Meet a restless young entrepreneur who is giving new meaning to running your own business, and looking stylish while doing it
They say you shouldn’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. But when it comes to Nic Haralambous, you’re going to have a walk a mile in his socks as well. And who wouldn’t want to?
They’re bright, snazzy, polka-dotted, chequered, barbershop-striped: a whole range of witty designs to make your feet look and feel good.
The online sock-selling business may seem a long walk away from Nic’s origins as a mobile technology entrepreneur – he was a cofounder of the Motribe community platform, which was later acquired by Mxit, the chat-based social network – but it’s all proof of a restless ambition and an eye for an extraordinary opportunity.
Nic’s limited-edition socks, available at http://nicsocks.com, are sourced, designed, and manufactured in South Africa, from silky, durable bamboo.
He set up his business in only six weeks, spending a mere R5,000 on getting up and running, and selling 800 pairs in just 10 days.
We caught up with Nic for a chat about about the fine art of hot-footing your way to fame and fortune, in a world where nothing ever stands still.
Q: If you could change one thing about yourself for the better, what would that be, and why?
I’d like to take more and larger risks more often. I think that being slow and steady is good, but sometimes you need to really risk a lot to gain a lot.
Q: What do you love most about change?
I am often frustrated with repetition and monotony. Change often allows for a fresh perspective on the mundane happenings that often define life.
Q: Why did you make the change from mobile technology into the very different world of socks?
I don’t think it’s so much a change as an evolution. In the mobile technology space you either have to move really fast and raise a lot of money to make something incredible or really make something phenomenal.
With Motribe I worked hard at something I had become good at and found a passion inside of that.
Once we exited to Mxit I felt like I needed a break from the same industry, people and flow. I needed a change in direction.
I looked at the space I was in and the options open to me and decided that ecommerce was something that I wanted to explore. Fashion is a new industry for me to be working in but I’ve been interested in men’s fashion for as long as I can remember, just never as directly as I am now.
Once I started to dig into the fashion space in South Africa, I realised there was a lot of room to really create a unique brand that was online first.
Q: To what extent did you have to your change your mindset and your approach to business when you moved into online retailing?
To be clear, I haven’t really moved into retail in the traditional sense at all. I have built a business that sells men’s fashion items the way I want to buy them.
For the first year and a half I refused to stock my socks in traditional retail outlets because they wanted me to conform to their broken pre-existing ideas of retail and I didn’t want to do it.
The major shift really happened when I realised that I was my biggest customer and that I should be building this business for myself and people like me. This gave me insight into how to treat my customers and create my product.
Q: What is the toughest part of being a startup entrepreneur in South Africa?
I think that the social hurdles are pretty tough to overcome. Sure, the government regulations and red tape make it tough to get started but those are interesting barriers that help me to see who’s really serious about their businesses.
Socially however, we’re a society that fears failure and likes to point and laugh at those who don’t make it. What we should be doing is applauding those who try and pushing more people to take the leap.
Our economy is not going to thrive with more high paid engineers and consultants. We need entrepreneurs to start businesses that grow to employ people and add to the economic growth of the country.
Q: How restless are you, by nature? Are you already feeling the urge to expand or diversify into other areas of business?
I’m still stunned that I haven’t had anyone diagnose me as ADHD just yet. I’m incredibly restless by nature but that’s one of the things I’ve been working hard to rectify. I’ve learned that most things that are valuable take a lot of time to build.
Very, very few things that are easy and quick to build go on to really be incredible or long lasting. So I’m trying to stay the course and really build a valuable brand over the next decade.
Q: What would you say is the single biggest way in which the Internet has changed your life?
It still amazes me how much we take for granted that we have a mobile devices in our pockets every day that quite literally has any and every piece of information in the entire world in it. Think about that for a second.
Anything you could ever hope to know is in your pocket right now. That’s the single biggest change for me. Access to knowledge.
Q: Where do you go when you feel like a change of scenery?
Any kind of travel helps me break from the normalcy of my day. Whether it’s a ride on my scooter somewhere or going to another country once or twice a year, I think travel is an integral part of change and helping to keep your life in balance.
Q: What’s your own personal formula for coping with change in your life?
I thrive on change so I’ve never seen it as something to cope with but to embrace and make part of my daily life as much as I can. But when things do get tough I embrace the fall, frustration and struggle.
Once I’ve really faced the change and hurdle head on, I’m able to rationalise it and then go with it.
Q: How are you hoping to change the way people look at socks?
I’m hoping to change the way men look at fashion and accessories, not just socks. It’s time that men understood that feeling good about how you’re dressed is okay.
Socks are not just things to put on your feet and into a shoe. They can be a statement. You can feel unique and actually make an effort to stand out a bit.
Q: How many times a day do you change your socks?
On average twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night.
Q: Do you have a motto or a philosophy that guides you in business?
My business philosophy for the business is really simple. Incredible product matched with amazing customer service. Those two things over time, can’t steer you wrong.
Q: What have you learned from running startups, that you are able to apply in other areas of your life?
Patience. I’ve learned patience. Building things of value take time; relationships, businesses, partnerships, products, brands, they all take time. Startups have also taught me that more often than not, things aren’t as bad as you think they are.
Q: Can you give us some insight into how you design your socks? Do you specifically design for “footwear”, or do you simply find colours and designs you like, and then apply them to your socks?
The design process can be a bit difficult for me sometimes. I’m not a trained designer and have taught myself how to use photoshop and various other tools that allow me to make the designs.
The process is also quite intricate because I’m not designing alone. It’s taken me almost two years to get a design flow working well with my manufacturers.
Basically I am on the lookout for inspiration wherever I go. If I find it, I snap a picture with my phone and then try to turn that into a sock design.
I then send off my very small and square block with the design on it to my factory designer and he works with it to help me turn it into a sock design.
But that’s just the very basic principle behind the process!
Q: As difficult as it may be to make a choice, do you have a particular favourite among all the sock designs you sell?
The Barbershop Socks will probably always be my favourite pair of socks. They were the first pair that I designed and have been our best seller consistently.
We’ve even made a Baby Barber to match for all those little lads out there to match their dads.
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