The Incredible Journey of Kindness & Impact with Mo and Sumira of Mr. Nice Socks

Hello and welcome back to the Be Well, Do Well podcast.

I'm excited today to have a conversation, not with one, but two world-class entrepreneurs that are the epitome of Be, Well,, Do Well.

Moe and Samara are the founders of Mr.

Nice Socks (MNS) and have donated over a hundred thousand socks, I believe.

Is that right?

Did you hit the hundred thousand mark?

We did, yeah.

A hundred thousand socks!

And today we're gonna learn about how they did it, but most importantly, why they did it.

Welcome to the show, guys.

Yeah, thanks for having us on.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for having us.

So let's start with your journey.

Now, this is not a typical journey and I'm really interested in how you came up with the idea.

And first of all, why socks?

So take it away and let us know how you got here.

Sure.

Absolutely.

it was a challenging time in Alberta, with the oil and recession and all that, all those things happening.

and we had a lot of friends, acquaintances, people we knew that were going through challenging times.

we really wanted to find a way to, to help and to give back.

We started asking local organizations what they needed.

turns out the number one thing we needed were socks.

They said they went through about 240 pairs of socks per day, per shelter.

Which is 80,000 pairs of socks a year per shelter, which is crazy.

So we thought that at that time I like funky socks, so I thought, Hey, everybody likes funky Socks, so why don't we design some fun socks?

And for every pair purchase we would donate two pairs to local organizations.

And, Sumira came up with the great catchphrase, 1 + U = 2, so it's that kind of stuck as well.

so it was only supposed to be a project over Christmas.

. But I guess our big pivot was when we started reaching out to organizations and companies who wanted to do custom socks to give to their clients their, Christmas gifts, things like that.

And then they got to choose which organization received donation socks.

So it just kept going and of snowballing that way.

and I guess flash forward to now, and we donated over a hundred thousand pairs of socks organizations across Canada and into the U.S.

So yeah, that's our journey.

Yeah.

I think, the why to that is we all have a social responsibility to do our part to help make our community a little bit better.

And what we, saw as a short-term opportunity to maybe do something creative and reach out to partners like the Mustard Seed, who's our original, partner in crime in this mission, has snowballed into something so much bigger.

for us it's just a mechanism to give back.

We don't take anything from the business and we just reinvest it back into giving into our community, through the creation of socks and through, partnerships with other like-minded corporations who also want to, have a mechanism for community investment.

And this is just one way and a fun way for them to be able to.

That's amazing.

That's a really fun way for sure.

to have these funky socks and colorful designs.

I'm sure it makes you guys smile while you're doing it.

It makes them smile when they receive, the benefit of it too.

And I'm sure that the very end result, the person wearing the socks feels good about that reminds me of something I had read and I was just talking to my son about that.

He's 10 years old and I told him that, when you do something good, The other person feels it.

You both feel good about it, but there's also a side effect that people watching around you will also feel good about that.

Then they go home and they do that own example is that we were at, Canadian Tire, we're buying some skates, I think it was, and I told 'him, I said, the person at the counter.

is very happy right now, even though she's working right where the door is.

It was minus 40, this is like days ago when it was really cold.

And I could tell she was cold, but she was just very happy and she was joyful and she was saying Merry Christmas to all the customers that had gone through her till.

So I told him, I said, say Merry Christmas to her.

Let's see what happens.

And he said, okay, fine.

let's see how this goes.

And so at the end he's Merry Christmas.

And he said it Shyly in a way.

Like he wasn't, overly joyful about it.

And she's oh, Merry Christmas to you.

And she's is this your Christmas present?

And he just lit up.

And she lit up and I was looking around and I see like the other staff light up and it was so cool to have that exponential effect of that going on.

Now, Mo, you and I have worked together in a volunteer capacity and I know volunteerism is a big part of our community and I'm curious how you and Sumira balance volunteering, cuz I know you're actively involved in our community now and your professional careers and Mr.

Nice socks.

Is there like a trick that you have to getting all of this stuff and making your hair look so good?

how do you get it all done?

He has more hours in the day than everybody else?

A 30 hour day schedule, just so you know.

That's wild.

I love it.

much to what you were saying, it's honestly, it's just the energy.

we work hard, we work our jobs, we do volunteer work, but also like the giving back aspect, like working these, going to these communities and physically handing over the socks, seeing these volunteers who work there, seeing the people were benefiting it, just feed off that energy and that's, I think that's what really helps to keep going.

