Bare Kind - How Socks Became a Force for Good

Ramon Vela (00:03.329)
Welcome back everyone. This is a story of a brand show and I have an amazing guest and brand that we're going to feature on today's show. And I really can't wait to dive in. I have a lot of questions for our guest and quite frankly, when we did our pre-interview, I had such a great feeling with this gentleman. I haven't told him this yet, but I feel like he has such a really good vibe around him. So I can't wait to dive into his story and find out more about it.

So let's welcome Andrew Kemp, who is the owner, along with his wife Lucy, of Bear Kind. Welcome to the show.

Andrew Kemp (00:59.214)
Thank you so much for having me Ramon. It's great to be here. I've got Bearkind out animal-saving socks. yeah, an absolute pleasure to talk with you today.

Ramon Vela (01:09.129)
Yeah, likewise. And we're going to dive into those talks in just a sec. I always like to start off my interviews around a question of gratitude. It's sort of my signature question. And really it's my attempt to really bring the brand down and this conversation to a very human sort of person level, person to person level. So many times people can see a brand, a product online or on the shelves and just

sort of think it's a faceless corporation, just a business. But I always like to make sure that people understand that the brands we feature here, they're real people behind them who care about their product, care about the quality, care about the community, and are just really bleeding, sweating, and tearing over bringing a product to market. And so it's important for me to kind of bring this conversation to a very personal level. And I also want to get to know

who we're speaking to. a great way of doing that is by understanding what they're grateful for. if you don't mind, Andrew, can you share a moment or memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision or your potential?

Andrew Kemp (02:23.029)
I think it has to be Beth, who I went to university with and has gone on to great things, sold her company Leaf NB and then is now being as a marketing advisor. And I caught up with Beth a couple of months ago and over dinner we were just talking about our brand, Bearkind. And one of things that we're struggling with is how do we connect to a wider audience outside of sustainability?

We are really focused on making the world a better place. So naturally all of our customers that share that are really connected with us naturally, easily. But for us to grow our impact in the world, we need to grow as a business. And Beth was saying to me, she was kind of just really quickly and easily broke down our business into so many different parts. And I was sitting there just thinking, you know, actually, why are we called that kind?

You know, what like your focus is on animal socks. Do I need to change my name? You know, why are we focusing on 10 % of profits? People really actually care about the impact that they're trying to make. And just to have someone make that kind of like hard conversation, we've invested years in this business around 10 % of profits from the sock, saving the animal on the sock. And she has the confidence, the strength.

you know, and the ability to share that with me to say, look, Andy, I like it, could be better. And I've just had so many of those interactions since working with Bearkind with my wife, Danny Barrasso, also another standout person who took four hours out of his day to kind of sit down with us and do some kind of some brand strategy masterclass on SEO and absolutely blessed by those guys to give me just that.

their knowledge, their time, their wisdom, and by extension, their belief in the brand. So it's got to be those two.

Ramon Vela (04:20.509)
Wow, I really appreciate it. And those are very specific answers. And I love it because one is shows that you're thinking about, know, what you're grateful for and and also just grateful for these people's wisdom and experience and knowledge and so forth. And it goes to the heart of the question because they evidently see something in you and want to help you and want to provide, you know, their guidance, their, you know,

knowledge, et cetera, in helping move the business forward. And a lot of times we need those outside voices, those sort of people who may may not have an interest in the company or may not have necessarily a biasness towards the business. And they can provide an angle or perspective that sometimes it's hard for us to see.

because we're so close to it.

Andrew Kemp (05:21.193)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm seven years in, right. And we made the decision to that exact point to call bear kind bear kind, when we were metal straws, plastic t shirts, recyclable tote bags and bamboo socks. And now we've doubled down on socks for the past five years and are growing, stupendously off the back of that and doing really well, supporting over 45 different animal charities. So I've got socks, I've got animals, socks, animals, socks, animals, and then

know, Beth asked me the other day, what is a Bearkind? And I'm kind of sitting there thinking, my gosh, do I need to do a full rebrand? So that's the current machinations in this head. And we're looking to do that next year.

Ramon Vela (06:04.929)
Well, and you guys are always just so you know, you're always welcome back, you know, if you want to come back next year after the rebrand, you know, and there's another brand, there's a chocolate brand that I would love to introduce you to. And I can't remember the name of it right now. It's I don't remember, but they they are similar to you in that while they they sell chocolates, but they're similar to you in that they do a lot of charity work for animals.

Andrew Kemp (06:34.484)
amazing

Ramon Vela (06:34.585)
And they even go to the extent of creating these really amazing packages, know, the wrappers, I guess, of the chocolates. And they almost remind me of like a Willy Wonka package because it's very detailed.

And, you know, has, each package has like a different animal on it. But when you open it up, has, you know, someone has to really like see it to believe it, but it's just a lot of detail. But anyhow, they're very also committed to helping animals. Who knows? Maybe there's a collaboration in there somewhere. But, you know, back to the example, thank you so much for sharing that. And like I said, it's just really great. One of the lessons that I've learned

from my entrepreneurial experience is it doesn't have to, you don't have to wait for like there to be a disaster or a bad time in the business to reach out. I think you really need to reach out quite frequently to people, periodically just to have a sounding board, just to hear someone else's different perspective on the business. You don't need to take their advice.

But sometimes it's really good to be able to hear somebody from a different angle, just to kind of give you a different perspective. And so I love that you do that and that people, have this support network around you to do that. So that's a lesson I learned the hard way, by the way. When I was running a business, ran through some trouble and I didn't want to talk to anyone because I was embarrassed. And so you definitely don't want to do that. Believe me. I cost myself a lot of money from that.

