Wharton Women Committee Spotlight: Aarya Patel and Her Business That Will Knock Your Socks Off
Written By: Maryelizabeth Greeley, C’23
In this series, Wharton Women Committee Spotlight, we are diving into the past lives of current students in Wharton Women and their entrepreneurial ventures during their pre-Penn time in high school. Clearly the following women would have had to demonstrate a passion for business or they wouldn’t be in Wharton today. The women we will be spotlighting in this series only represent a small portion of the many students who began their business careers before even stepping onto Penn’s campus.
Meet Aarya Patel - a Wharton Women committee member who made her claim to fame back in middle school while playing her favorite sports: field hockey and lacrosse. She said: “Sports were a really big part of my life growing up. I loved being part of a team. It taught me a lot of self discipline and a lot about having a community.” However, playing sports was not what brought her into the limelight.
Growing up in Rochester NY, more often than not Patel and her teammates would be forced to play sports during cold, wet, and muddy weather, and come home with soaking wet gear. Patel also noticed the financial disparities between those participating in athletics and those who do not, mainly because sporting equipment was so expensive. She stated: “A lot of girls in my school wanted to be competitive athletes but couldn't necessarily afford sporting equipment. I went to a public high school so we did have a lot of free resources but also being part of a sports team is really expensive.”
That’s when Patel had the idea to start her own business - WetCheat - which aimed to provide affordable waterproof socks to athletes in her community.
The WetCheat sock began as a simple foot cover that slid over one’s socks. However, she soon realized that manufacturers and athletes alike saw greater opportunity in a waterproof sock than simply a sock cover. Once she focused on this sock, her next step was to pitch her idea to local investors for initial funding. She used the money to reach out to manufacturers in China and soon landed one in Shanghai.
(Photo provided by Patel) Meet Aarya Patel - a sophomore in Wharton majoring in Finance and BEPP from Rochester, NY. She’s active in Greek life, Penn Student Government, and serves on the Dollar Scholars Committee of Wharton Women. She loves exploring Philly and is even hoping to become a children’s yoga instructor one day. Here she’s modeling her WetCheat socks.
Like every contender on Shark Tank, Patel started selling her first thousand socks straight out of her garage and at local markets. But the word of WetCheat made its way around town and soon local manufacturers and seven sporting goods and ski stores were in on the fun too. Her business moved online, which allowed for more socks to be sold to a wider market. Soon, WetCheat went global after Patel matched with an international distributor in Peru.
She soon realized that the community in need of waterproof socks went beyond just athletic high school students, but hikers, firefighters and other first responders too. With these audiences in mind, she set out to make two products - a sock for hikers and a sock for athletes. She described its design: “The two outside layers were the same materials as any normal sock you would buy at Target and then the middle layer was a waterproof membrane that would soak up outside water and wick away sweat. [One type of sock] was targeted towards hikers. [...] Hikers also prefer socks that aren’t cotton so it was cottonless. This one was shorter and ankle length, while the original one was mid calf, geared more towards players that wear shin guards.”
Patel reached her peak when she was able to land a spot on Season 1 Episode 3 of the TV show Hatched, the Shark Tank for young entrepreneurs. Seventh grade Aarya Patel pitched her idea to three investors, showing off how a tissue inside WetCheat would stay perfectly dry even when submerged in water. She says, “I didn’t end up getting a deal but that’s okay. We learned a lot from it and it looked really cute so it was a good time.”
At the end of her senior year with a future at Penn on her horizon, Patel decided to shut down the company. Her time in high school was so highly devoted to this company that she viewed college more as a way to branch out and develop her skills through club leadership. “I think starting another company in college would distract me from all of the things I’ve been putting my time into in college.”
As she was concluding her time with WetCheat, Patel wanted to give back to her community one more time. “I ended up donating $6,000 from what I made and I ended up investing it in sporting equipment and donating it back to a couple of schools in Rochester. I had a couple of leftover socks I didn't end up selling and at that point I had been making money off of my business.”
Looking back at her experience running this company, she hopes that she had made even a small impact on the athletes in her community. She said, “I would hope that it had a really great impact on girls in Rochester and inspired them to at least get started with playing sports whether or not they continued with it or not. Maybe they found a good community through it maybe it was just a way for them to get more exercise.” In either case, Aarya Patel serves as an inspiration to young girls hoping to one day make their own impact on their communities in the future.