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Name: Nice Laundry
One-Liner Pitch: Nice Laundry makes it easy and affordable for men to replace the holey, mismatched socks in their drawer with a completely new set of stylish socks.
Why It's Taking Off: It's like Warby Parker for men's socks.
Tech startups have tried to disrupt everything from payment processing to taxi services, but one new startup has launched a Kickstarter campaign to tackle what may be the greatest challenge yet: change the way men feel about their socks.
Nice Laundry, a startup founded by two former LivingSocial employees, aims to help men get off on a better foot with their sock drawers. The e-commerce service offers curated packs of stylish socks modeled after the founders' favorite high-end versions, but offered at a significant discount. With Nice Laundry, you can get six pairs of colorful designer socks for $39 or replace your entire drawer with 18 pairs of socks for under $90. You can choose from one of several themed packs, including the Exec (mostly solids), Wild Child (all camouflage and Aztec) and the Dreamer (a mix of stripes and dots).
"We set out to build a company with the mission of improving the relationship that guys have with their sock drawers," Ricky Choi, co-founder of Nice Laundry, told Mashable. Most men, he says, have a bad relationship with their sock drawer because it's full of "boring" black, white and grey socks that are "older than you can remember." The obvious solution is to start fresh with a whole new set of socks, but as he points out, "starting fresh is expensive and a time-consuming process." That's what Nice Laundry hopes to change.
The team launched a Kickstarter campaign earlier this month and attracted nearly 300 backers in the first day. They say is the most backers in the first 24 hours for any fashion project on the crowdfunding site, based on data they pulled from Kicktraq. Nice Laundry hit its target Kickstarter funding goal of $30,000 on Monday and still has 32 days left in the campaign.
The idea for Nice Laundry came while Choi and his co-founder Phil Moldavski were working side by side at LivingSocial. Moldavski would often show up to the office with what Choi says were "ratty white Adidas dress socks." Choi -- a self-described sock connoisseur -- convinced Moldavski to upgrade his sock collection, but the difficulty and cost of actually doing so clued both into the business potential for offering an easier alternative. The duo quit their jobs together at LivingSocial last summer and started working on Nice Laundry.
In addition to giving customers the option to buy packs of socks, Choi says the company is also experimenting with the option to sign up for an annual sock subscription that would give customers six pairs of socks every three months for $149 per year. Nice Laundry is also working with a textile recycling company to give customers the option to mail in their old socks (with prepaid shipping labels) to be recycled. In this way, you can kill two socks with one stone: refresh your sock drawer and help others in need.
"We really believe that companies being built these days should focus on issues like sustainability from day one," Moldavski said. "This is something we felt really strongly about."
The startup has partnered with a factory in South Korea to produce the socks and says it can keep the costs low for consumers by cutting out the middle man and relying on a small staff and minimal advertising to keep overhead costs at a minimum. The money from the successful Kickstarter campaign will go towards funding production, and in the future Nice Laundry plans to raise additional funding through investors.