Crocs ($CROX) podcast mentions
Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Kim Vaccarella set out to build a better beach bag, gave up on it too early, and then got back in the game to grow BOG BAG into a multi-million-dollar brand. One of the biggest challenges for any entrepreneur is knowing when to quit. When the business isn't making money or it's just not working, when do you say, "I'm done"? Well, for Kim Bacarella, that decision came just one year into her business. She'd invented a beach bag she called the BOG Bag. The idea was inspired by Crocs, the shoes. A bag that was sturdy and washable. Anyway, she scraped together whatever cash she had to launch it in 2011. And she managed to sell a few hundred and even get some buzz at a few trade shows. But then disaster struck. Her first big shipment arrived from China, about $30,000 worth of product, and most of the bags were defective. Making matters worse, the manufacturer wouldn't refund the money. It was a devastating financial blow. So Kim ditched the business and went back to focusing on her day job. Except the people who had acquired a bag, well, they loved them and they wanted more. And so Kim started to realize that maybe she ditched the idea too early. She was focused on what was wrong with the product, but her customers were focused on everything that was right with it. So eventually, Kim was inspired to give it another try, and she borrowed $120,000 to find a new manufacturer and start over. But for years, BOG BAG was a grind. Kim couldn't afford her own booth at trade shows, so she would squeeze into a single booth with 4 other founders. She even kept her day job working at a commercial real estate lending office, and it wasn't until about 7 years into the business that she finally felt confident enough to leave that job. Today, BOG BAG has sold close to 5 million bags and generates more than $100 million a year in sales. You can find them at Target, Nordstrom's, Dick's Sporting Goods, pretty much everywhere. But those numbers don't really capture this story. Along the way, there were years of doubt. There was depression.
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07Yeah. Yeah. And Jibbitz at the time, the little things for the Crocs shoes had just done a $20 million deal.
Kim Vaccarella · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07The charms that you, that you put on Crocs, that company. That made those, they sold to Crocs around 2008 for around $20 million, something like that.
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07I mean, can you imagine, by the way, how much Crocs has made off of that acquisition. I mean, those things kind of made Crocs, right? Because I remember my kids, they would collect those things and just like, right? I mean, that, that, that was, that, that was and is a huge part of Crocs. Okay. So you knew that story and you thought, hey, could I come up with something that I could sell to somebody like the Jibbitz people did?
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07Yes, exactly. And my boys were very active, a lot of sports, but we also loved to spend a lot of time at the beach. And my, Um, the Jersey Shore, I'm assuming. The Jersey Shore. And going to the Jersey Shore is an all-day event. You need— you have to bring out everything that you're gonna need for the entire day, cuz you have to claim real estate first thing in the morning. You need to set up, you need to make it— you usually go back, have breakfast, coffee, whatever, and then you're bringing everything back with you. So, you know, I was never finding the right beach bag because I would literally use them once or twice. I'm an obsessive coffee drinker and I would spill things on the beach bags. My kids would get their dirty hands on it. There's sand in it. So, you know, all of these things culminated in like, I need a beach bag that's going to work. And I was not into the Crocs phase. I did not like them. But we went to a surf shop. We were going to Great Adventure for the day and my kids forgot their sneakers. And I'm like, I am not going to Great Adventure in flip-flops for you. Like, that's not happening.
Kim Vaccarella · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07So it was either I spent $100 on a pair of Nike skate sneakers that they didn't want, or I bought them the Crocs. So I bought them the Crocs and we went and they worked fine. And the next day we're sitting on the beach again and I'm just playing with these shoes and I'm feeling the material. It kind of gets like warm, but it doesn't get hot. It's a little pliable, like you can kind of pull on it. It's not stretchy, but you can feel it. And I, I was just intrigued by the material. And you know, my husband and I were talking and I was like, this is what a beach bag should be made of. You can wash it off at the end of the day, just like you could the Crocs. So I went back that night, you know, we probably left the beach at like 6 o'clock at night and I started looking on the internet and there was nothing like it that existed. And I was like, this is something really cool. And I drew and I have no artistic ability. At all. And I drew out exactly what I wanted to see. And it was very utilitarian. It was square, it was open so you can get in and out of there, but it had structured sides and it had a non-tip bottom. And I had from that minute what this bag needed to be and needed to look like.
Kim Vaccarella · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07So, okay, it was the material and the, the material, the Crocs is, is this like EVA material. It's, it's a similar, to the foam in, like, sneakers, right? It's— it's this pliable foam that is moldable. And I'm curious that you— like, you went home and designed this. So you must have been excited about this idea. You must have thought— were you the kind of person that got excited about a bunch of different ideas and, like, you did this with other ideas? Or was this really different?
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07This was different only because I had the Crocs or the Jibbitz story in, in one ear, you know, and then I was like, hey, like, but if they got $20 million for these little pieces of plastic, I ought to get $50 million for my bag.
Kim Vaccarella · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07For your— so your idea, if I'm— I might be jumping to conclusions here, is that I'm going to design a bag and come up with a concept and then sell the idea to Crocs and they can buy it from me.
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07Okay. So your idea is to sell your design, and the design is this kind of square-bottomed bag that, that had a washable, you know, made out of this EVA material like Crocs. And so did you start to call potential buyers to pitch them on this idea?
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07Yeah. The only person that I knew to call was Crocs.
Kim Vaccarella · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07Okay. You called Crocs.
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07So I called Crocs and I would never— a lot of times wouldn't get through. I tried the customer service number. They said it wasn't the right number for it. I found the office number. I think the farthest I got was I got somebody on the phone and I said, listen, I have a really good idea. I kind of shortened up my pitch at this point. I have a good idea for you. I need like 5 minutes of somebody's time, like 10 minutes max. And I got this one girl on the phone one time and she's like, we have like 200 people in research and development that we, we pay people to come up with ideas. Yeah. I'm like, okay, cool, pay me. And she's like, yeah, no. I'm like, so there's nobody I can speak with? I'm telling you, I have a really good idea. And she's like, yeah, no. And in that kind of like this whiny voice. And I said, all right, well, you know what, maybe I'll make the bag myself. And she goes, all right, good luck with that. And she hung up the phone and I'm on the other lines and I'm going, bitch, I'm gonna make this bag. I'm gonna make this bag. And that was the start of it all.
Kim Vaccarella · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07I was literally looking for a 4-letter word to go with Croc. So it was gonna be something by Crocs or something by Croc.
Kim Vaccarella · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07Croc.
Guy Raz · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned · 2026-09-07