little, a little bit too close to the edge there. Yeah. A lot of the time. 

Adam Thompson: And there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you got to get close to that edge and we make, we might get close to that, that place in a certain part of the season where we’re just the expenditures, just like spend every dime we have leading up until the holiday season. But for the most part I’m, I’m careful to make sure that we’re budgeted for, for three or four months for sure. Awesome. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So you moved your production to Italy. What made you decide to do that? 

Adam Thompson: So we were in a, we were in a few different spots in China. Um, we went through three different manufacturers there. Um, and there are some companies that make a really good product in China, but I couldn’t find a manufacturer that I could work with. Um, well, so we had a lot of problems in the beginning with, um, with quality and consistency, lot of community, like all the cliche kind of stuff. There was a lot of communication problems with the manufacturer. I was dealing with all three of them. And so there would be more of a misunderstanding and a things that I didn’t necessarily want them to do, they would do. And I would kind of say, well why would you do that? And, uh, it was really rough. Um, I had some really low moments when that was happening. Uh, but we got through it and I kinda said to myself and, um, my wife Leanne, I said, I’m either gonna have to like stop this or we’re going to have to shift and figure something else out. And so I was kinda like, if I could find a manufacturer in Europe or the US and I position ourselves as more of a premium product and a more quality product, co aligned with the strategy of being purposely mismatched and already being niche, I think we’d be onto something with that. Um, cause I think the more you differentiate yourself from what’s out there, the better. And that was, that was kind of like I’m filling a need with a want and I want it to be different. And the need was to find a better manufacturer that I could communicate with and could provide a better quality product. And so, um, the process to do that, there’s lots of industry groups. Um, there’s websites that you can find and you can go about starting to talk to manufacturers and say, Hey, this is what I’m trying to do. Get samples sent. Back then I’d have to pay for samples to be sent to me. Now they’ll just like send them, um, without me even asking. But um, and then you get sample sent and you really try to find a manufacturer that you feel that you can trust and that you can work with. And that was, that’s a probably as far as manufacturing goes, that’s probably the best advice I could give anybody that’s trying to make a product is to find somebody that they can trust and they can work with. And who shares the same values as you do because it’s a long road. It’s a challenging road and there’s going to be lots of ups and downs. So. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So last year you got on the top 40, under 40, and they said you’re roughly a million dollar sock company. What does $1 million worth of socks look like? 

Adam Thompson: It’s a lot of socks. We got possession of our warehouse, uh, about a year ago, we signed a two year lease. And, um, when I got the warehouse, I was like, Holy, this is a lot of space. We’re good. Like, I’ll get two years, but we’d probably be here for five. Um, and then we’re drowning in inventories. So, um, and that’s not because we’re can’t sell it, it’s because we’re expanding and getting lots of different designs and getting enough of each design that we can fulfill orders of different types. Um, so we’re, uh, we’re looking now, uh, when our, your lease is up at expanding and doubling the size of the warehouse, um, and getting a lot more space. And I try to justify that as well because then I can skateboard in there too, and that would be amazing. Um, and, uh, so yeah, I mean we, we just, uh, we were just shy of a million. I had projected a million in sales. That’s what we were just shy of that. Um, last year, uh, this year we’ll definitely, um, we’ll do more than that. I’m trying to target that. We sell 200,000 pairs of socks this year. Um, and we’ll see. It’s a lot of socks. It’s so cool cause they go out to lots of different countries.  They go to people in Calgary, you see them in the wild. Like it’s an amazing thing to think of something. Uh, put it, um, make a digital copy of say an image in your head and make it a design, send that then have a knitting machine, make it then, uh, have it shipped back and six months later you just having to see somebody walking to the train station and they’re wearing that thing that was in your brain. Like, it’s really cool. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: That is cool. So, um, one of your greater accomplishments is winning employee of the month every month for how long? 

Adam Thompson: Uh, so yeah. Um, I really, I’m a modest guy, uh, and it’s really a kind of a crazy thing, but I’ve won employee of the month in my company for about four years, just shy of four years. Um, and it’s an amazing accomplishment. Uh, I feel blessed every day that I can kinda show the staff, you know, something to reach for.  So, so I always share my Instagram stories of, as you know, myself, uh, awarding myself the employee of the month and uh, yeah, they love it. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: That’s the real accomplishment. They’re not the, not the million dollars in sales or the top 40, under 40. 

