The power of remarkable

When I first wrote about Little Miss Matched about five years ago, they were an obscure little sock company, selling funky socks to fashionable girls.

The idea was beyond clever. 3 to a box, 133 styles, none of them match. Instead of a strategy built around a consultant's vision of 'utility' or a strategy built around cheap or a strategy built around excessive retail distribution and heavy advertising, they built their strategy around one girl saying to another girl, "wanna see my socks?"

I couldn't have invented a better Purple Cow story if I had tried.

The company let me know today that they just did a huge deal with Macys and closed a $17 million funding with the folks who financed Build a Bear's retail rollout. Money isn't the only point, of course, but if that's the way you keep score, that's a long way for a little company to come in five years.

[full disclosure: My feet are sponsored by LMM and I wear their socks every day. I am compensated by the company--they give me 33 free socks a year (not pairs of socks, just 33 socks), worth about $110.]

*Quatation from Seth Godin