How John’s Crazy Socks Built a Mission-Driven Brand That’s Spreading Happiness Globally

Mark X. Cronin is the Co-founder of John’s Crazy Socks, a social enterprise he launched in 2016 with his son, John, who has Down syndrome, to spread happiness and champion inclusive employment. With a background in public service and healthcare innovation, Mark previously served as Director of Medicaid Health Services in New York City and held executive roles in healthcare management firms. He advocates for people with differing abilities, frequently speaking at organizations like the United Nations and the US Congress. Under Mark and John’s leadership, John’s Crazy Socks has fulfilled over two million orders, employs a diverse workforce, and has donated over $800,000 to charities supporting disability inclusion.

John Cronin is the Co-founder and Chief Happiness Officer of John’s Crazy Socks, a social enterprise that spreads joy through colorful socks. Born in 1996 and diagnosed with Down syndrome, John has become a prominent advocate for people with differing abilities, delivering TEDx talks and speaking at the United Nations and US Congress. He made history in 2019 as the first person with Down syndrome to win the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [3:06] The origin story of John’s Crazy Socks and launching it with a simple idea
• [4:15] How John Cronin’s passion for socks inspired a lean startup approach
• [6:08] Mark X. Cronin on building a social enterprise that fuses its mission with a business strategy
• [7:55] Advice for established brands looking to incorporate an authentic purpose
• [9:33] Personal touches that create lasting customer connections
• [11:33] The value of embedding charitable giving into the customer experience
• [16:03] How to navigate criticism and stay true to mission-driven values

In this episode…

Many ecommerce brands struggle to differentiate themselves in a crowded market where products alone rarely inspire customer loyalty. While some attempt to use charitable initiatives or mission statements, these often come off as superficial or gimmicky. How can a brand authentically integrate purpose into its business model in a way that drives growth and builds genuine connections?

Social entrepreneur Mark X. Cronin and his co-founder son, John Cronin, share how building a mission-driven company rooted in inclusion and authenticity can create deep customer loyalty and sustainable impact. Mark, an advocate for people with differing abilities, and John, a passionate co-founder with Down syndrome, explain how their values inform every aspect of the business — from customer service to charitable giving. They advise business owners to start by uncovering their “why,” embed values into daily operations, and involve their team and customers in the mission. Mark also emphasizes the importance of making personal touches and staying true to your identity, even when facing criticism.

In this episode of Minds of Ecommerce, Raphael Paulin-Daigle interviews Mark X. Cronin and John Cronin, Co-founders of John’s Crazy Socks, about building a purpose-first ecommerce brand. Mark and John delve into how personal touches drive customer loyalty, how purpose attracts like-minded employees, and why consistency is key to authentic branding. They also provide insights into social enterprise structures, inclusive hiring, and evolving company values.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Raphael Paulin-Daigle: LinkedIn | X
• SplitBase
• Mark X. Cronin on LinkedIn
• John’s Crazy Socks
• John & Mark. X Cronin
• Special Olympics
• National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS)
• Inside Serenity Kids’ Affiliate Podcast Strategy: Driving Evergreen Sales With Joe Carr on Minds of Ecommerce

Quotable Moments:

• “If all you're doing is selling a product, you're sunk.”
• “The socks become the physical manifestation of the mission and the purpose.”
• “You have to know what’s driving you and motivating you. And you have to believe.”
• “You're never there. You're always evolving. But it's no one thing.”
• “Values and alignment leads to growth.”

Action Steps:

1. Define your brand’s core purpose and values: A clear “why” helps align your team and attract loyal customers.
2. Integrate your mission into every customer touchpoint: Small actions like personal notes or candy help John’s Crazy Socks build emotional connections that go beyond the product.
3. Hire and empower employees who reflect your values: Team members aligned with your mission enhance authenticity and drive long-term growth.
4. Embed charitable giving into daily operations: Baking generosity into transactions makes your impact tangible and meaningful to customers.
5. Stay committed even when facing criticism: Consistently living your values builds brand trust, even when it invites controversy.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by SplitBase.

At SplitBase, we design, test, and manage high-converting landing pages and on-site experiences for fashion, luxury, and lifestyle ecommerce brands. Our optimization program pinpoints exactly where your store is losing money most, and then we help you fix that.

The result? Increased conversions and profits for our clients.

