{"id":227070,"date":"2026-03-07T18:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/07\/popsockets-founder-david-barnett-talks-about-building-a-viral-business-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:40:00","slug":"popsockets-founder-david-barnett-talks-about-building-a-viral-business-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/07\/popsockets-founder-david-barnett-talks-about-building-a-viral-business-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"PopSockets founder David Barnett talks about building a viral business | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\" class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Barnett has learned a lot since first launching PopSockets more than a decade ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the tale goes, the former philosophy professor was looking for an easy way to hold his headphones and went on to create one of the most viral phone accessories of all time: A device that grips to the back of the phone and can be used as a kickstand or a handle \u2014 better known as the PopSockets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Barnett sat down with Equity this week to talk about his journey building this company from his garage, why he decided to never take on traditional venture capital funding, and some of the lessons he\u2019s learned while scaling the business.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was a philosophy professor, so I had no experience with manufacturing,\u201d he recalled, adding that he also lacked experience in business, tax, accounting, and finance. \u201cI burned through a lot of money with no revenue,\u201d he continued, adding that he had \u201cwave after wave of manufacturing defects\u201d during the early days.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"tcembed-iframe tcembed--megaphone wp-block-tc23-podcast-player__embed\" height=\"200px\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm\/?e=TCML2551360277\"><\/iframe>\n\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0Still, he managed along and was able to land in a local toy store where he would often stop by to watch how customers interacted with his brand. \u201cThe sales were quite slow,\u201d he said. He adjusted the Popsocket a bit, and that\u2019s when everything started to take off. \u201cThat was the point where I thought, \u2018Okay, this could work in retail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From there, he spoke about the hits and misses of entering retail (including a dispute he had with Amazon that briefly caused him to pull his product from the website). He spoke about adapting the product even more, protecting intellectual property, and when he knew it was time to step down as CEO and let someone else take the reins.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe greatest lesson I\u2019ve learned is that it\u2019s all about the people,\u201d he said, adding that he was looking for this trait in his successor. \u201cI think that\u2019s the most important skill one can have as a leader.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-techcrunch-inline-cta\">\n<div class=\"inline-cta__wrapper\">\n<p>Techcrunch event<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-cta__content\">\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__location\">San Francisco, CA<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"inline-cta__date\">October 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2026\/03\/07\/popsockets-founder-david-barnett-talks-about-building-a-viral-business\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Barnett has learned a lot since first launching PopSockets more than a decade ago.\u00a0 As the tale goes, the former philosophy professor was looking for an easy way to hold his headphones and went on to create one of the most viral phone accessories of all time: A device that grips to the back [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":227071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-227070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}