For many people, socks are an everyday essential that rarely gets a second thought, but in 2011, two friends came across a statistic that made them look at the clothing staple differently.
David Heath and Randy Goldberg learned that socks were the most requested clothing item at homeless shelters and they decided they wanted to do something about it. What started as a conversation about an overlooked need eventually became Bombas, an apparel company that has grown into a billion-dollar business while donating millions of essential clothing items to people in need.
The idea came to Heath while he was scrolling through Facebook. He encountered a post about the demand for socks at homeless shelters and shared it with Goldberg, a longtime friend and former colleague. The two began thinking about how they could turn that need into something bigger than a one-time charitable donation.
“We thought about how we could solve this problem or at least do something about it,” Heath told Forbes in 2019.
Their solution was a business model built around a simple promise: For every pair of socks purchased, Bombas would donate another pair to someone experiencing homelessness.
The founders knew that simply giving away socks wouldn’t be enough to sustain the mission— they needed to create a product that customers would actually want to buy.
So, the duo spent two years researching and developing their socks before officially launching Bombas — the Latin word for bumblebee — in 2013. The goal was to make a more comfortable, thoughtfully designed product while creating a business that could support its charitable mission. The founders were inspired by the way bees work together to make their hive a better place, a philosophy that also informed the company’s tagline, “Bee Better.”
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Bombas Gets Its Big Break on Shark Tank
Just a year after launching, Bombas got an opportunity to introduce its business to a much bigger audience when Heath and Goldberg appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank in 2014.
The founders pitched their sock company to the investors, ultimately securing a deal with Daymond John. The exposure helped propel the business forward, with the company reporting a surge in orders following its appearance.
The business continued to grow, and Bombas eventually expanded beyond socks. In 2019, the company introduced T-shirts, followed by underwear and slippers as it broadened its lineup of everyday essentials. The expansion was also informed by feedback from its giving partners, who identified T-shirts and underwear as other highly requested items.
The company’s growth has been substantial. According to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 2023, Bombas sold more than $1.3 billion in products in the decade following its 2013 launch.
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How Many Items Has Bombas Donated?
While Bombas has grown into a major apparel brand, its original mission remains central to the business. For every item purchased, the company donates an essential clothing item through its network of community organizations. Its giving partners distribute those donations to people experiencing homelessness and others who need support.
According to the company’s latest impact report, Bombas has donated more than 200 million clothing items since launching in 2013 and now works with more than 4,000 giving partner organizations.
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