EP168 - Bombas founder David Heath     David Heath is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bombas (@bombas), a fast growing, energetic e-commerce apparel company, focused on making the most comfortable socks in the history of feet, while helping those in need. Founded because socks are the number one most requested clothing item at homeless shelters, for every pair they sell, they donate a pair to someone in need. In this interview, we cover a wide range of topics including the Bombas founding story, their SharkTank experience, the DTC business model and growth challenges, social marketing, innovation, the brick and mortar. If you’re inspired by the Bombas story, they are hiring!  FREE SOCKS included. https://boards.greenhouse.io/bombas Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 168 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Friday, February 22, 2019 from the eTail West tradeshow in Palm Desert, CA. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this episode is being recorded on Friday February 22nd 2019 live from the etail West trade show, here in semi Sunny Palm Desert I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and unfortunately Scott is trapped on a plane so we’re going to talk about him and assign him a bunch of action items. One of the top trends we always cover on the show is direct to Consumer Brands and so we’re excited to have on the show one of the top DTC companies in the apparel industry, so joining us from bombas we have the CEO and co-founder Dave he. David: [1:01] Thank you. Jason: [1:02] Hey Dave thanks very much for being on the show a long time listeners will know we always like to get things started by getting a little bit of the background about how you came to your current role can you tell us a little bit about your bio. David: [1:13] Yasso born and raised in New York and I don’t think we need to go back that far, but I so actually my dad’s not to renew are so very early on it I knew that entrepreneurship was something that I wanted to do was very inspired by him and watching him build a business from, the basement of our house to you know something that I think we’re all very proud of I need to go to school for entrepreneurship at Babson College and then upon graduation. I always found that every job I had I can end up working for a smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller company ultimately landed at a media company where I was the seventh employee Rana clean up where I ended up meeting one of my co-founders Randy Goldberg, it’s been 6 years there we developed our relationship and kind of always shared his mutual passion for wanting to start a business together one day. We developed business plans for numerous ideas ranging from services to pack the product, ultimately it was kind of one of these moments of Fate that I think let us to where we are today I have Andre scrolling on Facebook back in 2011 I came across a quote that said that socks with the number one most requested clothing item at homeless shelters in. I immediately wasn’t like oh my God there’s some business to be had here I just kind of stopped me in my tracks and I was like what you said something that. [2:38] I’ve never spent more than a second of my life or day thinking about is perceived as a luxury item for somebody else, so I remember walking over to Randy’s desk and I remember sharing the quote with him and then over the next couple weeks we both found that we just couldn’t shake this idea, obviously followed entrepreneurship and the other Trends were happening in the startup World in, Tom’s was in there 50 or business and growing incredibly fast where we park