With our team of conversion optimization specialists, performance marketers, and conversion-focused designers, we've got your back when it comes to testing and optimization.

Request a proposal on SplitBase.com today, and learn how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend.

You can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Don’t miss out on our exclusive podcasts at Minds of Ecommerce.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:06

Welcome to the Minds of Ecommerce podcast, where you'll learn one key strategy that made leading ecommerce companies grow exponentially. We cut the bullshit and keep the meat. In a 15-minute episode, founders and executives take us through a deep dive of a strategy so you get to learn and grow your online sales. In the last episode, you heard from Joe Carr, co-founder and president of Serenity Kids, the fastest-growing kid food brand in the United States. Now, today on episode number 56, get ready.

We're talking to John and Mark X. Cronin, the founder and son duo behind John's Crazy Socks and Abilities Rising. They've built the world's largest sock store. They ship to 91 countries, their socks are worn by celebrities, and they've donated over $800,000 to dollars to charity. Today we'll be talking about how to use purpose and a mission not as a marketing gimmick, but as a way to authentically grow a brand and make the world a better place. I'm your host, Raphael Daigle, and I'm the founder of SplitBase.

This is Minds of Ecommerce. Now this episode is brought to you by SplitBase. At SplitBase, we help leading eight- and nine-figure brands such as Dr. Squatch, Hyperice, and Amika. Growth through customer-focused conversion optimization programs. Our programs pinpoint exactly where your store is losing money the most and then, well, we help you fix it.

The result is that you get increased conversions, higher AOV, and, of course, more money, which in return allows you to scale advertising profitably. We've been at it for over a decade and can help you manage CRO from A to Z. So go to Splitbase.com today to learn about how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend and request your free proposal. All right, Mark and John, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

John Cronin: 02:11

Thank you so much. We will I will play on your podcast.

Mark X. Cronin

We're excited for the conversation.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 02:13

Yes. Amazing. Now you guys have built an amazing brand that, as I said in the intro, right, is hasn't necessarily used charity as a marketing gimmick, but you guys really live the charity and the mission aspect of your brand, and it's really the guiding principle of the entire company. So I'd love today to talk about that, and I would love for our listeners to be able to take away, you know, how they can maybe infuse more purpose and mission in their brands as a way to grow their company and in a way that, again, is authentic. But maybe before we get started, I'd love to just get a quick background on the brand just for our listeners to get a bit of context.

Mark X. Cronin: 03:01

Well, we can tell the origin story, right? That's where you get your DNA.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 03:05

Yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 03:06

So our story starts back in the fall of 2016, in a small log cabin in the woods.

John Cronin: 03:14

Yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 03:15

No, it starts on suburban Long Island outside New York. And, John, where were you?

John Cronin: 03:20

I worked at a haunted house for a company. My last experience.

Mark X. Cronin: 03:24

So, John, among other things, in addition to being an entrepreneur and a speaker, has Down syndrome.

John Cronin: 03:30

Yes.

Mark X. Cronin: 03:30

So it's his last year of school, and you're trying to figure out what comes next?

John Cronin: 03:35

Yes.

Mark X. Cronin: 03:35

And he goes out looking and unfortunately couldn't find anything that he wanted to do. This is a reality for too many people in the States. Only 1 in 5 people with a disability are employed. It's awful. But John here is a natural entrepreneur.

I am. If he couldn't find a job he wanted, he'd create a job. I did. Would you tell me?

John Cronin: 03:57

I asked my dad. I know I've been together.

Mark X. Cronin: 04:04

So like a lot of entrepreneurs, John had a lot of ideas. Not all good ideas. But then, right before the US Thanksgiving, he said, you want to sell?

John Cronin: 04:15

I want to sell crazy socks. Why? Socks is fun and colorful. It's always me, me, me, me, I’ve wanted to my whole life.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 04:23

I love it.

Mark X. Cronin: 04:24

We decided to test the idea. You know, your lean startup? Yeah, we got built a website on that good Canadian company, Shopify. We got a little bit of inventory. The only marketing we did was to set up a Facebook page, and I would take out my cell phone, and we made videos.

And who was in those videos? I am John was and we opened in mid-December. Like I say, to test the idea. And from day one, we received what felt like a flood of orders. That first day we got 42 orders, most of which were local.

Cool. And since we're about wowing that customer, we did home deliveries. We got red boxes, put the socks in the box. What else did you add?