Andrew Kemp (08:14.878)
Yeah, I think it's I mean, on that part, what we've been really lucky with in particular in the UK, which is where we're based as a brand, is that there's a tremendous network of e commerce business owners, you know, in this what's called the e commerce collab club. And they've hired out a cinema, we go there kind of once a month, really, maybe even as often as once every two weeks. And we go there,

Ramon Vela (08:16.745)
Andrew Kemp (08:44.446)
chance to talk with brands, experts in the fields like agencies or tech partners, that type of stuff. And that's been just like such a game changer for us. I can't tell you how many times someone's like, yeah, my biggest challenge is, you know, the fact that my emails aren't being sent on Microsoft or whatever. And I'm sitting there thinking, what? I need to check that? Like just, you know, you get so much by being with other people and you know, hence why I also wanted to connect with you and just.

you learn from every single person that you're meeting. That's for sure.

Ramon Vela (09:17.439)
Yeah. And I love that attitude. And there's a community like that here too. I'll send you a link about it. It's a couple called Workspace Six. They also happen to be a partner of ours for the show, which I always like to support our partners, but I've known them for a long time. I've known the owner for a while and he's an e-commerce person. you do? Okay. Yeah.

Andrew Kemp (09:25.523)
Yeah, I think so.

work this, okay?

Andrew Kemp (09:38.695)
I get their emails. They're actually great emails. Yeah, they're probably every one of their own email like news that is all actually read because they're always funny.

Ramon Vela (09:47.625)
yeah, check them out. have, I've known the owner for a while, but I'm not part of the community, but I know people who are in the community and they're really, really happy for it. There's a guy from Scentbird. I don't know if you've ever heard of Scentbird before. They're an online perfume or fragrance shop.

And the one of the co-founders loves the community and he's had a lot of really good experience from there. He's actually a really good guy to know as well if you ever want to meet him. But let's get down to the story. So I'm fascinated by this journey. I know how difficult it is because I've covered so many different brands that want to do good in the world, know, who want to

provide funding for charities and you know, one of support charities and all of that. But it's such a difficult thing. mean, it's just, it's not so much difficult. Business is difficult to begin with and to be also a company that's committed to helping or being sustainable and kind of, it's almost like you're going to the extra mile. It's like, it's not, business is hard, but you're making itself and I've just, let's just be honest. It's almost as you're making yourself making it a little bit harder on yourself.

by being like, let's say trying to be sustainable or trying to do all this other stuff. Not that that's a bad thing. I love that. And actually I think this is what consumers love about you. And this is one of the things I do want to point out in this interview is that you do go the extra mile. You don't have to do the things you do. You don't have to, but it's something that you guys are committed to and you want to do and you want to help and so forth. And this is what you've been doing, but I just want people to know that it is difficult and you go through.

a little bit, well lot more extra effort. So walk us through what was the why that pushes you through this? What was the impetus of the idea, the concept that made you think like, yeah, I really, really wanna do this?

Andrew Kemp (11:51.622)
I think where it started was Lucy and I just got together maybe a little while in my relationship as much as this is my brand. so Lucy was kind of sat there thinking I want to make a difference in the world. And we were kind of sitting there as a couple and it was pretty serious quite quickly between us. We're now married and doing well and excited for kind of our first child, which we're really looking forward to. But we're going to

Ramon Vela (12:19.445)
Congrats.

Andrew Kemp (12:20.455)
Yeah, thanks. It's gonna be it's gonna be a lot of fun. And we were sat there thinking, okay, well, Lucy wants to do a guy and make a really big positive impact in the world. And she was working at a bank at the time. And we were kind of sat there was thinking, honey, you know, why don't you roll the dice? You know, why don't we start a charity and have a crack through that? And it wasn't, I don't maybe it was too compliance driven to focused on

kind of ticking boxes and that type of thing and maybe not as dynamic as business can be. And so we thought, well, rather than building another charity, which there's some great charities out there, why don't we try and build the awareness behind the causes that these charities support through a business aspect? And I think that was the real key unlock for us. You have so much money that goes into advertising that gets in front of millions of people every year.

And we're able to do that because we're selling a product off the back of that marketing. We're driving ginormous amounts of awareness for our 45 plus different animal charities that we work with. so sure, there's definitely like a bit of a, what's the word to put it, you know, like a kind of a lead weight holding you down in some respects. I've got to work with 45 different partners that I wouldn't have otherwise had to if I'd just done it easier. But there's also a heap of benefit. I think

The biggest benefit for us, for example, is, you know, we run our Facebook ads that, you know, we get people that come to us and they say that they're the negative Nellies, you know, that that exists everywhere in this on this planet. And they can get you down. And, know, the questions like how much your top CEO is paid or, you know, I bet you don't actually even donate to charities, things like this. And you just sit there after a long, hard day of work doing a charity impact report where

Ramon Vela (14:12.022)
Hmm.

Andrew Kemp (14:17.062)
You kind of think, God, like another hater, you know, and that's fine because guess what? Who comes to the rescue? Our customers every single time. No, I've worked with Andy and Lucy for the past half dozen years. I've read all of their impact reports. I've seen and gone to the farm animal sanctuary or the British Hedgehog Preservation Society or Wolf International and seen their socks on display.

being sold in their charities and I know that they do good things for these charities and there is positives and negatives with everything and it's just about weighing them up. I think it's a really strong thing. I think it works great. We actually started a YouTube channel about it. We're not going into competition with you Ramon, don't worry, called Candid Founders and our whole idea behind that YouTube channel originally was really to focus and share with brands that

Ramon Vela (15:02.017)
.

