The power of remarkable
When I first wrote about Little Miss Matched about five years ago, they were an obscure little sock company, selling funky socks to fashionable girls.
The idea was beyond clever. 3 to a box, 133 styles, none of them match. Instead of a strategy built around a consultant’s vision of ‘utility’ or a strategy built around cheap or a strategy built around excessive retail distribution and heavy advertising, they built their strategy around one girl saying to another girl, “wanna see my socks?”
I couldn’t have invented a better Purple Cow story if I had tried.
The company let me know today that they just did a huge deal with Macys and closed a $17 million funding with the folks who financed Build a Bear’s retail rollout. Money isn’t the only point, of course, but if that’s the way you keep score, that’s a long way for a little company to come in five years.
[full disclosure: My feet are sponsored by LMM and I wear their socks every day. I am compensated by the company–they give me 33 free socks a year (not pairs of socks, just 33 socks), worth about $110.] UPDATE: I don’t wear their socks any more. A friend pointed out that I could simply buy adult socks and mismatch them myself. I’ve been doing this consistently for the last twenty years.
And, on the topic of remarkable, but far more important, consider the work that’s happening at Lenny Learning. https:/
They’re using the power of machine learning, combined with a focus on education, to make life better for a whole generation of kids. It’s urgent and important work.