Elliot Moss
Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Good morning, welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing you the shapers of the business world together with the shapers of Jazz, Soul and Blues. My guest today in this November month is Ryan Palmer, Co-Founder of London Sock Company. While working at an IT consultancy firm in London, Ryan and his colleague, David Pickard both wanted eventually to do something where they were as they said, “in control of their destiny without any ceilings.” Inspired by a wave of subscription models coming over from the US, they saw a subscription brand opportunity in the sleepy category of socks. As Ryan says “coming from that corporate environment guys were just so uniform all wearing the same colour suits, shirts and shoes. We saw a huge opportunity to add flare and personality to men’s outfits with something as simple as stylish quality socks.” They launched The London Sock Company in 2013 with no prior fashion experience and now deliver their socks to customers in over a 100 countries worldwide as well as retailing through Mr Porter, Harrods and more and if you look carefully at Daniel Craig’s ankles, you may well spot them there too.
Ryan Palmer is my Business Shaper here today, he is the Founder of London Sock Company and I’ve got a box, if I was an MP I’d have a problem but I am not an MP, I’ve got a box, a present here in advance actually of a birthday, obviously Ryan you knew that, somehow you knew that tomorrow is my birthday, so congratulations for realising that. It’s great to meet you, I feel like I know you though we’ve never met because I’ve worn your things and when I meet people whose products I use and I’ve lived in, it’s a nice thing. So here you are. Socks, why socks?
Ryan Palmer
Why socks? Well that’s a good question, funnily enough we get asked that quite often because it is a bit, is a bit random. We really just loved the simplicity and the enormity of the opportunity you know, here’s a category that you know, gets a very little thought you know, people in their professional world are looking for opportunities that add a bit of colour, a bit of personality and individuality and you know everyone is wearing the same colour shirt, the same colour trousers, same colour shoes and my background, you know working in that kind of corporate world was you know, just seeing a kind of sea of monochrome and socks are just an opportunity to, to help add a bit of personality, a bit of colour, a bit of style and ultimately walk brighter and you know, we love the idea of kind of tapping into that, that kind of morning routine when you pull your socks up is one of the first things that you do to, to really kind of inspire your day so it kind of… it feels a lot less random now but it certainly was random when we were making the decision back in 2013 as well.
Elliot Moss
I suppose though because you were at Accenture as I understand it, manager of a consultancy business, you become quite agnostic about the opportunity is and in a way you sort of start to get excited because there is a category opportunity and then you probably fall in love?
Ryan Palmer
Yeah I think for us though it was as much about really kind of understanding what purpose we wanted to achieve like with the business. It wasn’t just a, a commercial kind venture and for us kind of, we loved the idea of inspiring optimism somehow and it was really important for us that whatever product we were going to go down that actually there was a genuine kind of element of positiveness that was going to come from that and we actually tried to get away from, socks a number of times you know, it’s not really the first choice that you would think of but actually the more we kind of dug into it the more opportunity that we saw to really create a brand that was all about style, that was all about aspiration, that was all about inspiring people to walk brighter and you know that’s kind of since become our tag line and also create you know, and elevate gifting to the socks that you actually want to receive at Christmas.
Elliot Moss
The purpose thing you talk about, did that come before the socks or did it come as a result of the socks? It may seem a strange thing to say but often when I meet Founders and then when Founders pitch and try to raise money, the people they are raising money from are often interested in looking into the eyes of Ryan here and going ‘does he mean it, is he really interested beyond the numbers?”
Ryan Palmer
Yeah 100%, like 100% you know, when, when we kind of started the business actually it was really important to us that we were going to have some kind of social good and some social positivity through, through the brand and I think kind of coining the phrase ‘inspiring optimism’ came later but the sentiment of using the kind of category and using a moment at the start of everyone’s day to, to try and effect positively you know, like self-confidence and self-belief was very much you know, the essence of what we wanted to create right from day one.
Elliot Moss
Ryan Palmer is my Business Shaper today, he’s the Co-founder of The London Sock Company, Dave is not in the room but Dave is there always. You two, did you work together is that how you met?