Andrew Kemp (15:12.431)
It is an incredibly powerful tool if you connect directly your product or service to a cause that makes sense for your business. So we donate 10 % of profits from the sock to the animal on the sock. These support the hedgehogs. I'm always wearing my red squirrel socks and that kind of connection is incredibly strong because it drives that kind of conversation that our customers have. But

you know, do 10 % of profits because it makes sense for your business. Maybe it's to your restaurant and it's to feed the homeless. We think every bit counts and imagine the world we'd live in if 10 % of profits from every business were donated to a cause that made sense for that business. It would be an absolute game changer we think and that's kind of why we started that YouTube channel which is keeping us busy. So

Ramon Vela (16:04.021)
Wow. Yeah, and by the way, no competition. We'll make sure to put a link to that as well. I love when people do stuff. And so that was the idea. Obviously, putting that idea into and executing on the idea is a different thing, right? That is something I think a lot of consumers...

Andrew Kemp (16:08.741)
No, absolutely not.

Ramon Vela (16:28.715)
can appreciate and, know, as a side note here, and we'll talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you've experienced in a second, but I find that not all, but many consumers want to not only feel, they not only want to buy a product, but they want to feel good about buying their product. And they want to find, they want to feel good about the company that they purchased from.

And, and this is one of the reasons why I started my podcast, which is I wanted to show people the, a little bit of behind the scenes, get, have them get to know people, the founders of the show usually, but it could be others, but the founders of these brands that, you know, are featured. And I really wanted them to, to get to know these people a little bit more because I kind of feel like if you know who you're buying from and it's not just some faceless corporation, like I mentioned earlier.

then I don't know, you can decide, ooh, I really like this person. I like what they said. I like why they're so passionate about the business. And it may or may not be centered around a charity, but it's basically just trying to connect on an emotional level. And I think the charity component really helps people connect on an emotional level and really feel good about their purchase. So I think there's definitely a...

an advantage or a benefit from that. The challenging part, of course, is the execution because as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of extra things that you do. You're giving up some of your profits. mean, all of this stuff is sort of like beyond the normal expectation of business. And I'm sure there's other challenges. So why don't we turn to that a little bit? What would have been some of the challenges that, well, yes, let's do the challenges and then I have a separate question after that.

Andrew Kemp (18:21.391)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (18:23.933)
What have been some of the challenges you've experienced?

Andrew Kemp (18:26.296)
Well, there's one thing I wanted to pick up before the challenges was just, you know, the kind of, what was that emotional? Why of why we started the business. And I mentioned we started with metal straws. and that was because we saw this horrible photo of a turtle with a straw stuck down its neck and it looked horrendous. I, we all felt endlessly sorry, for this, you know, this, this plastic straw down the turtle's throat and

Ramon Vela (18:33.993)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Kemp (18:55.481)
We kind of sat there just thinking we've got to be able to do something. And that was when the metal straws was taking off a little bit, definitely early in that space. And the turtles were actually our first sock as well. Just like straight to that connection of, you know, we're here to save the turtles. That was the original kind of business connection. And then it became animals as we really kind of saw that we could support the main thing that saves animals is habitat protection. And so if I'm saving

the puffins in Scotland, then I'm also saving the cormorants and the seagulls in that local area. And so it's kind of a really get kind of two birds who aren't sown is the wrong analogy, definitely running an animal-saving business. But it was that kind of connection that really resonated with our customers to begin with and why we did it from the very, very core. then, I think there's a couple of challenges as well that you talk about that

Ramon Vela (19:37.441)
Thank

Andrew Kemp (19:53.326)
that are really connected to it. I feel like the people that are going to resonate with a mission-driven story are these mission-led people, their missionaries really kind of maybe at their core and they believe in doing business better or the world better, they wanna leave the planet better. so they definitely hold us to a much higher account across everything, whether that's social responsibility in our supply chain and manufacturing,

making sure that all of our factories are certified around the world, that we aren't using slave labor, that we're using great processes to make sure that everyone's getting a fair wage throughout the chain. You mentioned coffee is a prime example like that, where these bigger businesses have really run amok and paid pittance to these cocoa farmers, and now they're changing the game. And that was something that we got picked up on straight away.

where we weren't certifying to begin with, we were lucky because we'd gone out, we'd visited our factories, we'd seen the environments that we were able, we knew that they were good, but we just didn't have that straight, maybe what, seven years ago, but we didn't have that tick from an independent third party that does this for a job. And now we're lucky enough to be B Corp certified, kind of everything of ethical social responsibility throughout the chain. But I tell you what, if you get it wrong for a person around

you know, whether that's carbon emission reporting, being carbon neutral, when you're running a product business, you really, I think, rightfully going to be attacked by these eco warriors. So quite quickly, your top customers can become your top detractors. And that's a challenge. Thankfully, we haven't faced that at all. I've seen some other businesses that have kind of hit that. But what does that mean? It means we need to be really proactive. I need to pay a bit more for all of our socks so that everyone's getting

fair work throughout the supply chain. I need to pay a bit more to offset my carbon emissions throughout the supply chain. And I need to make sure that I'm using non toxic dyes, plastic free packaging, recyclable cardboard. I think my favorite one that I get as a challenge from customers run on is, what about the pandas? You're making bamboo socks, what are the pandas going to eat? And thankfully, we work with bamboo forests, which is an incredibly great plan.

Andrew Kemp (22:17.346)
that is really doing, you know, grows incredibly fast. So thankfully the pandas are not going hungry. But yeah, a couple of things in there around the ESR, I think, which is the biggest challenges, but also, you know, no one else is going to do it because it does cost you a bit more and it helps you do stand out in a lot of ways.