John Cronin: 05:09

I had socks sticking out for me. And candy.

Mark X. Cronin: 05:13

Candy loaded up the car drove around, and you knocked on doors delivering socks?

John Cronin: 05:18

Yes it did.

Mark X. Cronin: 05:18

How did the customers respond?

John Cronin: 05:20

They love the socks. They love me.

Mark X. Cronin: 05:26

They love you. So in two weeks, you know, leading up to Christmas, we shipped 452 orders. And we knew we had some. We didn't know how big it would grow. We didn't know how fast it would grow.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 05:38

Today, something I'd love to mention is that you shared earlier is you're at a point where you've had presidents, prime ministers, celebrities all wear John's Crazy Socks. That is quite an achievement.

Mark X. Cronin: 05:53

We've been fortunate. We've had a lot. We've been fortunate to have a lot of media coverage and some viral events. So you're out there thinking, you know, every business wants to have a viral event. Watch what you ask for. You may get it.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 06:07

So tell us.

Mark X. Cronin: 06:08

It's just, you know, to wrap up, this piece is we've created a slightly different type of business model. It's a social enterprise. So we have that business mission and the social mission and they feed off of each other. And overall, what are we doing, pal? That we're spreading happiness.

And that drives everything we do. And here's a way to think about it. And we'll dig in talking about purpose. We sell socks. We've gone out and counted.

I told you, there's one gazillion sock companies out there. If all you're doing is selling a product, you're sunk. How do you know? What do we do? We say ours are better than yours. Don't smell like yours. Well, you have to compete on price.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 06:52

Yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 06:53

But in fact, because we have a story, because we have a mission that differentiates us in the market. And here's the thing. At the end of the day, we're not really a sock store. The socks become the physical manifestation for the mission and the purpose.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 07:10

I'm curious, what are your thoughts on, you know, you obviously started from that. Why from that purpose now? I'm sure there's a lot of entrepreneurs that have very sizable businesses. They sell everything could be pots and pans to furniture. And at one point they were starting to feel like, hey, I want to do more with this.

I want to have a bigger purpose with this brand. Where should they start? How do you start thinking about this as a CEO, as a marketing leader, or as a brand owner? When the brand might have been around for many years, and how can it be authentic and just not feel like a gimmicky marketing thing?

Mark X. Cronin: 07:55

Well, first of all, it's already there. You have to discover it. Now you get to shape it some. We've continued to evolve and shape ours, but it's a question. Simon Sinek talks about this.

What's your why? You're selling those pots and pans. You're selling tires. You're selling SEO services. Why do you do it?

What motivates you? And the answer is never really going to be, well, we just want to make money, right? And don't get me wrong, we want to make money. Turns out we like to live indoors. John likes lobster rolls.

Those are expensive.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 08:31

Oh, yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 08:32

You know, but in the end, that doesn't work. You have to know what's driving you and motivating you. And here's the thing. When you when you understand that and you are able to articulate that and then really drive it through your business, that better connects you with your customers, because you'll better find your tribe and you'll get more loyalty, and it will help you attract employees. But you have to understand what it is and you have to believe.

I'll give you an example from our business. So we built it on five pillars. One of them is we're going to make it personal, and that's how we relate to our customers. Well, that shows up in everything we do. If you call here, you never get voicemail.

You're going to talk to an actual human. There is no script, and we don't listen in on it. To this day, every package gets.

John Cronin: 09:31

They get a note for me, and they get candy.

Mark X. Cronin: 09:33

Thank you. Note and candy. And on the packing slip, you see the picture, a sticker with the picture, and the name of the person who packed your order. It's the way we relate to customers and to our social media, and you're never all the way there. I'll give you an example.

So we told you we'd send out candy with our with every order, right? Well, one day one of our happiness packers comes to us and says, You know, we sell socks for diabetics, and we're sending diabetics candy. What's wrong with that picture? Okay, so now we have a supply of sugar-free candy. Because you just pay attention.

There's you're never there. You're always evolving. But it's no one thing. You know, my people have said to me, you know, you give away too much. You tell too many.

You know, you open up and tell. People say people can't copy us. Think about the commitment you have to make. Right? It's you know, here's an example that charity is baked into everything we do.

So a traditional way of marketing, particularly smaller companies, is this kind of patriarchal model. Let's wait till the end of the year and see how much money we have. And then the owner will decide his or her favorite charities and send him a check. That's great. We flip it.

