We all use socks almost every day, but at best, we just use them functionally with certain pairs of shoes. Have you ever considered socks to be a tool for raising awareness? That is what young entrepreneurs, Brandon and Sebastiaan Martinez, thought when they came up with their business “Are You Kidding?” These brothers loved socks so much, they decided to design their own. At the age of 5, Sebastian Martinez grabbed his crayons and began designing many fun patterns for socks he would like to create. Just one year later, he and his brother launched a business to sell their creative designs in 2014.

Since then, the brothers have sold over 500,000 socks and are currently still running the business at the ages of 15 and 17. They partcipate in many fundraising events to raise awareness for causes such as pediatric cancer research or diabetes research. Some of their charity socks include autism awareness, cancer awareness, and bullying awareness socks. They also focus a segment of their socks on things they believe people enjoy like space, cookies and bubbles. Each sock design takes around 2 months to design and manufacture and the brothers work together to both manage creating new designs and running the company as a whole.

As entrepreneurs, we can learn a number of things from the “Are You Kidding?” business. The Martinez brothers demonstrate how to take an ordinary, every day item and turn it into an exceptional, unique product. Furthermore, they discovered a new avenue for raising awareness for different causes that people can incorporate seamlessly into their every day lives. The “Are You Kidding?” business continues to thrive and is very active on social media testing new sock patterns and interacting with fans. They have raised over $350,000 for charitable causes and continue to make it the driving motivation behind their business.