Ramon Vela (22:23.125)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (22:38.465)
Yeah, I mean, it could be a double-edged sword because, you know, one is to try to do, to try to be a band, a brand that does better in the world. It does take time to get certifications and so forth, which is can be costly, like B certification is very costly or, and it's also very time consuming. And there's, there's, it's just a challenge just to do good in the world. And then of course you have people who,

are very strict, I guess, I don't know what you call it, like you said, you know, and want to hold you to account on a lot of different things. And I mean, quite frankly, you're right. mean, but you know, a lot of consumers though understand that, you know, that there are, that this is also a process as well, right? I've worked with, I've worked with a lot of, or had a lot of featured, a lot of brands who really want to do as best as they can, but

Sometimes they just, have to do with what they have and it's, it can be difficult. And I, for you, I realize that it's, could, you know, your biggest customers could also be, like you said, the ones that hold you the most hardest, you know, to account. One of the questions I wanted to ask you before the challenge, and I am sorry, I forgot, but I wanted to, not only do I want to talk about the challenges, but I also want to talk about the wins.

And I meant to ask you this one before, I also, I wanted to find out in every life of a brand, there's different milestones in terms of successes and, and, you know, phases and whatnot. And what was that first phase, if you can recall where you and Lucy realized like, wow, this could be a business. Like, you know, maybe it was a sale, maybe it was.

getting into a retail outlet, maybe, you know, whatever it was. what was that first milestone where you thought, wow, this, this could really be turned into something.

Andrew Kemp (24:46.369)
Well, Lucy was thinking of shutting the business down and it got to that point where we were thinking, okay, what are we going to do with a few thousand socks? And now we have a couple hundred thousand socks. So I'm pleased to say that we didn't. But it really did get that bad. We were sat there during COVID thinking, you know, my mother-in-law was doing fulfillment, know, picking, packing out orders, of picking them up, you know,

going through, here's Sally's order. I'll add the squirrels, I'll add the hedgehogs. And we were worried about this global pandemic. So we were thinking, actually, we might have to shut this baby down. And that was so hard. But we actually made the decision with the help of Lucy's mom, just just saying, don't be silly. I'm driving to the post office. I'm dropping the parcels off. I'm touching no one, seeing no one, don't take this away from me. I love doing it. And so

We're sitting there thinking, okay, we've got to do this. All right, well, whatever. We'll take an overdraft on the credit card, know, maxes out and we'll try some ads and we'll sell these socks. And in two weeks we were sold out. Having never run a Facebook ad or anything like that before, just getting in front of customers, talking about it more, and we sold out instantly. And I think that was the point where for Lucy,

the amount of money that we were earning in the business was more than we were earning from our jobs. And we kind of sat there and thought, gee, what is, have we caught lightning in a bottle here? And we were thinking, you know, looking at that, those numbers and thinking, wow, that's you know, incredible month. You know, if only we had more socks, if only we spent more time on it. And Lucy and I divided and conquered as a business and

Ramon Vela (26:38.305)
Thank

Andrew Kemp (26:43.791)
Lucy had her birthday actually that weekend and then had the birthday on the weekends, handed her a notice in on the Monday. After she'd sold out all of her socks, praying that we're going to be able to do a quick restock, couldn't. Obviously we had a while to wait from our socks in Turkey being manufactured and then shipped across. And that was the thing I think that that first win, that first moment, that first phase where

Hold on, think we've got something here. And all we heard from customers was, amazing, I love this, you're doing the right thing and I feel so great. And now we're the number one rated sock in the UK on Trustpile and we've got a great review ratio there, which is just tremendous for us to be one of the highest rated clothing brands in the world is unbelievable. And still no one's heard of us, so.

Ramon Vela (27:37.099)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Kemp (27:39.466)
We're just trying to get our name out there. We're just trying to share the fact that we make great socks that save animals that you can look good in. And yeah, that's kind of, I guess how we've progressed. I've also got a phase two Ramon. Can I be, you know, a win two? Can I share? The next one was, you know, you start to grow a budding team, an exciting team. We hired, you know, some young university graduates who took

Ramon Vela (27:55.807)
Yeah, definitely.

Andrew Kemp (28:08.756)
a screamer on us, they took the chance on us. And we were sitting there thinking, okay, we've got mouths to feed now. And it's not just us, it's not just our kind of baby that, know, worst comes to worst, Lucy and I go back to work. We've now got responsibility, we felt at the time. And we were kind of sat there thinking, actually, we had our one of our first challenges, a lower cycles period, we'd run out of socks, what were we doing? How are we going to

kind of recover that how we were going to make payroll. And these kinds of stories you hear make businesses and thankfully it did for us when we actually connected into retailers. So I see so many great brands out there, great businesses that do well, that are so focused on selling through online. It's almost like it's the only thing. And Ramon, you and I might be old enough to remember buying from the high street, you know, going down to Toys R Us to pick up a toy.

with mom and dad and that was how you bought toys. And it still is the case. Funnily enough, the high street isn't dead. The local shopping markets aren't totally dead. They're still there in a different guise. And we went from zero retailers to a thousand retailers in 18 months. And that was the second phase where Lucy and I looked at each other again and thought, what? Like, how are we in so many different places all around the world?

that quickly and we worked with a little known platform called fair and we did super well there and that was the one where I started to think, you know what, this little team that we've built is doing some great work and we are, you know, we've actually got something here. We feel like we can make a difference and we can make payroll. We can do, you we can grow the business and we can go even further. So that was the second one.

Ramon Vela (30:04.513)
Well, and because I like this also to be not only for the consumer, but also for any business owner out there listening. Talk to me a little bit about fair because the way that you described it once before was really interesting because I just feel like it might be helpful for other business owners who might be listening to this. How did fair help you, you know, reach out to these retailers and or and or kind of I know you.

and I might have been mistaken, you kind of, you almost made it sound like it was sort of like an alternative to Facebook a little bit, but maybe I got that wrong. Walk me through that a little bit.

