Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John and Mark X Cronin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

John and Mark X, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Any advice for creating a more inclusive workplace?

We promote inclusion in several ways and have many stores to share:

Our co-founder John Cronin has Down syndrome and is the face of our business. John leads the world’s largest sock store (John’s Crazy Socks) and has been named an EY Entrepreneur of the Year.

More than half our colleagues have a differing ability. We show that our business succeeds because we hire people with differing abilities and it gives us a competitive advantage.

We create content on our social media platform showing the world what John and our colleagues can do.

We host tours and work groups so others can see what we do. This allows visitors with differing abilities to see people like themselves working and provides inspiration, encouragement and hope.

John and I give keynote speeches and travel across the country speaking with groups to share the message that inclusion works.

We do advocacy work standing up for the rights of people with differing abilities. We have testified twice before the U.S. Congress, spoken twice at the United Nations and meet often with legislators and policy makers.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We started John’s Crazy Socks because John needed a job, loved socks and wanted to make people happy. We started John’s Crazy Socks in the fall of 2016. John was in his last year at Huntington High School trying to figure out what he would do next. He looked at jobs, programs and schools, but could not find anything he liked. John is a natural entrepreneur. If he could not find a job he liked, he would create his own. He told his father he wanted to go into business with him.
John suggested that they sell crazy socks because he wore crazy socks my whole life. Mark and John would drive around looking for those socks. They decided that if John loved those socks so much, surely other people would too.
They wanted to test the idea. So they built a website on the Shopify platform, got a little bit of inventory and set out to tell people about their business. They set up a Facebook page and made videos of John talking about socks.
They opened on Friday December 9th, 2016 not knowing what to expect. That first day they received 42 orders. Most of them were local, so John and mark decided to make home deliveries they got red boxes put the socks in the box and added a handwritten thank you note from John and some candy. They loaded up their car and drove around and John knocked on doors delivering socks. The customers loved it and took pictures and shared it on social media and word began to spread.
By the end of the month, they had shipped 452 orders and knew they had something. John and Mark knew they could grow the business. They did not know how fast and they did not know how large but they made the commitment.
Today, John’s Crazy Socks offers 4,000 different socks making it the world’s largest sock store. We have shipped 440,000 orders to 88 different countries. We have created 34 jobs and 22 of those are held by people with differing abilities and are Giving Back Program has donated over $650,000 to our charity partners like the Special Olympics, the National Down Syndrome Society and the Autism Society of America. Every one of those packages has included a thank you note from John and some candy and if John gets an order between our office and home, he is still making home deliveries.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

During the pandemic, all businesses had to demonstrate resilience. Operating in New York, our business was particularly hard hit. First, we had to ensure the safety of our colleagues. Many were particularly vulnerable to the virus. For example, people with Down syndrome were not more likely to catch the virus, but if they did, they were five times more likely to be hospitalized and ten times more likely to die
Second, we had to ask how we could adapt to the new circumstances. We moved our tours online. We moved our speaking engagements online. We created Healthcare Superhero Socks to say thank you to frontline workers and those raised over $50,000 for the American Nurses Foundation and a local hospital, Good Samaritan.
Third, we had to ask how we could address new needs created by the pandemic. We made masks. We heard from many nonprofits who could not hold their usual fundraising events, so we created a Charity Fundraising Program that is remote and touchless. We have a mission to spread happiness. How can you do that if everyone is shut down and isolated? We started a Facebook live show to bring some happiness to people and John started an online dance party which he still holds every Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 PM. What better way to spread happiness than to get people together to dance?

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

While we experienced rapid growth right from the beginning, we were under capitalized and when our growth slowed, back threatened to undermine us. By our third year of business, we knew we needed to add capital and to increase our manufacturing capability. We spent a year meeting with banks and potential investors many of those investors said they were willing to put money into the company but what they really wanted to do was to shut us down and simply use the name as a branding tool by the end of the year we had to lay off virtually all of our colleagues and we faced bankruptcy. Yet we never gave up seeking the right partner and in December of 2019 we met that partner a third generation family business that manufactured socks for department stores and brand names we shared our values and had a great fit. By coming together we added the financial stability we needed and the manufacturing capability to grow our business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://johnscrazysocks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnscrazysocks/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnscrazysocks
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mxcronin/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnsCrazySocks
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Johnscrazysocks/

Image Credits
John’s Crazy Socks