Adam Thompson: Yeah, no, it is. It’s really that just accepting that award from yourself to yourself. And actually we have a trophy. Um, I went to value village and I got like a three pieces of a trophy that I’m going to make. So I’m going to unscrew one part and it’s going to be a giant, obnoxious trophy. And whoever wins employee of the month gets to put it on their desk. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Nice. 

Adam Thompson: So it’ll be on my desk, 

Jonathan Hafichuk: But you’re only gonna have one. You’re gonna just keep adding them to the desks

Adam Thompson: I might, yeah, I might add to it if I can for sure. That might be good idea. Yeah. Your desk in a couple of years could have its own desk. I like that. Cool. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So when somebody is selecting an eCommerce product to sell, what do you recommend they think about? 

Adam Thompson: Uh, I think they should think about how they can compete on different rather than competing on.  On price. Um, I think they need to think about, uh, whether they like that product, whether they enjoy that product because they’re going to be rounded a lot. Like, um, and I’m not going to say that I’m a fanatic for socks. Every time we go out we go to a party, whatever. What do you do? You I do socks and then you end up talking about them. So like talking about socks forever, right? Oh my cousin wear socks. But, but so I like the design aspect of what I do. Um, and as far as finding the relationships between things and I like people, the positivity that it evokes in people, so I like aspects of what I do. So I would say choose an item that you’re going to love a lot of aspects about that will keep you driving yourself forward when it’s challenging. And when you’re doing a lot of stuff you didn’t know you’d be doing, that isn’t what you intended to be doing because you own a business now and you gotta do everything. Um, and uh, I would say don’t, don’t make a popular item. Uh, the same as everybody else is doing it and think that your branding or something is going to differentiate you because it won’t. Um, if there’s a item that you want to manufacturers e-commerce, um, I would say find something and make it different. Like give it a twist. Um, find something that’s different than other people and you’re going to be patting yourself on the back later when you’re trying to get into stores and maybe your wholesale, uh, pricing and your retail pricing is a little bit higher. Cause if you just do what everybody else is doing, all you’re ever going to compete on is price. And that’s really a battle you don’t want to get into because it just, yeah, it’s not, it’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do. I want it to be a bit different and add value, add value as much as I can. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So when you start out, a lot of people with an eCommerce brand, especially if you’re doing manufacturing, it’s really difficult to get over that initial hump because your competitors are all going to be able to get things so much cheaper than you because of quantity. How do you suggest people get over that hump of like the whole quantity issue? 

Adam Thompson: Yeah, just like, so I would say have a story behind what you do. People will, people vote with their dollars. Um, people will pay more for a product that is the exact same as another product because they like the brand or they like the person or they like the story behind this one, this, this product. And it happens all the time. There’s so many examples of it. Um, so I would say that, um, and for us it was, uh, designing socks locally in Calgary. It was, um, um, you know, the mismatch concept. Uh, but whenever we, we’ve done, we’ve tried to have a story behind it so that we can engage with our customer, um, you know, and you could utilize social media a lot to do that as well, but you literally could have the same exact product as somebody who’s selling it for cheaper. You just have to do a better job on the branding and you have to have a better story and people will pay more for that, that product. And then you get higher as far as quantities and you don’t necessarily have to reduce your price at that point because you still have the story, still have the brand. But maybe now you’re, you’ve positioned yourself so well that you’re making a little bit more margin and over time you, you won’t, your competition won’t be able to compete. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: What was the biggest struggle for you to overcome in your business? 

Adam Thompson: Manufacturing was a big, huge, ginormous struggle because I didn’t know anything about it and I was so naive and I would say that my naivete was actually amazing because I was so dumb. I just did things. I didn’t even think about the consequences necessarily. And like I just said, okay, I’m going to order sucks. Okay, I’m gonna design socks. I can do that. That’s, you know, and, and I couldn’t, and I had to like sit in front of my computer for hours and hours and hours, send something to manufacturing, and then they would two days later send me something. And I was like, no, that’s not what I was intending. And like, um, but once you get into it and you’re so into it, you have no choice but to, to push through. And for me, it was like I invested at that time, uh, what I thought was a bunch of money right on my line of credit. Right? So I had to succeed because I couldn’t, I didn’t want to have to, uh, you know, as far as proving everybody wrong and saying, well, I can do this actually. Nevermind that. It was also the financial component of it, of I spent all this money, I better make at least make that back. Right. Um, but I was just, I was an idiot. I just like, went for it. Um, and, uh, and I wasn’t qualified, but now I am four years later. Right. I, I know how to, I know a lot about socks. We’ve gone to the factory a few times. We’ve toured, well we’re in, we use four different factory partners now. I’ve toured them all. Um, we’ve just completed a whole, um, overhaul of how we design. Uh, and it’s, it’s probably proprietary to us cause we just did it from scratch. So that’s pretty cool. Um, and then, you know, selecting yards and looking at trends and we’re getting into more of that now. And, uh, I know the more than the average person about, you know, knitting machines and, and socks and all that fun stuff now, but before, no idea. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: What was the biggest mistake you’d say you made in the first year? 

