The ever-popular PopSockets was born out of a need for accessibility. The company’s origin story began two years prior when, in 2010, founder David Barnett, a philosophy professor, was frustrated by ...

David Barnett has learned a lot since first launching PopSockets more than a decade ago. As the tale goes, the former philosophy professor was looking for an easy way to hold his headphones and went ...

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, ...

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David Barnett, the founder and former CEO of PopSockets phone grips, based in Colorado. This story has been edited for length and clarity. I was ...