David Barnett has learned a lot since launching PopSockets over a decade ago.
As the story goes, the former philosophy professor was looking for an easy way to hold his headphones and then created one of the most viral phone accessories of all time: a device that clips onto the back of the phone and can be used as a kickstand or grip – better known as PopSockets.
Barnett sat down with Equity this week to talk about his journey building this company from his garage, why he decided to never resort to traditional venture capital funding, and some of the lessons he learned growing the company.
“I was a philosophy professor, so I had no experience in manufacturing,” he recalls, adding that he also lacked experience in business, taxation, accounting and finance. “I spent a lot of money with no income,” he continued, adding that he had “wave after wave of manufacturing defects” in the first few days.
Still, he succeeded and was able to land at a local toy store where he often stopped to observe how customers interacted with his brand. “Sales have been pretty slow,” he said. He tweaked the Popsocket a bit, and that’s when everything started to take off. “That’s when I thought, ‘Okay, this could work in retail.’
From there, he talked about the successes and failures of getting into retail (including a dispute he had with Amazon that briefly caused him to remove his product from the website). He talked about tailoring the product even further, protecting intellectual property, and knowing it was time to step down as CEO and let someone else take the reins.
“The biggest lesson I learned is that it’s all about people,” he said, adding that he was looking for that quality in his successor. “I think it’s the most important skill a leader can have.”
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Dominic-Madori Davis is a senior venture capital and startup reporter at TechCrunch. She is based in New York.
You can contact or check Dominic’s outreach by sending an email dominic.davis@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at +1 646 831-7565 on Signal.