Adam Thompson: Uh, yeah, so it’s kinda the same thing. It’s like one of those strength and weaknesses questions where you get your strength and you flip it and it’s also your weakness. So, um, in this case it was not being prepared or not knowing enough about the industry or manufacturing, um, or website or anything. It was probably, it was probably that, but, um, in hindsight I’m, I’m glad that it went the way it did because it was really a chance to learn and grow a lot in a short period of time. Um, but definitely the biggest mistake would have been being more prepared. Um, understanding, understanding, uh, that kind of a business a little bit better. Whether that would have been through looking for a mentor, finding somebody that has kinda been there, done that, I would have saved a lot of time in anguish for sure. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: When you’re trying to get your product into a store, what is your process look like? Typically? 

Adam Thompson: So my process, um, I come from a sales background. This is what I did for eight years. So I was, uh, uh, very much a, um, a Hunter mentality. Um, I would go out and look for, we even took a trip to Vancouver once and spent two days driving around to different stores looking for a certain kind of aesthetic. You look at other brands that are carrying, um, and you make a big list. And so we did that through Google. We did that through looking around different, um, reviews of stores online and just building a giant list of stores that we wanted to approach. And then I would get on the phone and I would call them and I would explain who we were and what we did. And, um, and then I would ask if I could send them an email with some information. And it’s really just a sales cycle. You just keep it in a, a funnel of, of, of a sales cycle and you go through a gonna, contact them, pitch my product and send them some stuff, send them our information. If they want a sample, send them a sample, push it out a month, you know, get back in contact with them, add some value, spend some, uh, wait a little while longer and eventually over time they’ll get to know you, you engage with them on social media. It’s a hard job. Like it’s not, it’s sales. Uh, just like any other sales job but except you’re doing it for your own company. So, um, you’re really confident, you’re a lot more confident in what you’re selling. Um, compared to other things that you might sell. Um, but I just went out and found stores and I called them and I got to know them and I, uh, I started to get some callbacks. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: How many touches on average or interactions would you have typically before you’d get a sale or they’d become a client? 

Adam Thompson: Like a store? Um, it depends. So you would have, um, some smaller shops that would, you don’t have to contact a couple of times and they might order right away, but the frequency of their order might be once a year, you know, so you can get a bigger store would take a little bit longer and they might, they might spend more time watching what you’re doing and, and seeing what you’re coming out with. Um, and then eventually they’ll come around. So that’s a little bit of a longer sales cycle. But what happens there is once you’ve built some, um, some, some semblance of a story with them and they, they get you, then your product sells well and they’ll, they’ll keep you stock there, um, and the order more often and they’ll order in larger quantities. Because they want to be the person or the store representing your brand. And I would also say too with, um, with that, with sales and stores and trying to get into the stores, you have to be really careful about geography. Um, you don’t, you really don’t want to be in a store Uh, and then right Two block to two blocks down, two doors down the same store has your stuff. Um, because there’s no, they’re not, there’s no reason for them to be loyal to you at that stage. Right? Um, and you might commoditize your product, whereas if you’re, if you’re looking at them and you’re saying, okay, I can give you some exclusivity in your area. And, um, the general principles of exclusivity for us are we don’t want to be within walking distance of, of another shop necessarily. Um, or one shop in one neighborhood within a city. And if it’s a small city, maybe one shop in that city. That’s kind of how we looked at it. Right. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So what advice do you have for people who want to become entrepreneurs or starting an eCommerce business? 