We bake it into what we do. So it becomes part of that customer experience, you see. Right. We're making it personal. We're connecting with the customer so that customer knows up front, oh, if I buy from you 5% of that profits going to the Special Olympics.

Oh, if I buy those down syndrome socks, 10% is going to the National Down Syndrome Society. Oh, I can buy those socks you made because I know somebody who's deaf. Oh, and 10% of that goes to the guy, you know, goes to this school and so on. You you can't fake that. You have.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 11:33

Yeah.

Mark X & John Cronin: 11:33

Believe it. But then your customers keep coming back because, you know, increasingly, you know, listen, if you have the cheapest product, you're always going to have a customer. But having the cheapest product is really hard and you keep getting knocked off.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 11:48

Yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 11:49

And if you're the only one that does something or you do something better than anybody else, well, okay, you can charge what you want, but how rare is that? You got to find a way to connect to your customer. And increasingly customers are saying, before I give you my money, who are you? How do you treat your employees? How do you treat me as a customer?

How do you engage in your community? And if you have a social enterprise and you have a mission, you can answer those questions.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 12:19

It sounds like I think one of my big takeaways here is when you're really working on being that purpose-driven social enterprise, right? It's really not just about the front end. It's not just about, hey, oh yeah, we do this. You have to live it through, but by living it, which means getting all the team members on board, I'm sure it means. And getting them on board doesn't just mean, you know, telling them that you're doing this.

You're getting them motivated to do their jobs and motivated to participate to the cause. You're really giving them another reason to care. And you're you're giving it. It's really just how you do things at the end of the day, right? So if I think I could take one takeaway, it's just, hey, you know, try to apply that principle of generosity across the organization, not just within your marketing, and really think about how it can be applied in the different facets of the business beyond a logo on a website.

Mark X. Cronin: 13:22

And it does make life easier if you know what your purpose is. You now have the criteria by which you can judge every make and judge every decision. I'll give you an example. We have a strategic partner. We're developing that relationship.

At one point we put candy in every package. What candy did we start with? Hershey's Kisses, which everybody loved until we got the email from the woman in Florida saying, you don't want to send chocolate to the South in the hot weather. So we moved to Skittles. We sent out over 300,000 packages of Skittles, and I kept knocking on the door at the Mars Corporation and finally spoke to the right executive who said, well, you know, I wanted to collaborate.

And they said, well, but we already do that with the NFL and NASCAR. Okay, I'm not going to sell Skittles, you know, put Skittles in anymore. So our Lord of the socks, that's who runs our warehouse. He found a lollipop company. Maybe.

You know, some people call them suckers. And we were paying $0.26 a package for the Skittles. The lollipops were about $0.05 each. So we're going to put 2 or 3 lollipops in every package. One for you, one to give to a friend or a family member.

When my partners come and say no, why would we spend that extra money? We can save that $0.05 a pack. And I'm there realizing, if I got to explain to you why two lollipops and not one, we're in a different place. But that's an example of we know who we are.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 14:54

Yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 14:55

We got to know who you are and what matters. There's no one way to do it. Customer service is really important. Google. They don't care, and they're not wrong.

But try to call up Mr. Google. You can't do it because they have values in another area. That's okay. They know who they are, know who you are and then put it into action. Make it manifest in the choices you make and how you spend your money, and how you speak to people and what your ads look and feel like.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 15:27

Values and alignment leads to growth.

John Cronin: 15:31

Yes.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 15:32

I love it. I'm wondering here if there are, you know, when a brand kind of does this transition or tries to become more involved and aligned with this, are there some challenges they should expect or faux pas to avoid that are common along the way that you know they may need to think of?

Mark X. Cronin: 15:52

Well, particularly in a way, you know, in the US it's really bad. You're going to make choices and you're going to piss some people off.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 16:01

Can you elaborate on that?

John Cronin: 16:02

Yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 16:03

You know, here's an example. So, you know, our mission is to spread happiness, right?

John Cronin: 16:09

Yes.

Mark X. Cronin: 16:10

But that's built on showing what people with different abilities can do. John, you have Down syndrome. You're the face of the business. More than half of our colleagues have a different opinion. So we'll go anywhere to spread this message.

We're like evangelists.

John Cronin: 16:25

Right?