Andrew Kemp (30:41.951)
You

Andrew Kemp (30:45.683)
It's like, think the easiest way to describe it is you have Amazon, right? Where a brand like me would sell to a consumer, you know, that's, know, they get their Amazon parcel and fair is basically the same thing. It's Amazon, but me as a brand sells to a retailer. So, you know, maybe there's a shop that is that, you know, a sock shop in the mall and it's got 10 different brands of socks and they want to

get a cool new sock into their store. They go onto fair and they find brands like mine and they buy the socks and why is it such a, it's a crazy world. This kind of, you know, where does a retailer get their products from? Because they're sat there. They want something that's going to sell that looks good on this store that is attractive, you know, to them because they're a business owner. They're a small business owner sitting there. They're not actually buying your products. They're investing in it because they're putting.

Ramon Vela (31:29.803)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Kemp (31:42.92)
couple hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, 2000 bucks, you know, that's a couple hundred socks. They want to know for sure that they're going to sell so fair essentially becomes this trusted marketplace where there's a lot of reviews behind the product. You can get trust as a confidence as a retailer to buy a product and so we did really well there. We did some funny things, know, we saw we started selling our socks to podiatrists who they work with feet all day.

but it's a medical field and service businesses want to sell a product. And we were able to sell to them, guys, we've got the number one sock in the country. We're trusted by the College of Podiatrists and you know, why don't you try us? And so we were able to go from zero retailers to a thousand retailers, a thousand stores, a thousand business owners in 18 months off the back of fare.

just incredible. you know, now, the other day, I was walking around and you know, in New York, and I happened upon my socks. And I, you know, I know, as a business owner, I should have, I should have sat there should have researched, but an absolute pinch me moment, you know, you're there on holidays, not thinking too much about the kind of day job, the work. And you happen across your socks, and you're sitting there, just, my god, I no idea, you know,

Ramon Vela (32:53.14)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (33:09.729)
And was that with a consumer or a retailer?

Andrew Kemp (33:12.674)
retailer. I'm still, we've sold millions of socks now at this point and I'm still yet to see our socks on someone that I don't know. Still, I can't believe it.

Ramon Vela (33:21.249)
It's going to happen. It's going to happen, I'm sure. But yeah, no, I love those moments. that's really interesting. And I'm curious, like those people who buy from fair, are there small retail shops or are they larger retail shops? Because it would seem to me that if you got into fair, you started selling and you started growing the number of retailers that you were working with.

that would actually also be good evidence or proof that, you know, maybe a larger retailer might see some, your success from there. might say, Hey, we want to carry you guys too. I don't know. It just feels like that might be a good strategy as well.

Andrew Kemp (34:09.387)
absolutely. I mean, when you're kind of going out to these large main brand, you know, shopping, shopping malls and brands that are within there, you need to be able to prove to a buyer that you are going to sell. And I have now a thousand different retailers who have come back to me and keep coming back to me. And they come back to me every 60 days, roughly. They buy

another 100 socks and so every two months they're buying 100 socks, you know, and I can show them, hey, this is the small amount that they've got kind of on their wall. What would you do in your big stores? It's an easy, you know, an easy kind of a math problem rather than anything else. How many socks are you selling? In you know, at your in your department store? How much space is it taking up? Well, that's interesting, because I take up, you know, a foot 30 centimeters,

of space and I'm selling a couple hundred socks a month. Is anyone doing better than that? And what a great, easy model, right? Just straight away as a brand. And I also think it's what's really interesting is I get in front of people that wouldn't have otherwise found me. Not everyone uses the internet, you know? I mean, pretty much everyone does now, but maybe not people, people don't feel confident purchasing it. You know, maybe they want to feel the bamboo fiber because

Ramon Vela (35:12.277)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (35:27.583)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Kemp (35:38.16)
How is bamboo soft? You know, I've seen it in the forest, the wood's not soft, but actually I want to feel it, I want to squeeze it, I want to look at it, I want to, is this a great product? Does it actually save animals? Okay, what does it look like? What is the back? All that type of stuff. People want tactile. So there's definitely massive advantages on both sides for sure.

Ramon Vela (36:00.063)
Yeah. And then, you know, people who see you on the shelf too, and who don't know anything about you, you know, it's a different sort of perspective in the sense that they're looking at it mainly from

they may not even know anything about your chair, the work you do with animals, right? They may not even know any of that to begin with. They're looking at it like, ooh, that looks appealing, or I love those animals on that sock. Ooh, and then they start reading the label and like, ooh, it's out of bamboo. How interesting. You know what I mean? They see it from a different perspective. It's more like they see it, they're attracted to it, then they learn the story, and then probably that just gives them more confidence around that.

I want to start talking about the products, but I just have one last question. In just this short time, you've kind of given us a really sort of good view of starting a business because you've had your concept, your idea, you had your milestone, you had your challenges.

Uh, you have, you know, another milestone with the retail. So there's definitely ups and downs, know, Lucy and you were wanting to close the business. I mean, this is like the roller coaster ride of business. Uh, people don't, don't actually see all they see is like the success. They don't actually see the moments where like you're ready to give up. Um, and, and, uh, and like this close to giving up. So let's wrap this, this conversation up with.

Andrew Kemp (37:15.29)
You

Ramon Vela (37:30.919)
maybe with a bow and let's call that bow some lessons. If you were to kind of summarize some of the lessons you've learned, what would be those lessons?