I think, to your point, Mo when we go and do the donations, it's a real education for us as well, right?

Like we're handing over these sock.

And we're feeling pretty good about, being able to give back.

But the education we get from the organizations that we, deliver these socks to is really eye-opening.

And it's some really strong perspective on, how privileged we are to have roof over our head to have.

income to have health, and then you go to these places where they're truly doing in incredible work and they're making miracles happen every day.

And that's self-motivating, for us to be able to prioritize.

The way we impact our community and through MNS and through, some of our other volunteer work that we like to participate in as well.

, just find the time for things that bring you joy.

I always say you have to make time to have time.

No one just has time, Just make it happen.

Yeah, make time.

I think that's a big thing.

There's a really good book called Make Time and it talks about just, what you're talking about is that when you feel good about what you're doing and you're enjoying what you're doing, things time collapses or expands depending on what you need it to do.

that's very cool.

this makes me wonder when it comes to having started and your goal was only to do it for one December, so it was like a very short term thing and then it expanded.

Was there anything unexpected that came up out of this journey where you were, like you, you already said that socks were something that you didn't realize that was so needed, but it looks like both of you have something to talk about here that was unexpected, that led you to where you are.

everything.

the community support was huge.

I think one of the biggest takeaways personally was that everybody wants to do good.

if you can provide a mechanism to do that, people are so willing to participate find ways to give back.

And I think that really just pushed us to keep going.

people loved what they were doing.

They felt good giving back.

We felt good giving.

we ed, we, we love to educate people and learn ourselves about what these organizations do and provide that knowledge and resources so we can all make our community greater.

. And I think that was a good thing for me personally

and I think that's honestly why.

We've been able to sustain MNS for such a long time.

we do it as a passion project.

This is not our bread and butter.

So when we, have people come up to us and say, you guys do socks right?

Randomly in the street or in restaurant, it

has happened.

My moment where I take a step back, I'm like, oh my goodness.

this is having an impact in some small way and the community of Edmonton.

In Calgary and even in Vancouver and other business, local business owners have been so incredibly, supportive in, in spreading our word and our brand and helping each other out.

And so I think that sense of community that's cre gets created as a local business owner is really strong, particularly in Edmonton.

I love that Edmonton is so entrepreneurial and it's so cool to hear stories about the entrepreneurs that are really doing well and those that have gone so much further than they expected.

Now, on the surface, you guys look like a overnight success, and I think that's something that people, for business owners are like, oh yeah, they're, a hundred thousand socks.

They just did that, in a year, right?

, I'm sure there were challenges along the way.

I'm sure there were things that got in your way that you were like, I don't know if we should keep going or we should pivot.

Can you tell us a little bit about some challenges or a specific one that you've come across and how you overcame that?

I think one of the biggest challenges initially was I guess people understanding, taking it seriously as legitimate project, not just something that was just like a passive part-time thing and.

. I think that was a big thing for us, like getting onto these companies and being like, we're not just like a one and done.

we wanna keep going.

We wanna keep growing and really building that, those relationships.

that was a big hurdle, but I once you got past that, it really helped.

Well, I think the other piece is spreading that mandate, like making yourself known and establishing yourself as a company and as a brand.

And, I think that's a challenge for any local business.

I.

the sock game is actually quite competitive.

there's lots of brands, there's lots of big brands that are everywhere, like Funky Socks are, a dime a dozen, let's call it what it is, right?

But our mandate and our vision in our mission statement as a.

a company around sustainability and kind of that philanthropic aspect I think is what keeps us unique.

but it's how do you compete with these larger stock companies where they're selling on mass and that's just not us.

Like we just don't have the capacity to do it.

So I think that's definitely a challenge.

And Yes, we have, donated a hundred thousand pairs of socks and counting, but it's taken us six years to do, which we're incredibly proud of.

But you just keep going and you keep your head down and you stay focused.

And I know another challenge is sometimes you're just tired, you're like, do we still want to keep doing this?

But like, when we get to do those drops and we get to just see the impact that, a pair of socks has on an individual.

It takes away those barriers and it just makes them opportunities

and building on that, even to see these organizations over the past six years grow like versus the master seed has opened up three different locations since we started working with them six years ago.

They've expanded their resources.

it's just amazing to see that and that's just as motivating cuz they're growing, so we should be growing as well.

I think one of the other challenges also social media, it's interesting.

Yeah.

tell me a little bit that, what is it about social media that you find challenging?

So it's hard to be creative when trying to stand out from everyone else's posts.

