Day 6 - First packages sent - Monkey Mario!

Well today was the day i finally sent out some packages. I threw an extra free pair in with each of the boxes, to say thanks for being my first customers. I also found some amazingly cute (and affordable) greetings cards that i wrote little personal messages in. I'm not saying i'll be able to do that when i'm sending 10 or more out per day, but for now it's a good way to express gratitude. One of the perks of buying from a small shop. I'll try and have some pictures tomorrow. But sending out the packages wasn't too bad at all. 

In other news, the other day i got a message on one of those chat apps by the most fascinating girl (who is also one of the most stunningly beautiful girls i've ever seen in my life) and though we haven't met yet and i don't know what will happen, i still feel so so lucky that she's come along and brightened my evenings. It's seriously hampering my progress promoting the site - but you know. whatever! 

(This is one of the cutest Korean girls i found on the first page of a google search - and the girl who messaged me is much cuter). 

I should probably mention before my next story that I'm an English teacher at a small private school/academy in S. Korea. It's usually a good job, but today i was told with 2 minutes to go before class that for the whole of this week, we would be teaching the English book from their schools. This might have been ok if 1) the books had any English at all in them (besides 'look and listen' or 'play and speak') that I could teach them, or 2) if i didn't have mixed grade classes, or 3) if any kids had actually bothered to bring their books in to school. Not a big problem for me as i do about 10% planning, 90% adlibbing in my classes. I usually have as much idea as the kids what we'll be doing 10 minutes from now, but it's the only way i can spend maximum time in my head, thinking about bigger things. I believe Einstein had the same problem working at the patent office when he had the secrets of the universe to unlock. 

Finally - the sock i promised to reveal in the last blog post. If Mario were a monkey, he might look something like this:

What do you think? One of the best socks ever? Leave a message on the facebook group and let me know what you think. www.facebook.com/SuperOddSocks

Thanks for reading!

Day 5 - It begins

So the store has been online for 5 days and so far 5 sales. It's easy when you think you have an amazing product to overestimate the reaction you might get from people and I seem to have been guilty of that. I imagine it's much the same way when a store opens for the first time on a quiet street at 8am and... naturally no one would be there. But so far i've been quietly but surely steering a few friends to come check it out.

On day 2, I woke to quite a surprise. The designer I originally wanted to work with (and who drew the picture above - which was the inspiration for Nuna the Sock Fairy - pictured below) had seen my socks and LOVED them, which made the morning great enough as it is. She then proceeded to tell me she'd post the Princess socks on her IG account (IG - the one social network I hadn't heard of yet) and by the end of the day, almost 200 hits on that one page. So there's been some exciting moments - as well as some quieter one's in the first few days.

So I also finally have a picture of Nuna in her fairy form. The idea was to make her the epitomy of cute - her wand is a sunflower, her hair has bows and stuff. Being a guy in his late 20's, all of the cute stuff was a little tricky to come up with. I'm fine with silly, weird, odd, but cute - that is a little 1 dimensional for me. But it quickly became apparent after opening the store that 1) women shop more than men, 2) women probably shop more for themselves and their kids than for teenage boys and men, and 3) maybe girls are just more likely to want to wear characters on their feet. Anyway - i had to come up with something to embody the cute side. I'm still waiting on my sock ninja. In the meantime, check out the character i originally wanted to embody the darker, boys/men's socks...

Finally... today i made a miraculous sock discovery. While shopping for other kinds of clothes, in a quiet backstreet in Masan, Korea, in a small shop selling a load of mostly junk, I uncovered... oh you know what, i'll leave that for the next post. Let's just say it has something to do with Mario Bros, 8 bit videogaming and monkeys! Yes - on one sock. And i'd seen it before - and now I have it. You'll see it soon. Thanks for reading and have a great day.  

p.s. here's a coupon for 20% off all products at my store.

http://www.nerdwallet.com/coupons/store/superoddsocks

Day 3 - A not so brief introduction

Hey, so this is day 3 of my first ever online store being open and day 1 of my blog. When Alice wondered where to begin her story, the Madhatter suggested "why don't you start at the beginning, and when you come to the end... stop." so that's exactly what i'll do. 

My name's Jonathan, i'm 29, from London and for the last 3 years i've been teaching English in South Korea and for the last almost 3 years i've been a huge fan of Korean character socks. I've worn them, sent them home to family members and been planning how to one day make a business out of them ever since.

Finally after a year of careful planning, the store has opened. Over the next few months and maybe years, i'll be revealing many of the ideas i read or came up with that I hope will someday make character socks a new fun industry in the west. With the recession still very much underway, we all need as much fun and positivity in our lives as we can find. We get upbeat messages in greetings cards on rare occasions, on mugs perhaps, or on tshirts that we can't actually see ourselves without the use of a mirror (and then it's backwards). There's something about the choice of fun socks every morning that just brightens my day, even if only by a tiny amount and it's that little bit of fun and creativity I hope to share with others.

In this blog i'll also be talking about other cool looking socks I find on the web too. I'm not put off by competitors - competition is what sparks innovation. Right now those fat cat sports companies must be enjoying their coveted position atop the least inspired fashion industry (besides maybe vests and gloves) - making plain socks with no design cost and most people assume that's all there is to feet. Dress up the shoes maybe, but why waste creativity on the socks? Well Nike, we'll see!

I also hope to share some thoughts on living and working in Asia, the endless possibilities in the export market and how the face of Korea is changing rapidly every day. Thanks for reading.