Andrew Kemp (37:41.698)
I think a couple of things is once you've got a great product, start selling to retail. Even though we've had COVID, still only 30 % of sales goes through online. So it's a really tactical lesson there, really, you know, focus, get in front of retailers. You know, they're the ultimate people that have been selling, you know, we work with retailers themselves, you know, socks for 20, 30 years. You want a more discerning customer.

You want to be trusted by someone? Go there. They'll tell you what's what, you know, have you got the product right? Does it look good? Cause they, you know, if they don't come back and they voted with their foot or their feet, I should say. The second part then I think as well is there is a certain amount of risk that you can take in the business, but you still need to keep your fridge full and you need to eat well. need to sleep well and pause. Just going to cough.

Ramon Vela (38:40.001)
Oh yeah, shouldn't worry. Pause. Go ahead. You ready?

Andrew Kemp (38:46.361)
Come back.

Ramon Vela (38:47.625)
Okay, I'll come back in. Are you sure you're good? You want some water or anything?

Andrew Kemp (38:51.213)
Yeah. Let's just have that and just have a little bit more.

Andrew Kemp (38:58.617)
Nah, feel good. Feel good. Thanks, Ron.

Ramon Vela (39:00.865)
Okay, all right, unpause, unpause, one, two, three, go.

Andrew Kemp (39:06.553)
And I think just on that risk point, it's all about being able to take enough risk for you and your family. And I think this is something that's not talked about enough is that Lucy was able to leave her full-time job because I still had a full-time job. And within us as a family, what we were able to create was take on a bit more risk as a family because I wasn't taking any risk at the time. And then it got to the point where the business was growing so much.

But yet still, I didn't leave. And it wasn't until, you know, we kind of bought our own home, our dream home that we're in a good position financially, that we weren't, we didn't feel like we were taking any risk, you know, where a new family were coming on without our first child. And we didn't stop any of that because we were, I think there's this, you know, need and push in society and this hustle culture to take this just ginormous risk that could potentially ruin your life. And that wasn't something I was.

willing to take and risk with my family. you know, Lucy was able to roll the dice because I wasn't rolling the dice. I was steady Eddie. I was doing well in a, in a finance job. And I think that's something that people don't appreciate enough is that, you know, we went for it and then it got to the point where actually it was more risky for me to stay in steady Eddie land because I'd wake up at, you know, 80 years old and have some regrets that I

didn't roll the dice myself. So I think they're probably the big two, one really tactical, one really ethereal wisdom that I give to people. Don't rush off to leave your full-time job if you feel like there's a bit too much risk there. Get to a point where, you know, there's no such thing as a day where you don't sell anything. We used to have days where we didn't sell anything. That's not a problem. But you look at that and then you know you've got bills to pay and it's, you don't sleep well if that's the case.

Thankfully we've never had one of those days because of how we did it.

Ramon Vela (41:08.905)
Yeah, well, I agree with you and it's a lesson I've had to learn, but yeah, I've seen it in examples with a lot of the founders that we've had on the show. A lot of people from the media think that, you got to quit your job, go all in and so forth. You can still go all in and just be strategic about it.

You know, the person, there's lots of examples, but the one person that comes to mind is a guy named John Bookes, John Tabis from a brand called the Bookes. They're sort of they deliver flowers and things like that. And they're over a hundred million dollars now and way over, think, closer to a hundred million. And they, that's how he started. I mean, he was still doing consulting work for two or three years.

Andrew Kemp (41:49.965)
It's

Ramon Vela (42:01.953)
after starting the business. so, you know, you don't, there's different, you can be strategic about it. You don't have to give it all in. There is a point where you reach where you say, okay, now I gotta, now I gotta go on full time and so forth. But you know, you don't have to do it right off the bat. So yeah, I 100 % agree with you.

Andrew Kemp (42:17.814)
No. Yeah. And Ramon, if we had done that, it would have been a car crash because I would have rather than investing all of my wood but to behind the arrow of bamboo socks, I would have gone all in on metal straws, plastic t-shirts, recyclable totes, something nobody ever wanted. But over time we learned so much. think that's also, you know, underrated is that, you know, that business you mentioned spent three years learning easy.

The stakes didn't cost them anything. And now there are multi hundred million dollar businesses. Incredible.

Ramon Vela (42:55.359)
Yeah. Yeah. And also there's, you know, there's a lot of pressure that goes into being all in and having a certain amount of money and it dwindling away, right? With you, you guys have that ability to have choices that you can make and it free you up.

from having, I mean, I'm sure there's still lots of stress and anxiety and so forth, but it freed you up a little bit so that you could make those mistakes and not feel like it's the end of the world because you guys, you know, we're still gonna survive. You still had a job and so forth. So yeah, I got it. I agree with you. So let's talk about the brand. the company is, let me just give out the website for those who want to check out what we've been talking about for.

30 minutes or so, it's barekind.com, which is B-A-R-E, and then the word kind, K-I-N-D, .com. You go over there, it's just a really interesting website full of socks, and has all the information on there. I love how you guys break down the sock, the technology, the conditioning, the heel hugger, all of this stuff, you break it down.

I'm going to have you guys have you talk about it in second, but go to the website so you can take a look at what we're talking about. Barekind.com. And we're also going to have the links to some of the other places that you mentioned. Fare.com as well. And some of the, and, and your show will have that on our podcast description. But, uh, Andrew, if you wouldn't mind for someone listening to this right now, really engaged in what you've been talking about and understanding like, wow, this guy's both him and his wife have gone through all this.

All these things to really live a life that, you know, live a life doing the things that they wanted to do, which is to have an impact on the world. You know, they're really engaged with this. Now they're asking themselves, where do I start? Where do I go? What do I do? Where do you want them to start with their journey with the brand? Obviously, bear.com, bearkind.com. But is there any place, any sock, anything you want to talk about? Like, do you want to break down?