Mark X. Cronin: 16:25

We're very fortunate with a lot of media coverage. So we've been on Fox & Friends, I think 15 times now. We get hate mail from that.

John Cronin: 16:36

Interesting.

Mark X. Cronin: 16:36

We made a decision to sell presidential socks. We have more president socks than anybody else. We get hate mail because we carried Joe Biden socks. And we get hate mail because we carried Donald Trump's sock. And we're not endorsing those candidates.

But that's a decision we made. So one of the things we did, we created Unity Socks, and we sent them to every member of the US Congress. And we did a press event down at the US Capitol with the Republican member of Congress and a Democrat. We heard from both sides, how dare you talk to those. They are terrible for this and that.

It's like, no, we'll talk to anybody about our purpose and our mission. You know, that's some of what you can expect.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 17:25

I love that that is so creative. But also it takes guts. And I applaud you guys for that. I'm also wondering if you guys were to start this business all over again. What would you do differently?

Mark X. Cronin: 17:38

Well, in part there's a singer, Robert Earl Keen. He writes many great songs. One of them is called Corpus Christi Bay, and it's about these two brothers that are drunks and their lives evolving, and there's lines in it. If I could do it all over, it wouldn't matter anyhow. I'd probably do the same things.

For us, the single biggest challenge that we have had, we bootstrapped. So we're very successful in growing the business, but we have been perennially undercapitalized, which has held us back. So that's something to think about. But otherwise, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to you know, everything we do is a hypothesis.

John Cronin: 18:27

Yeah. We think it's going to be that.

Mark X. Cronin: 18:29

Let's go out and try it, and let's get the data. And sometimes you wind up scratching your head saying, what the hell were we thinking? But I'll give you an example about that. It's 2017. We've blown up, as the kids would say, in the spring through some viral events, but now we're hitting the summer and learning firsthand. Nobody buys socks in the summer. It's awful.

Revenue goes through the floor. What are we going to do? Well, one of the ideas we come up with not particularly novel is we're going to set up a subscription to sock of the month. We sit down, we get that going in about two weeks. Later that fall, I'm talking to one of our suppliers, who's also a competitor, because they sell direct to consumer and they set up a sock of the month, and said, oh, well, you know, tell me about it.

And they said, well, we've been working on this for two and a half years, two and a half years. What the hell are you doing? Well, we had committee meetings. We had to figure this out, and we got it up in two weeks. And here we are several months later.

We have real revenue, real customers, and we're on our third iteration. And there was some mistakes we made that we hadn't thought of, that you're only going to know by actually doing so. Get out and do it.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 19:44

I love that we've been talking to John and Mark from John's Crazy Socks. Now, John, Mark, if people want to learn more about the business, about you guys, where should they go?

Mark X. Cronin: 19:58

Well, two places. Where can people find it? One is Johnscrazysocks.com. But you can also check out.

We do speaking and coaching, and consulting, and that's at johnandmarkcronin.com. We'd be glad to connect with people. John's Crazy Socks is on all of the social media platforms. If you want to get hold of me, I am the only Mark X. Cronin on LinkedIn, right?

John Cronin: 20:26

Yeah.

Mark X. Cronin: 20:28

And we'd love it if you supported us; buy some John's Crazy Socks. When you do, you're going to get great socks, right? We have over 33,000 five-star reviews.

John Cronin: 20:38

Right, Dad.

Mark X. Cronin: 20:39

But you're going to help us employ people with differing abilities. More than half our colleagues have differing abilities. You help us get back over $800,000 to our charity partners. And most of all, you're going to help us spread happiness.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 20:54

I love it, guys. Thank you so much for being on the show.

John Cronin: 20:57

Thank you.

Mark X. Cronin: 20:58

Thank you.

Outro: 21:03

All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. And thank you so much for tuning in. Now, if you like what you've heard, and you don't want to miss any of the new episodes that are about to come out, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, and well, bonus points if you also leave a review in the iTunes store or wherever you're listening to this. Now, if you're working on an ecommerce store that does over $1 million in revenue and you need help with conversion optimization or landing pages, well, I've got some good news because there's a pretty good chance we can help with that.

Go to splitbase.com to learn more or even to request a proposal. If you have any guest requests, questions or comments, tweet me at @rpaulindaigle, and I'll be super happy to hear from you. And again, thanks for listening. This is Minds of Ecommerce.

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