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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Alum Refreshes Sock Drawers

courtesy phil moldavski Nice Laundry offers men an affordable way to revolutionize their sock drawers with creative sock packs that vary in color and pattern.
courtesy phil moldavski
Nice Laundry offers men an affordable way to revolutionize their sock drawers with creative sock packs that vary in color and pattern.

For entrepreneur Phil Moldavski (MSB ’10), the idea for his new start-up came out of a simple decision — to buy a new pair of socks.

Moldavski, 26, together with co-founder Ricky Choi, 27, launched online startup Nice Laundry in August to offer men an easy way to purchase affordable, colorful, high-quality socks. Moldavski, who previously was one of the first marketing people at organic salad store Sweetgreen, met Choi while working at LivingSocial.

“Just when [Choi] felt comfortable enough he called me out on these terrible, white, ratty gym socks I would wear with nice shoes and button-down shirts,” Moldavski said. “I was this guy that tried to look fashionable, but I never thought about my socks, so he convinced me to buy one pair of cool, comfortable socks.”

Choi, on the other hand, is a self-described sock guy.

“I’ve always had 150 to 200 pairs in rotation,” he said.

Moldavski attested to the hassle and expense, running into the hundreds of dollars — of replacing his entire sock drawer, which Nice Laundry offers to do for just $99, which translates into 18 pairs of socks.

“We knew there must be a better way to do something like this,” Moldavski said.

Moldavski and Choi used Kickstarter to raise capital for Nice Laundry, a crowd funding platform allowing entrepreneurs to gather backers for project ideas.

“It’s essentially a pre-order mechanism where people can say ‘yes I’m gonna buy this’ and people deliver four months later,” Moldavski said.

Nice Laundry reached almost 300 backers in its first day, breaking the Kickstarter fashion project record for most individual contributors on the first day, according to Moldavksi, and raised $120,000 in one month.

Moldavski favorably contrasted crowd funding with traditional fundraising methods.

“We would have had to write a business plan, try to find investors, simply because there is no way to buy inventory up front,” he said, emphasizing the difficulty of doing so without sales numbers to back up product pitches. “Instead we are making sure that we build something that customers actually want.”

Nice Laundry has seen steady growth since its August launch.

“I think socks are the new necktie,” Choi said. “Workplaces are becoming more casual and a lot of places that required you to wear a suit with a tie no longer do that. Guys are starting to pay more attention to accessories and socks are kind of the number one leading edge category within accessories.”

Moldavski attributed Nice Laundry’s success partly to its early exposure through Kickstarter — the company already had 2000 customers before launching officially.

“We’ve had an incredibly awesome response from people and have continued to see really great levels of sales, and we grow every month,” Moldavski said.

Nice Laundry’s business model is based on cutting unnecessary costs in order to provide affordable yet high-quality products. From Moldavksi’s own experience, he found the cost of a nice pair of socks to be anywhere from $12 to $40. Nice Laundry charges $39 for a pack of six pairs of socks, or $99 for three packs.

“There are just super inflated margins in the industry. We cut out the retail middleman and sell our socks directly online instead of through a department store,” Moldavski said. “Traditionally there’s at least a [double] markup; instead we can pass on the saving to our customers.” The socks are produced in a factory in South Korea.

The six packs currently offered by Nice Laundry carry the creative titles Chief, Dreamer, Exec, Ladies Man, Visionary and Wild Child, and they vary in color and pattern.

“They’re reflective of peoples’ personalities,” Moldavski said.

Every order is eligible for a prepaid shipping label, so consumers can send old socks back to Nice Laundry to be repurposed.

“We’re offering a complete solution for people through our recycling program,” Moldavski said.

Choi agreed.

“As a customer, there’s nothing you can do with old socks,” he said.

Georgetown students have already begun ordering the product.

“I love weird crazy socks. I rock them at interviews to build confidence,” Jimmy Ramirez (COL ’15) said. “I heard about [Nice Laundry] through a good friend who knew I have this weird interest. They’re awesome, if you have a thing for socks like me.”

In terms of the future, Choi says Nice Laundry will continue to embrace its philosophy of maintaining the singular focus and mission to replace sock drawers around the world.

“At the end of the day, we are not building a product or a company or a store, we are building a service,” he said.

As a former Hoya, Moldavski believes his four years on the Corp marketing team and MSB experience influenced his career choices. In particular, he cites a class called “Entrepreneurship” he took with Professor William Finnerty.

“It was really the first time that it got me thinking there’s more to life than consulting and investment banking,” he said.

Choi graduated from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009.

Moldavski has two pieces of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

“Don’t hesitate to reach out to people who you think are doing cool things to just ask them how they got to be where they are,” he said. “And test things out. Too many times people like to come up with a ‘startup idea’ and they take months or maybe even years perfecting it and no one wants the thing they’ve built. Figure out ways to test your idea.”

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