Ramon Vela (45:11.169)
a little bit more about the fabric and everything else in the design.

Andrew Kemp (45:17.182)
Yeah, absolutely. So there's a few things that, you know, we try to get people, you know, aware of with our brand is that it's split straight down the middle. Do people buy the sock or do they buy the color? And kind of so they're buying the animal, they're buying the color. And that's one that we really tried to work out how can we is there something we can do there, but 50 50 split cuts, but it's so choose your favorite animal. That's the most important thing.

something that you resonate with that you want to save, that you feel confident and comfortable to wear. And maybe fashion forward, think about the outfits that you're wearing and with. And then know from us with our sock technology, patent pending, we need to kind of get something on there around like our sock air conditioner, the heel hugger, the seamless toes. We're introducing the size of the socks in the welts in the kind of

the top part of the sock, which we're really excited about. So we actually have the best sock in market as well. So from a performance standpoint, we try to talk about that as well. Bamboo, tremendous material. If you look at it under a microscope, it looks identical to what it looks like in a big kind of Japanese bamboo forest from afar. So it lets air in, but also traps the right amount of air. So you don't get sweaty, sweat wicking, all that sort of stuff. So it's an incredible sock.

that does good for the planet, does good for animals. And you really can't go wrong with just jumping in and then having a look at all of the socks that are available. You'll surprise yourself with the socks that we have out there. We have everything from seals to whales, squirrels, know, echidnas or hedgehogs, depending on which country you're in, platypus, kangaroos, everything in between.

So really just find the animal that you want to save, find the color that you're comfortable wearing and go for it know that you've got the best sock on the market.

Ramon Vela (47:25.545)
Wow, yeah, I'm looking at this and I love the Penguin one. That looks a lot of fun. But you also have bundles, right? So you have bundles. if someone is not sure of what they want, but they want to maybe try a couple of different types, walk us through those options.

Andrew Kemp (47:30.473)
yeah?

Andrew Kemp (47:45.27)
Yeah, we've got everything from, you know, our Pawesome 2 pair, which is kind of two pack of dog socks, all the way up to the cat lovers, know, bird lovers, really kind of try to work out for those people that are absolutely passionate about one particular area or color. We kind of try to make it a bit more available for them. We know we've got, you know, a stocking big range now over a hundred different designs.

where we save all these different types of animals and some people that's just a bit too much. So we try to do a bit of curation for them and give them a little bit of a discount. mean, it's a bit boring for those consumers out there, but we do a discount because as a business, the more socks we sell, the more animals we save. So we're giving you guys a bit of a discount off the back of that to try and encourage people to purchase and everyone loves a discount. At the end of the day, that's for sure where we've seen that.

We know that with this particular bundle, maybe we're saving the rainforest trust. One of our biggest charity partners, we are able to support so many different animals in a rainforest. maybe people want to support just that animal trust, so they buy a 10 pack or whatever that looks like. And then for those people that are really kind of risky, maybe they're feeling a bit lucky, we've got a mystery pack and that's a 10 pack. We sell it for half price and we've got

really kind of any animal that you'd like to see across our store. We've got that available for you. And again, to that point of, know, save more, you know, buy more socks, save more animals. We try to make that as easy as possible as well.

Ramon Vela (49:28.095)
Wow. and I'm looking at here, so it's a bare kind.com. It, it, you have, on the website, you'll see an area where it says, all the different organizations you work with. It has a breakdown of the design and all the different things, talk, you know, you mentioned the stay up technology, the sock air conditioning. love that phrase. Heel hugger, the stay fresh fiber, the made to last.

So, you know, all the benefits and features of SOC. And then I love that you also have in the section where you talked about supporting over 35 charities around the world, you talk, say a little bit about what you're doing, which is like providing specialist food for a family of young fox cubs for 10 months, funded x-rays and veterinary tests for badgers, protected over 261 acres of tropical rainforest for a year.

You've helped with 270 turtle hatchlings saved as part of the projects in Indonesia. So the list goes on and on of all these things that these charities do to, these charities that you work with do around the world. So it's pretty cool. I love the features. I love the pictures. All the socks are so bright and so like colorful. And,

And there's also, you also have an affiliate program. You're obviously a B Corp, which by the way, for people out there, I know I've talked about this on other shows, but it's, it's worth repeating. B Corp certification is really a certification that where the business owners state in, you know, in the certification that they will

do certain things, they will be good to the world, be good to the planet, be good to their employees, they will treat their employees a certain way, they will work with manufacturers and suppliers in a certain way, they'll only work with certain ones that also follow specific rules. Really, this is not required, this is not regulated. This is something that businesses who care about the community, care about their employees, this is something that they do to go above and beyond.

Ramon Vela (51:45.595)
what's needed. So it actually costs some money to get into this. costs a lot of time and resources to, get certified and stay certified. So this is actually, you know, bear kinds version of going the extra mile in the business world. They don't have to do this, but it really shows their commitment and their dedication to doing good and in the world. And, and quite frankly, for me, it's another reason to help build trust.

because I love to see this because again, this is not something that's required. This is something you do. Business is hard enough and you're adding onto that, but it's because this is so important to you and it's so meaningful to you. so for me, like that's, that's all I need to know is like your B Corp set of, you know, certified is, is that's a great trust builder for, my perspective. So kudos to you. Thank you.

Andrew Kemp (52:38.227)
Yeah, thank you so much. I tell you what, it's not an easy certification to go for. Another cheap one either. And, but we really want to communicate to everyone instantly that, you know, we work with that we advise the stocks that they can trust us that they see our products and they know with the B Corp logo that we're doing everything environmentally, ethically, socially responsible that you possibly could. So that was, that was a really important one for us.