Adam Thompson: My honest advice would be, don’t do it. Like don’t ,do something else. You have your, you have your weekends, you have your evenings right now. Why, why would you do that to yourself? Um, and it’s kind of serious. Like I was a, I don’t know if you noticed that as a budding comedian at one point. So I was going to open mic nights and I’d do some sets at yuck yucks and all this kind of stuff. And so when we were, uh, when we’re all young comedians trying to make a go of it, we had a seasoned professional come in and, and he kinda gave that advice. He said, uh, you know, you guys want to be comedian. My best advice is don’t like, just don’t do it. And the whole thought behind it was that, um, if you reacted in a way that was kind of like in your own mind if you reacted and he said, yeah, he might have a point, I don’t know if I’m cut out for this. You’re probably not right. But if you had a reaction where it’s like, who is this guy? He doesn’t always tell him what I’m going to do at anyway. Screw him, right then that is, you know, that’s basically you being able to do something and you have the confidence to do something. And so for somebody that wants to be a business owner, I guess I would have to know why they wanted to do it because it is so hard and you work so much and you, you lose contact with friends that you don’t necessarily want to lose contact with. And this is just my experience. And there’s, um, maybe family functions and your family, uh, will, will call you and you won’t call your mom back in like two days, cause, you’re so involved in doing a bunch of stuff and you forget, you forget your mom, you know, like you don’t forget her, but you forget to call her and then you, you’re, um, so it’s, it’s really hard. So, um, but yeah, the side of that, you have this, this huge sense of freedom that what you do is for you or it’s for your family. Um, and, uh, you know, you can take, you can take time off and you can be flexible with your schedule to figure stuff out once it becomes an actual business. Um, I would say don’t do it. Go get it. Go. There’s a lot of jobs out there that pay really well, go do one of those jobs. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: So what kept you doing it? What made you not quit the next four years? 

Adam Thompson: I can’t do to anything else. It’s almost like a compulsion. It’s like, it’s like as hard as it is and everything, um, when, uh, when you just have that, that, that overarching sense of freedom that what you’re doing is for you. Um, and I was, had probably a bit of a problem with authority, so I never wanted to be told what to do. So, and now, you know, here I am awarding myself employee of the month every month now, but it’s like, it’s just, I couldn’t do anything else. Um, maybe I’m a glutton for punishment and I say that and I, I cast it in such a negative light, but it really is fun. Like my day is spent doing stuff I like to do. It’s figuring out problems, um, to overcome and challenges that we can get through. And, um, putting a spin on things and tweaking something over here and, you know, uh, negotiating a price here that will help out in trying to, to build something that you kind of have a vision of what it could be and you try to, you’re, you’re getting there. So it is really cool at the same time.  

Jonathan Hafichuk: It’s just really hard. So where do you see yourself and your business in 10 years? 

Adam Thompson: Um, I dunno, but it’s going to be huge. No, uh, I don’t know. Like I’m really working hard as part of, um, as part of my thing to, to get a real good 10 year image of what it looks like and what we’re going to be doing. And I have a real hard time with that. I think what I do know, I want to be in the shorter term probably than 10 years is um, I want to be like when somebody thinks of purposely mismatched socks or really cool purposely mismatched socks or, or quality socks or designed a bit differently. I want to be like the Nike of that, you know? And it’s such a niche thing. So when I say Nike, I mean within context, like I just mean that I want to be sort of on the top three lists of, of really cool sock companies that are doing something different. That’s probably a 10 year and the five-year would be like just be known as the cool mismatch sock company. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Very cool. 

Adam Thompson: Yeah. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Sounds awesome. 

Adam Thompson: Yeah. And build a, an amazing culture within our company where people can go and be free to express themselves and be creative and not be sort of held to the confines of a typical corporate culture. That’s really big to me. I really want to make our spot, just like a Haven for, for people who want to have fun but also get work done. And it might be, we’ll see what happens, but that’s what I like. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Cool. 

Adam Thompson: Yeah. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Not going to become a pro skateboarder. 

Adam Thompson: No, I mean good, but there’s only so many hours in the day. Right? 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Yeah. So. Awesome. Well thank you so much for taking the time. That was a lot of valuable information. It’s a, it’s a fascinating company and I always look forward to my socks coming in the mail, so, yeah, that’d be great. Where can people find out more about you? 

Adam Thompson: You can go online, uh, and go to fridaysocks.com. Um, I’m pretty active on Instagram. I do a lot of stupid stories on there. So you could go @Friday sock co and check us out there and just make sure you’re sitting down cause it’s super funny. And um, yeah, that’s, uh, that’s where you can find this. 

Jonathan Hafichuk: Awesome. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. Awesome. Adam. Thank you.

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