Name (from left to right): Mitch Nelson, Jason McIntosh
Major: Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship
Year: Junior, Junior
Relationship Status: Taken, Single
Company Info: Facebook | Twitter: @DivvyUpSocks #MoreThanSocks | Instagram: @divvyup | Website
Source: Tallahassee Democrat
Her Campus (HC): Tell us how this all got started?
Mitch Nelson (MN): DivvyUp was a product of the Entrepreneurship program that’s called the Sophomore Experience Program. Basically you start a business in the class and they run you through it. It’s not for profit; it’s a school project. It was going to be a short-term thing, but we decided, let’s do something to give back. So we took a trip down to the local homeless shelter and we asked them what they needed. We were expecting to hear, like, shelter or something, but they said socks. It was then that we thought, huh, socks are trending right now, so maybe we can start a sock company that sells really cool socks and every time we sell a pair, we donate a pair. We worked on it in class and it actually was a great model because people kept coming back telling us that they liked the socks and they loved the cause. We spent the summer working on a website and rebranding it. It used to be called “Sock Up” back in the day, and we had a cardboard cutout for a sign. We rebranded it to “DivvyUp”, got a website made, business cards, the whole nine yards. We started setting up every Wednesday at Market Wednesday and slowly we started doing FAMU Fridays and the bookstore on Thursdays.
Jason McIntosh (JM): To date, we’ve donated 1,772 socks since launching in August. We’d like to think we’re making a big difference in the homeless shelter. We also donated about a 100 socks to a homeless shelter in Tampa when Mitch went home for winter break.
MN: That’s where we’re at right now. We’ve been reselling socks and we’ve had a lot of companies that we’ve partnered with. But we’re excited to get into manufacturing, this semester actually. So we’ll be actually making our own line of socks. Look out for that!
HC: Explain what type of preliminary work you did to get this off the ground?
JM: It all really started back in the classroom. We got a small $400 investment from our professor and we bought inventory. It really started with an idea, then we got inventory and we just did it. You kind of have to just go out and do it. We got a table and a small sign and paint, and started selling socks. You can really get by and do something incredible if you have a small amount of money. Some people think you need millions of dollars but you really don’t. We did it with a couple hundred dollars and an idea.
HC: What have you learned about homelessness by doing this?
JM: I would say that people have a pretty negative connotation about homeless people. Just going to [the shelter] and seeing them eat their meals and us giving them the socks, meeting and talking to the staff that work there, we realized that at the end of the day, they’re human beings no matter where they came from or what they did in their past. Everyone should be able to enjoy the feeling of clean socks no matter what. Every human being deserves the little things; they make a huge difference.
MN: We’ve separated ourselves as a society into those who have and those who don’t, so when you go in there you see people just like you struggling. We have drawers full of these socks and they don’t. They have whatever they can carry on their back. It just put things into perspective. It feels good to help with that and I wish we could do more, but we will.
HC: Who inspires you?
JM: I would say my parents. Both of my parents sold all of their stuff and moved here in their twenties. I have three brothers and that’s a pretty large family to take care of for a parent. They really gave us a great childhood and life with a limited amount of resources. It’s not exactly starting a company, but working with limited resources is kind of a part of the entrepreneurial spirit. So I would say my parents for being able to come over here and start an A/C company and be in that industry for 20-30 years now. They work very, very hard at it every single day. When I was little my parents would tell me to make sure I start my own company. At the time I was 6 and just thinking, “stop giving me advice.” But I look back thinking “holy crap, maybe saying that so many times has engrained it in me.” My dad was always saying, “ You don’t want to work for someone else, you want to be your own boss, you want to be able to control everything.” But it’s also given him the luxury of being there if we were sick at school or needed a ride home from soccer practice, since he was his own boss he could close up early to take care of the kids.
MN: Parents are great. My dad has his own business and I don’t know if I’d be doing anything entrepreneurial if he didn’t set that example. But the first person that comes to mind is our teacher, Dr. Dever. I look up to him more than words can describe. If you talk to him you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. He’s the kind of guy that can woo everyone in the room and he doesn’t have to say anything special. That man started his own business when he was 9 years old, and owned over 20 businesses in his lifetime. He sold them all by the time he was 41 years old, traveled the world, and then went back to school and got his doctorate so he could come and teach kids like Jason and myself. With that attitude, being a go-getter and not taking “no” for an answer, he’s living life in my opinion. He’s got everything he’s ever needed and he’s able to make an impact on the community here. That is the guy. He’s the man.
HC: If you could describe yourself as a pair of socks, what would they look like?
MN: Probably the beach, as chill of a scene as possible. The waves.
JM: Something with yellow in them. After selling a lot of socks I would defnitely say something with yellow in it. My socks would defintely have a significant amount of gold or yellow with a cool pattern or shapes.
HC: What do you hope DivvyUp will accomplish?
MN: First things first, we hope to get our own proprietory product. We’ve had people come up to us who own stores and they tell us they love our cause they love our socks but unfortunately, because we buy them from a different company for us to make any money to give back and to also keep the business afloat, we’d have to put some sort of margin in there for us and once they figure out they can go to to the wholesaler and get them for a cheaper price, they cut us out of the picture. So it’s necessary that we get our own product, something you’d have to go through DivvyUp to get, and something that represents the company. So when you see them you might think, “oh those are a pair of DivvyUp socks.” You’ll instantly understand the mission and everything that is tied with that. We want to get into manufacturing and get into retail stores. Assuming everything goes well and we figure out socks completely both on the men’s and women’s side. We’d love to continue the brand DivvyUp and not necessarily just socks but whatever it is that the homeless need more of. They need shirts, they need underwear. So it’ll be cool to grow the company to offering a few more items with the same cause.
JM: The vision grows day by day, but we want to be able to donate. To see the count on our website reach a million would be amazing.