Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Michael Mader. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Michael, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea for Hippy Feet was born while I was a senior in college at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls in 2015. During the fall semester of my senior year, I suffered a traumatic brain injury after taking a fall from my longboard. This fall had caused a number of fractures and a head injury that forced me to take a semester of school off in order to recover and heal. During the months of recovery that followed, I not only had to drop out of school, but I was also unable to work and provide for myself. I was reliant on my family to pay for my rent & groceries and on my friends to drive my to my doctors appointments. I quickly realized that without my support system, homelessness would have been my most likely outcome. I felt incredibly fortunate and started to think of ways that I could pay my good fortune forward and offer support to folks who fell into homelessness as a result of a lack of support during their greatest moment of crisis.

During this research period, I had read that socks were the most requested and least donated article of clothing at homeless shelters. Combine this fact with my personal love for fashionable socks and the soul searching that happened during my moment of adversity, and the idea for a sock company that helped the homeless emerged. In the spring of 2016, I had been awarded a $22,500 grant after winning the Wisconsin Big Idea’s Tournament. After securing some seed funding, I called a friend of a friend, Sam Harper, to talk through my business plan and strategy for launch later that fall.

Sam & I immediately hit it off, and in the fall of 2016, we launched Hippy Feet, a buy one give one socks & apparel company. Since launching in September of 2016, Hippy Feet has made several iterations to the way we give back to the homeless community. Every time we made a change to our mission model, it was with the intention of having an even greater impact on the lives of folks experiencing homelessness. Today, Hippy Feet is committed to donating 50% of our profits to charities that offer services to youth ages 16-24 whose lives have been affected by homelessness.

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

Hippy Feet is a Minneapolis based sock and apparel company dedicated to supporting the homeless community. Since its inception in 2016, Hippy Feet has made a few pivots to its mission, all of which have been made with the intention of having the deepest possible impact on youth experiencing homelessness.

When Hippy Feet launched in September of 2016, it did so on a buy one, give one donation model where for every pair of socks it sold, they would donate another pair to a person in need. Hippy Feet donated 20,000 pairs of socks in its first 2 years of business, but after doing so, realized that this mission only addressed a symptom of homelessness and not its underlying causes.

This recognition led Hippy Feet to develop an employment program that focused on providing income and opportunity to youth affected by homelessness. Under this model, Hippy Feet was able to provide transitional employment to young people ages 16-24 through a 6 month job readiness program hosted at its Minneapolis office.

Participants of the program were hired to manage Hippy Feet’s warehouse; completing tasks such as product assembly, packaging, and order fulfillment. After adopting an employment model midway through 2018, Hippy Feet was able to create jobs for 160+ youth affected by homelessness and offered more than 7,200 hours of employment in total.

At the start of 2022, Hippy Feet made the difficult decision to end its employment program. Hippy Feet’s founders recognized that it was time to take on a new mission model, one that enabled them to defer to the experts on youth homelessness. Today, Hippy Feet’s mission is to donate 50% of its profits towards 501(c)3 organizations that are working to end youth homelessness. Hippy Feet currently funds organizations in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and in Chicago and plans to expand the footprint of their donations through partnerships with organizations in Denver, Austin, Seattle, and New York City by the end of 2023.

In addition to its charitable giving efforts, Hippy Feet is committed to making all of their socks and apparel products in the United States and with environmentally friendly materials and practices. Every pair of Hippy Feet socks is manufactured in North Carolina using sustainable materials such as recycled cotton, recycled polyester, and organic cotton. The recycled yarns used in Hippy Feet products are sourced from a recycling facility in Spain that takes pre existing materials such as tshirt trimmings and textile waste and turns them into upcycled yarns. This process uses 99% less water than growing new cotton requires, reduces carbon waste by 52%, and eliminates the need to add artificial dyes and harsh chemicals to the finished product.

To date, Hippy Feet has been able to provide more than $160,000 worth of support & charitable contributions to young people affected by homelessness. This is the accomplishment that I am most proud of.

Hippy Feet is a brand that offers much more than a product. When our customers buy our socks & apparel items, they can claim ownership over the idea that their purchase is truly helping a young person experiencing homelessness.

Hippy Feet was my first “real job” and all the experience I have I’ve gained from actively running this business for the past 6+ years. During college, I studied Lean Business Model methodology, which proved to be the most valuable subject I’ve ever studied.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Hippy Feet was founded as an e-commerce brand. While we still have a very effective e-commerce revenue stream, Hippy Feet’s growth in the past year came from our B2B efforts. Specifically, Hippy Feet has a unique ability to create custom products for other businesses. Over 2022 alone, Hippy Feet was able to grow our B2B sales by 240% over 2021. This lead to a year over year growth of 66% when compared to 2021.

Hippy Feet’s clients include ORACLE, The Minnesota Timberwolves, Microsoft, Pixar, and many more.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Hippy Feet’s biggest and most impactful pivot was our decision to terminate our employment program. From 2018-2021, Hippy Feet directly employed youth affected by homelessness. At the start of 2022, we realized that the best way to help youth affected by homelessness was to donate our resources to 501(c)3 organizations who we consider to be the experts on youth homelessness.

No longer needing to manage youth in an employment program, Hippy Feet was able to focus on driving revenue & profit, which resulted in higher revenues & profits and a larger donation value towards youth affected by homelessness.

Contact Info:

• Website: hippyfeet.com
• Instagram: @hippyfeetsocks
• Facebook: facebook.com/hippyfeetsocks
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hippyfeet/?viewAsMember=true
• Twitter: @hippyfeetsocks

Image Credits
@willixmhxwk