Kickfurther Merchant of the Week: Inspyr Socks

 This week I have the pleasure of interviewing John Cawley, the founder of Inspyr Socks. Inspyr is one of the companies I am backing on Kickfurther.  For those who are unfamiliar with Kickfurther, it is a crowdfunding platform where investors like me purchase the inventory of a business like Inspyr and then give it back to the business to sell on consignment.  As the inventory sells, investors are repaid, with a profit.  While an expected payback timeline is generated, vendors are supposed to repay based on sales, so that if they sell out of the inventory the first month, investors get repaid the first month; if it takes longer than expected to sell the merchandise, it takes longer than expected to repay investors, but the vendor does not incur additional expense. 

Q:  John, I see on your website that the impetus for you starting Inspyr Socks was being with your family and seeing a t-shirt in a shop window that showed guys giving each other the finger, and realizing that kids saw it too. How long ago did that happen? Were your kids there?

A:  That happened in July, 2013 in Virgina Beach. My children were not with us at the time. When I looked around I saw tons of kids looking at the same image/ message that was on the t-shirt and at that moment it hit me:  I needed to fill the void, to give people what was missing, namely something to encourage them.  I  believe that if  you surround yourself with empowering thoughts, great opportunities will come from thinking that way.

Q:  I fully agree with giving the world something better than the t-shirt you saw, but why socks?

A:  Actually, we started out with T-shirts just because it was so easy to enter that market. We wanted to test our perceived market with our message on a shirt. Once we realized that the message would sell, we knew that we wanted to be different-- unique yet cool. The majority of people wear socks, and kids love cool socks, but mostly I chose socks  because I wanted to market two words that made up the message and socks allowed this design to come to life.

Q:  Where are Inspyr socks made?

A:  Overseas

Q:  I know that they are on sale on your website. Can you buy them anywhere else?

A: Yes, we are in many boutique stores across the country. We have wonderful new opportunities within the larger chain and box stores and late in the  fourth quarter 2016 you'll start to take notice.

Q:  Is that one of the reasons for the Kickfurther offer?  

A: Yes, partly.  I also needed more inventory to supply our retail partners, e-commerce and distributors.

Q:  I see that besides socks you also sell t-shirts with inspiring messages. Do you plan to expand your line further?

A:  The shirts you see on our site now are some of our first audience building lines. We will be circling back to Proformance shirts and other active wear type products in the near future.

Q:  Are you the one that comes up with the sayings on the socks? Which is your favorite?

A:  Great question.  I came up with the original sock line messages but now I have a team of people who come up with the lines. We also receive many wonderful ideas from our tribe of followers.  I have two favorites:  "Work Hard" and "Never Quit". If more and more people buy into this type of thinking, just imagine how even more wonderful the world could be?

Q:  Yes, I've heard many people say that the harder they work, the luckier they get.  Do you do custom orders? If my group wants socks with our slogan, can we get them from you?

A:  We used to do a lot of custom orders but what was happening was that we were getting to be known as the custom sock company and not the brand Inspyr. That presented a problem for our future brand and overall vision for the company. We do not currently do custom socks but maybe in the future we will spin off another company to handle those requests.

Q:  How did you first hear about Kickfurther? 

A:  If I recall correctly, they reached out to us via an email blast.

Q:  If your email box is anything like mine, you get lots of unsolicted offers of services. What was it about Kickfurther than caught your interest and made you respond rather than hit the delete key?

A:  I had been researching crowd funding for a while so when I saw the email I opened it. I then researched the background, reviews, process, costs and time frames.  I was sold on the turn around time versus the cost.

Q:  What do you think of Kickfurther so far? Would you recommend it to another business?

A:  So far so good. I have already recommended it to another company and I believe they were successful as well.

Q:  That's good; I hope the investors consider both offers to be successful when they are done.  Have you tried Kickfurther from the investor side of the fence? 

A:  Not at the moment. My time, money and energy are laser focused on Inspyr's success.

Q:  Would you recommend that friends and family invest via Kickfurther? Why or why not?

A:   I do believe there are viable options for investors to make an honest profit with Kickfurther, yes I would recommend it.

Q:  Do you think Kickfurther needs to make any improvements or changes in the way they deal with businesses? 
A:  No, none come to mind.

Q:  Tell us about the giveaway prize. 

A:  The give away prize is our number one seller: Never Quit crew sock with Gray base and red lettering. The Never Quit socks will remind you that when things get tough, you need to get even tougher; keep working hard and stay consistent on the path to success.

Q:  Thanks John for being here with us today.  Is there anything else you'd like to say?

A:  Thank you for the opportunity to tell my message to your audience and please use #FindYourMessage when looking for Inspyr on Twitter.  I'll see you all at the top of the mountain and when we get there we have an moral obligation to TEACH people how we got there.

If you would like to help a business like John's buy purchasing inventory for them, check out Kickfurther.  You can invest less than $50 in some offers.  If you use my link I get referral credit and you get $5.00 toward your first investment.  If you have a business that sells something tangible, see if Kickfurther can help you grow.  Use my link and I get a referral credit.  Good luck to everyone with the giveaway and you can buy these socks on Inspyr's website.  
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