We'll do something, I'll say Instagram cause I mean there's a post every 30 seconds, probably even more than that.

And trying to keep top of mind and keep content and try to come up with content.

It can be.

Cumbersome sometimes

Stay relevant.

What's the name is Dance Craze.

You'll always see Mo featured on our social media.

It's just not my game.

so he's always the one doing the donation dances and keeping up with those.

It's actually a fulltime job to create local business and then being able to get that content out.

working around.

Algorithms and such that social media has, can be actually like a fairly significant limiting factor as a business because it doesn't always work the way you need it to work.

We're very lucky though we have a young niece who's very hip to social media, so she definitely helps me out.

Oh, good.

We have a nine year old social media consultant.

She's excellent.

She works for ice cream, actually.

Ice cream.

I love that.

Not for socks?

No,

that's all right.

, do you ever see your socks out in the wild?

Yeah.

Oh man.

Just randomly yeah, I think I almost at a wedding, a wedding last summer and somebody was just wearing socks and oh, I haven't seen, I haven't seen that style in three years.

Yeah.

Is a gift from my niece and this, and I'm like, oh, wow.

That's so interesting.

Yeah.

Or when we go to a market and someone's oh, you're the sock guys.

I have that style and that style.

Oh wow.

You wear our stuff.

it's kinda surreal, right?

Yeah.

Oh, that's really cool.

Now tell me about, Gonch-Tober Fest.

It was something we tried last year and it's something that I think we're gonna start doing again this year as well.

just as necessary as socks are, other.

basic clothing.

Basic clothing, underwear.

Underwear is just as big of a demand.

so during the month of October, I think it was last year, for every pair socks purchased instead of donating socks, we would donated underwear.

So we just did that as well, just to mix it up a little bit things like that.

And then I tried to have some fun with it, so I took old, like horror movie posters and changed it over make and all this stuff.

I love that.

I was gonna ask if you see underwear in the wild, but I won't go there.

, I think if we do, that'll be a whole different conversation.

They're a little more scarce.

Yes.

Yeah.

. So I saw that, comment or that piece on a m a, the video that you guys had done.

Really fun.

Loved it, loved how they produced it.

how did that connection happen?

Did they just reach out to you or was there a common friend or acquaintance there?

they just reached out.

It was, once again the power of social media, right?

Yeah.

and the power of just putting yourself out there, like people see what you do.

and you draw that positive energy in.

And, AMA reached out to us.

actually I had an old acquaintance who moved over to AMA as well.

, so I'm sure she had a hand to play that as well, but it was just the connections and social media.

And then they reached out saying, Hey, do you guys wanna do a video about what you guys do?

Yeah, it was quite a privilege, to be profiled by ama.

They take, local businesses and local entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and they highlight them and they bring a full on film crew.

Yeah.

And we just spent the day with them.

We went to, The mustard seed, they got to speak with, some of the team at the mustard seed to better understand, their operations and how they support the community.

And it was, a really beautiful opportunity for us, not just as m and s but to show that.

who the actual, unsung heroes are in the community and be able to partner with, include the mustard seed in that partnership as kind our original partners.

was, it was a really cool opportunity and experience.

And they've been ongoing partner since, so AMA has been incredibly good to us.

Oh, wonderful.

if you go to the ama offices around your, our socks are actually there as well, like the custom AMA socks for them as well.

Yeah.

Oh, that's so cool.

That's awesome.

That's a good social media post to put up.

. Mo Habib: Yes.

what's the future of mns?

Where do you see it in the next five to 10 years?

Oh,

I don't know.

I think we've just been

pleasantly surprised

flying by the seat of our pants, which is not typical.

I think we just wanna continue to give back and do good as we can.

And I think, hopefully more, Ability to impact the community, be it in partnerships with other businesses or other organizations, whatever those may look like.

maybe like specialized campaigns.

Maybe the creation of more of our own line.

I dunno, the sky's just the limit, I think.

I think, the crux of it is for it to just become like a self-sustaining.

Mechanism to, to just give back and do good.

And it helps us be mindful of being able to do that.

So we make the time to actively help, in our small way.

but I don't know.

That's how I see it.

Just keep going until nobody wants them anymore, then we'll figure something else then..

I think the big thing is just making sure that we continue to bring awareness as some of the organizations out there, not to just everyone else, to ourselves as well.

To know what we can do to help, how people can get involved.

Cause we all need, we all have communities that need our supports, and we all have the mechanism to do it, so why not just keep doing it?