And so we're really trying to push that as much as possible on top of the fact that we save animals. And I think my favorite sock technology that we have is Gorilla Tough Koala Soft. I think what a great kind of encapsulation of our product is that bamboo is as soft as cashmere, but lasts way longer. You could never wear a cashmere jumper on your feet without totally destroying it, but our socks don't go pilly.

They actually last, they're strong. Our view Ramon is that you've been let down by big sock. You know, there's the big banks and there's the big socks and the big sock of the world has really reduced their quality. They've sat there for too long, kind of saving money. They're now owned by private equity and we think that it could be done better and hence why we think we've had good success with BearKinds now. you know.

up against Big Soc will kind of be our next Monica that we're going after.

Ramon Vela (54:07.134)
Mm-hmm.

Oh, I love that. And you're right. mean, for those who don't know, a lot of clothes do end up in landfills. so socks, and I've had my share of this too, socks that are made poorly are made well. They tear, they start, you get holes in them right away.

then of course, and you don't wanna wear them, it's hard to donate those now, you end up throwing them away or they end up getting in the landfill. And it's just, that's another problem. So if at all possible, you try to buy clothes, socks in this case, that are gonna last, stand the test of time and are also gonna be, the added benefit is that...

they also are doing well, good in the world, you know, in terms of this impact with animals and so forth. So, well, it actually does well on several different levels,

Andrew Kemp (55:04.294)
I mean...

Andrew Kemp (55:07.76)
And like, you know, this is something that you would never know unless you were in the sock business is socks are made in, you know, you're like, it doesn't cost you that much more to make the best quality sock. But when you're making hundreds of thousands of socks a year, five cents is a lot of money. But you know, that difference between of an extra five cents on each individual sock is a world apart.

And it boggles my mind to this day that people don't choose the best socks. So we knit our socks on a 168 needle or a 200 needle machine, but Private Equity got in there and they saw that and they thought, why do we need 168 needles? Why do we need 200 needles? And the sock technician responds politely, well, this is the best quality sock. This is what's going to last the longest. But then Private Equity sees it and they go,

Well, all I see is that we could do the same thing at 144 needles and save 10%, 20%. And that's what they do. And they go in and they strip the cost out and then you get these socks that are terrible. They feel awful and they don't last anywhere near as long, which might be good because then people just think you need to buy more socks, which isn't what you want to do to kind of save the planet. It's best to buy great socks that last for a long time.

And yeah, we're really, it's hard to, especially the way that socks are needed, really hard to repair so that they need to be made to last on your foot. So that's kind of how we design them.

Ramon Vela (56:45.011)
Yeah, no, well put. So let's tell people where they can buy the socks and where you want them to go in terms of any other websites or whatnot.

Andrew Kemp (56:55.803)
So you can find us at www.barekind.com. B-A-R-E-K-I-N-D. Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, the usual suspects. Chuck us a like and a subscribe. If you wanna do business in a better way on our YouTube channel, YouTube at Candid Founders, C-A-N-D-I-D Founders, where we're just trying to make the world a better place. And Ramon, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Ramon Vela (57:26.389)
Great. And then for businesses who want to do business with you, where do they go?

Andrew Kemp (57:31.109)
Candidfounders.com. That's where we help other business owners on their fair side of the business. And so yeah, that would be amazing if you want to check that out. I would also love to talk to any and every business owner that is interested in a power of purpose and profit and how you can join us together. So yeah, that'd be great.

Ramon Vela (57:50.847)
And then if they want to carry your socks in their retail shops.

Andrew Kemp (57:54.257)
We'll leave the link with Ramon and you can check out our store. Search for Bearkind bamboo socks on fair and you'll find us. We ship all around the world. So if you're an international audience Ramon, you will find us.

Ramon Vela (58:07.317)
Great. Well, that's fantastic, man. Thank you. I want to be respectful every time because you got a lot of you're running a business and so forth. But I appreciate your time. This has been a fantastic conversation. I've learned so much and I really love learning and promoting and featuring companies like yours because I love what you do, not only from a business standpoint, but also just in terms of how you're impacting the world. So thank you for what you do. Thanks for for being on the show and I appreciate it. I really do.

Andrew Kemp (58:36.633)
Thank you, Raman. Great show. Really appreciate your time and an honor to be to be on the show. Really appreciate it.

Ramon Vela (58:41.857)
It's definitely my honor. Everyone out there, we have just had Andrew Kemp, who is the owner, along with his wife Lucy Kemp, of Bearkind. You can go to the website, bearkind.com to check them out. I highly recommend that you do. The socks are amazing. They look really cute and beautiful. And I love the penguin one myself, but there's plenty. There's whales, there's all sorts of different animals there. This is a great gift for Father's Day, which is coming up.

and for birthdays and of course the holidays as they arrive. So keep this in mind. What I would do is I would probably go to their website, sign up for their newsletter. That way you keep up to date on their products and promotions and everything they're doing. Again, that's bairkind.com. We're going to have that link as well as the other links on our podcast description, which you can find on Apple, Spotify, pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts. Simply type in the story of a brand show and you should be able to find it. Beyond that,

As always, stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy, and one last thing. We've all been going through a lot the last few years, pandemic and economics, the economy, geopolitical wars, politics, tariffs, all this stuff going on. Let's just do ourselves a favor and remember that everyone is going through something. It could be a financial loss. It could be having someone ill in their family or their loved ones.

It could be just a stress of the day-to-day things that go on. Let's just do ourselves a favor and be a little bit kinder. And I know we can make this human experience a better one. Beyond that, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to another episode of the story of a brand.