Road to Challenger Brands: How Bombas’ Product Expansion Roadmap Has Been Guided by Its Mission for Social Good

While other digitally native brands may have pioneered the buy-one-give-one model in which an item is donated to those in need for every item sold, it was Bombas that figured out how to create a profitable sustainable company—despite only raising $4 million in capital. The sock brand recently expanded into underwear, given it's the second most requested item by homeless shelters. As a result, the DTC brand is now donating socks, underwear and t-shirts to those who don't have a permanent place to call home. Ahead of her appearance at Adweek's upcoming Challenger Brands event, Bombas CMO Kate Huyett discussed the company's origins, the story behind its product expansion efforts and what sets the brand apart from its competitors. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Adweek: How did you come up with the idea for Bombas? Huyett: Bombas was launched after the co-founders learned socks are the number one requested item at homeless shelters and they wanted to do something to help. This was around the time that Tom’s and Warby Parker’s give-back model was gaining a lot of traction. That’s when they established the brand’s mission to donate a pair for every pair purchased. But in order to donate a lot of socks, Bombas had to sell a lot of socks and create a product that was different from anything out there. After spending two and a half years of research and development—dedicated to making the most comfortable socks by updating the commoditized everyday socks with technology and innovation often seen in high-end athletic socks—Bombas was born. Since launching in 2013, Bombas has grown into a successful, multi-category company that specializes in the most comfortable versions of the clothes you wear everyday—socks, t-shirts and underwear—and we’ve donated more than 45 million items to our 3,500+ Giving Partners, comprised of homeless shelters and community organizations in all 50 states. Why did you choose to expand your product offerings to underwear? Over the years, Bombas has become known for changing the industry with socks and creating the most comfortable version of a product most people never thought twice about. After seeing the impact and demand around our socks, we wanted to apply the same comfort-focused approach to other items people wear closest to their bodies. We used our comfort expertise to launch into apparel with t-shirts in 2019, so we’re excited to now offer underwear. With the introduction of underwear, we’ll provide the homeless community with the top three essential clothing items: #1 socks, #2 underwear, #3 t-shirts. Can you describe the typical Bombas customer? Our products are thoughtfully designed and built to appeal to a wide range of individuals and fit real human bodies—we want to be a brand that appeals to everyone and offer comfortable and inclusive products. Our product offerings in general are catered to anyone looking for a little extra comfort in the clothes they wear everyday. That said, our customers span across all ages, genders and walks of life. Bombas has broad geographical appeal as well because of the different products and styles we offer—from No Shows to Merino t-shirts, hiking socks and more. Our co-founders don’t come from a fashion background, so it was important to them to approach the design of our products from a consumer lens to make the most comfortable, elevated basics out there. Bombas reaches new and existing customers looking for a more premium, comfortable version of this style. Why is taking on social issues so important to Bombas? Supporting those in need, through giving back and volunteer efforts, has been ingrained in the brand’s DNA since day one, and the reason why Bombas exists—it continues to be a primary focus for us in everything we do. How does Bombas stand apart from other brands in the space? We’re very proud to say that we’ve been a successful, profitable business since day one. We’re one of few DTC companies that are not VC-backed and have built our brand on just $4 million in capital. From a marketing perspective, we value the diversification of our paid channels. While Facebook was a very important partner in the early days, we’ve continued to broaden our scope in terms of where we promote our product and mission to ensure we’re reaching a wider audience of potential customers across varied platforms. We’ve leaned into TV, audio, direct mail as well as other social platforms, like Snapchat. Additionally, I think that we’re approaching creative a bit differently than our peers. It’s important to us that any content we put out in the world reflects positively on our brand and also has the potential to perform well. We leverage our incredible products and mission with our “20% witty and weird” brand tone to really find that perfect balance. What advice do you have for anyone who has an idea for a product that challenges an entrenched incumbent? There’s so many ways to go about it. My advice is to immerse yourself in that specific industry and dissect the ways that you can really shake up that category. For Bombas, we realized that socks hadn’t changed in [over] 50 years, so the co-founders focused on ways to modernize this everyday item into something that people wanted to wear and would feel most comfortable in.