Yeah.

. Amin Ahmed: That's the best.

I love that.

Because if it's, sometimes, if it's a business and it's tied to your financial wellbeing, there's that conflict there.

well, we wanna make a ton of money, but we also want to do good.

And that's really difficult sometimes to do both at the same time.

I love that it's a passion project.

I'm glad that you guys are doing this.

and it's.

It's cool to get to know you more behind the scenes to get to know who the people are behind the business.

I'll start with Samira.

Is there something that your friends would be genuinely, and Mo you've got an advantage here cause you get to hear the question first.

But Samira, is there something that your friends would be genuinely surprised to learn about you that they may not already know?

I don't think so.

I'm pretty lucky.

I have a pretty tight friend group that I've known for a really long time, cuz we're now really old so I, I don't think there's anything that they don't know that would surprise them about me.

A pretty open book.

I don't know.

What do you think?

I don't know.

that's a good question.

Yeah.

I'm not like terribly interesting person.

No, you're very interesting.

Cause everybody knows everything

there's something that people may not, know about you, that you think you're not interesting.

What's something really interesting about Samira Mo?

Ooh, careful.

Oh, geez.

Amin, come on.

We'll edit if we need to.

. Mo Habib: Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Actually, you know what, I'm always just so blown away about how Driven Sumira is she motivates me.

it's crazy just that, that energy she gives off.

Yeah.

It's just amazing.

And she's so driven and motivated.

I'm not reading off a script.

I'm actually legitimate.

Yeah.

I love it.

No, that's wonderful.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Well, Sumira, how about you?

What's interesting about Mo?

he loves karaoke.

however, that is not something that happens in this house.

Hey, my Bollywood career is just on the cusp of beginning.

He breaks out into song and dance at a moment's notice.

You just never know quite when that's gonna happen.

what's your musical genre?

What's what, do you like most?

Oh my God, I feel like it changes monthly.

I've gone from everything from like nineties gangster rap to country music.

Wow.

I'm kind of all across the board.

Whatever.

Whatever's on the radio.

nineties.

RnB is a good.

and he knows so much about pop culture references and comic books.

I dunno how he knows this stuff.

I've never seen him pick up a comic book in the last years we've been together, but he somehow knows everything about him.

So I dunno how you know it, but he knows it

all.

That's interesting.

I didn't know that.

you sound like Sheldon from, well, somewhat Sheldon from Big Bang Theory just knows everything about all the comics and the superheroes and

I didn't have many friends growing up.

No I'm just joking.

No.

I've always been into superheroes and stuff like that.

Yeah.

That's fun.

That's fun.

Music is, it's just one of those things that is just feels good.

It is good.

My daughter and I are learning to DJ together, which is really fun.

So we bought turntables and today or yesterday, what is it?

Yeah.

Yesterday we were supposed to have a house party and planning wise it didn't really work out, so we just had a house party with ourselves.

So cool.

Awesome.

So is there anything else that you guys wanna share about Mr.

Nice Socks?

Anything exciting going on that you wanna tell us about?

anything exciting?

we've hit, actually surpassed a hundred thousand pairs donated, it's going to be the beginning, so that's a huge moment for us.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

For us, we never thought that we would actually see, we got like every business, got held back and took a bit of a step back during the pandemic time, and so it's really encouraging to kinda hit that milestone and now like we're coming for 200,000 now it's our next goal,

Awesome.

Actually to that note, it's interesting cuz you know how Facebook sends you those reminders and like historical things, right?

Yeah.

I got a post like three weeks ago saying, this is, you posted this through, when you first started that you donated your first hundred pairs of socks.

Ah, wow.

That is, it's crazy to see where you are to where you've gone and Yeah.

And all these picture reminders coming up, people you work with and socks you've done and organizations you've had that, see, it's just such a cool trip down memory lane to where we are now.

And then it just makes you look at a brighter future

Yeah.

Wonderful.

And if somebody wanted to buy some socks or donate socks or have, gifts through your company, where can they go to find?

They can just, go to our site mrns.ca and yeah, shoot a message from there.

And we can work on custom songs or we have, we are working on some new lines for the new year, our own design as well,

Oh, very cool.

Very cool.

That's awesome.

Well, this has been really fun and I'm really glad I had a chance to talk to both of you together.

It's really cool to see who is behind the company and to get to know you guys a little bit more and.

Learn about the karaoke and the Interestingness . Thank you guys so much for being on the show today.

Thank you for having us.

All right.

Take care guys.