Ryan Palmer
Yeah we met when we were working at Accenture together and you know, we just gravitated I think towards each other just from a shared love of business and entrepreneurship and you know, going to the pub and having a few drinks and we became really close friends very quickly and we didn’t actually know that we were going to start like a business together when we met, it was, it was very much a me kind of helping him brainstorm through some ideas that he had and him brainstorming some ideas that I had and we just realised that we were actually much better at developing ideas together than we were independently and it just kind of happened. It wasn’t a kind of “oh do you want to be my business partner? And I was like yeah” or vice versa, it just happened and we just kind of came up with an idea and just went with it and you know, here we are, what 7 or so years later.
Elliot Moss
When did it get real though, when you said you know, it just happened and I know that feeling when you’re, you’re sort of not playing at something but you are just having a conversation and then the conversation gets a bit more pointy and then you actually start sketching an idea out and suddenly its socks and suddenly hold on a minute, we’ve never made socks before, where do we make them. Although there wasn’t an epiphany by the sounds of it, was there a ‘okay let’s just do this’ moment?
Ryan Palmer
Yeah I think it was, it was more the case that we, we just thought that there was a massive opportunity with the category and it was probably a little bit early, I mean Happy Socks you know for example, had kind of launched back in I think 2007 and they were really the only brand that was, that was really kind of owning you know the category from a brand space, certainly that people were aware of and you know, they did a brilliant job with their brand but they are very much more focussed on that kind of novelty style and you know the quality but for us it was, it was really about quality and style. It was about the socks that get you noticed for the right reason and wasn’t about socks that were, were going to make you the fun sock guy and that was the big difference for us and that’s where we really wanted to kind of differentiate from other brands in the market that were really owning that space.
Elliot Moss
But saying that as two you know, products of the consultancy world and then moving that theory to the practice, do you recall when it was like okay we’d better actually start delivering on this because we’ve had the idea now, we’re excited about the category and if so, what was the very first thing that the two of you had to do where it becomes concrete?
Ryan Palmer
Well I mean we knew nothing about anything that we were doing so we knew nothing about fashion, we knew nothing about product development, we knew nothing about e-commerce, we knew nothing about fulfilment, you know we literally had no experience with kind of the category that we were about to go and try and launch a brand in but I think what we did have was a kind of really strong understanding and ability of executing, of actually really understanding well what are the key points here that we need to really get right to make this successful and then go and find people who were much more experienced in those areas and try and get some advice from them about how they would approach the project if they were in our shoes and that was really, really impactful and I think just surrounding ourselves with people who were much more experienced and probably much more intelligent than we were to really kind of help kick off our journey was, was for us just the natural start and then obviously you are kind of then looking for factories and you are looking for the material blends and we got it wrong so many times like just through that kind of sampling stage and I wish that I had some of the early samples that we did because they were just, you know, they were just horrendous. But I think like anything it is as important to kind of realise what you don’t want you know as to realise what you do want and it just evolved and I think we just instinctively knew what we were going for and you know, we knew that we wanted to elevate the category, we knew we wanted to create a really high quality product and aspirational brand so that was always our North Star.
Elliot Moss
And really stupidly, sliders and socks – yes or no?
Ryan Palmer
I think fashion is about being an individual and whatever people want to wear.
Elliot Moss
He is going to give me a serious answer, I love it.
Ryan Palmer
Of course a serious answer because honestly I get asked this question often and I think if you want to do it, do it like who cares you know, it’s about being an individual and whatever makes you comfortable and whatever makes you happy is, is a good answer for me.
Elliot Moss
There you go, stay with me for much more from my guest, Ryan Palmer – be exactly who you want to be. He’ll be coming back in a couple of minutes being exactly who he wants to be. Right now we are going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions, and they can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Mishcon de Reya’s Susie Sendama and Emily Dorotheo talk about how fashion brands can be more sustainable while maintaining profitability and what consumers should be doing to support sustainable fashion.
You can enjoy and be inspired by I hope all of our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shaper’s podcast and indeed, you can hear this very programme again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your podcast platform of choice, or if you have got a smart speaker, you can ask it to play Jazz Shapers and there you will find a taster of our recent shows. But back to today’s guest, it’s Ryan Palmer, Co-Founder of London Sock Company. I’ve got a big box here which as I mentioned earlier is the present. The colours are brilliant. Are you a person that understands the importance of colour for your consumer or are you a person that loves colour?
