Does a consumer hardware company need to get on the VC treadmill to succeed? Eleven years and 290 million products sold across 115 countries later, PopSockets has proven that the bootstrapped, low-dilution path more viable than the industry gives it credit for. The global consumer hardware brand was built on less than $500k, no institutional capital, and a philosophy professor's determination. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis caught up with founder and former CEO of PopSockets David Barnett to talk about how he scaled from a Boulder garage, stood up to Amazon at a $10–20 million cost, and eventually handed off the CEO role to someone who'd grown up inside the company. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 

How a house fire and some insurance money became the unlikely seed funding for a global brand 

What nearly sinking the company in manufacturing defects actually taught him about building one that lasts 

How ignoring his investors' advice turned out to be the right call 

What he looked for in a successor CEO (and why culture was non-negotiable) 

What he'd do completely differently if he launched PopSockets today 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

01:15 From philosophy professor to phone grip inventor 

05:17 How a house fire funded PopSockets 

07:33 Manufacturing nightmares nearly killed the business 

10:08 The local toy store that proved it could work 

13:14 The $20M Amazon standoff 

16:09 Growing too fast? 

18:20 Beating counterfeits in China through brand building 

19:11 Why David never wanted to be CEO 

23:07 The worst advice received, and what to do instead 

26:35 Outro 

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