Ryan Palmer
I think both to be honest. I mean, I wouldn’t say that I am the most colourful person when it comes to anything else that I wear, I mean as you can see I am wearing like a navy shirt, you know, black jeans.
Elliot Moss
We’re very similarly, I mean obviously we are men and men you know, a certain type of man doesn’t want to let’s say make a major statement but let me see the socks because yeah you are wearing black trousers, blue shirt, ahh but the lovely light blue socks.
Ryan Palmer
Yeah they are dusk blue but you know it’s an opportunity to add something, it’s a bit of style, it’s a bit of personalities and yeah, it’s a bit of colour and I think you know, we all need a bit more colour in our lives sometimes and I think socks are just an opportunity to do that without necessarily kind of feeling like you are over powering everything that you are wearing.
Elliot Moss
With a fashion brand do you run your business in that flairy way and the colourful way or is it a serious endeavour? I mean how do you counter balance the need to be interesting and fashionable and timeless as well obviously because we need to do all those things, alongside the seriousness of running a business, of how many people work in your business now, I mean we talked about being in a 100 countries but there is serious underpin of structure and of processes and PNL’s and factories and all that, how do you counter balance the two?
Ryan Palmer
Yeah I mean it’s a good question. I think the structure of the company is really important and it is something that kind of took us a while to I think probably get right and fundamentally for us it was about creating a business where you know, on one side it was all about brand, it was all about storytelling, it’s all about kind of creating new product and campaigns and partnerships and all the kind of really exciting opportunities that our customers are going to be interested in and then on the other side you’ve got the more commercial trade needs and that’s everything from supply chain and you know, the website and performance marketing etcetera and the two parts of the business work totally independently together but at a slightly different beat and I think you are right that there needs to be an understanding of commercialism all the way through the organisation. We need to be making decisions based on what commercially will work but equally there is a difference between you know, what’s going to be a commercial success versus a communicator product and you know I think the nice thing about you know, when you are creating a fashion brand is that you don’t need everything you sell to be your best selling product. I think for us it is about variety and it’s about helping solve problems for our customers and we spent a lot of time listening to our customers, I mean the customer experience for us is you know right at the top of everything that we do and I think that’s really when we kind of started the business and it was about specialising you know and that whole kind of end-to-end experience that a customer has from the moment that they are not sure about what they are looking for to receiving the product and the post follow-up you know, support. I mean we have a sock sure guarantee where if anyone has a problem with our socks you know, within twelve months, we just refund, you can return, replace and our returns rate you know, is less than 2%, you know it’s tiny. So I think it’s an important consideration to balance commercialism and also kind of colour and creativity but I think it’s just about creating the right frameworks and the right organisational structure to kind of work seamlessly together.
Elliot Moss
And between the two of you, who falls more on the aesthetic versus the commercial?
Ryan Palmer
So Dave is very much in the commercial. So he’s the brains and I focus more on the creative and storytelling element, so very much the brand.
Elliot Moss
But you say obviously we’ll come to that but different intelligences provide different things and without the creativity, the commercialism is redundant I would proffer. Talking about the structure, you touched on it, just give me a little sense of the way you have organised things and you said very humbly, you know, we got people in that were cleverer than us, different skills and all that. What does it look like right now, where are people based in this new world?
Ryan Palmer
So I mean we are still based in London, we were working remotely for you know, for the most part of the last eighteen months. We’ve had people back in the office actually last week which has just been phenomenal, it’s a good reminder of the importance of actually being together and I think the benefits of collaborating and decision making and just getting things done maybe a little bit faster and you know we are going into peak trade now, you know Christmas is fast approaching and you know that’s kind of being reflected through our sales already and we just really wanted to kind of just pull everyone together and just make sure that everyone felt you know as kind of supported but also as excited and prepare, you know going into what’s our busiest time of year so I think there will be a balance you know, I think there will be a balance of people working from home for a few days a week and from the office for a few days a week but I think it really also depends on, on kind of specific roles and needs to collaborate or, or just needs to work in silence and kind of not be disturbed which is you know, the preference for several members as well.
Elliot Moss
I read somewhere and you talked about it I think when you have been interviewed before about you being an open person and your mum’s influence as a kind of 24/7 therapist, not your own things or you can lie down on the couch over here if you like but actually just in… through osmosis you would get it. How important has it been do you think for your antennae to be really well tuned in to your people in these last twenty months based on just the, you know, the isolation, the loneliness, the general mental health questions that have arisen for all of us regardless of how stoic we are or how resilient we are or just how we’ve sailed through this or not. What have you done as a business to ensure that those people you’ve just talked about are in good nick?
Ryan Palmer
I mean it is tremendously important, I think at the end of the day you know the heart of the company is the people you know that are behind it and we are really kind of conscious about making sure that we are kind of paying attention to people’s mental strength and mental health and you know we were very quick to start introducing you know kind of various remote team building activities and really trying to make sure that there was a lot of transparency and openness across members of the team and yeah it’s been, it’s been difficult because I think people have different experiences, you know there’s some individuals that are you know are in different stages of their life where they’ve got more space at home, versus there’s some younger members of the team that are sharing with other people and everyone’s working from home so therefore it becomes harder to get that kind of quiet space that is a bit on your own and yeah it’s been difficult but I think we’ve just tried to listen, we’ve just tried to kind of understand you know, what challenges the team are experiencing and address it and be as open and supportive as we possibly can.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my final chat with Ryan Palmer, Co-Founder of London Sock Company and we’ve also got a great track from Cecile McLorin Salvant, that’s all coming up in a just a moment.
Just for a few more minutes Ryan Palmer is my Business Shaper and we have been talking all about the London Sock Company, what it’s about and why you want the world to walk brighter. Your values are important it seems to me for the business, there’s a lot of things I’ve read around your sustainability goals, I think you’ve announced your commitment to become a net zero producer by 2025, there’s a share a pair initiative where you donate a pair of socks for each order placed to homeless charities including Crisis and Foot Works and the refugee organisation, Choose Love. These are really, they go to the heart of what you’re about. What’s going to stop you doing those things? What’s going to get in the way of you being able to deliver on the sense of being more than, I say just a sock company, or just any fashion business. What would get in the way of that happening?’
Ryan Palmer
It’s a good question and I think as long as Dave and I feel so genuinely passionate about it, nothing you know, I think we as Founders of the business kind of set the direction and we set the kind of strategic you know objectives and ambitions and what we hold really close to our own kind of purpose as individuals flows through to the business strategies and what we are trying to achieve through this journey so I would probably say it would be us but we are so aligned on kind of making sure that through this journey we are having a positive impact and we really are inspiring opportunities and optimism beyond just our customers, that I don’t see that we are at risk of that but yeah, I mean I think it really comes down to the two of us.
Elliot Moss
And in terms of your own long-term commercial expectations or commercial goals, is there a sense that one day in the future you are going to not be involved with this business?
Ryan Palmer
Yeah I mean it’s always, it’s always a difficult one right, I mean who knows what the future holds but I think fundamentally we are about creating a brand that can exist for over ten million customers around the world and we are at a really exciting inflection point as a business that it feels like we’ve kind of been on the cusp of for, for probably the last kind of 12 to 18 months or so and I think the growth of online has, has positively you know, impacted us but I also think that people are thinking more about the brands that they want to purchase from and the values and kind of the ethics and the commitments that the brands are making has, has become more and more important so yeah, I mean let’s see what the future brings but I think that we’ve got a really exciting kind of next phase of growth and we are just really excited for this Christmas let alone anything else and see what happens.
Elliot Moss
Thank you for the present again, I am sure that this Christmas and before this Christmas, this birthday tomorrow I will be enjoying your socks. It has been great to meet you Ryan, just before I let you disappear, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Ryan Palmer
So I’ve chosen Nina Simone, I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free.
Elliot Moss
And any particular reason?
Ryan Palmer
Yeah so this song was a song that my grandfather used to play when I was sat on his sofa back in my childhood days of spending the summers in Canada and you know, it was just, it was just some nice kind of partial time that we had together and this was one of his favourites.
Elliot Moss
Nina Simone there with I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Ryan Palmer. He talked about making mistakes and making mistakes being the key to working out what you don’t want to do as much as what you do want to do. He talked about mindful leadership and how this last eighteen months has made them really focus on people’s mental strength and mental health. And finally he said the only barrier to realising their objectives in terms of delivering on purpose and on their values was them. I thought that was really honest and really clear. Great stuff. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You will find hundreds of more guests available to listen to in our archive, just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.