Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

Hamilton Perkins Collection is a certified B Corporation, offering designer travel bags at an affordable price. Each bag is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles and lined with vinyl from repurposed billboards. Hamilton Perkins found his niche early with retail sales. During university, he had a sneaker business on eBay. He made and sold leather bags. After college he entered financial services, rising through the ranks at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. Yet, he had an entrepreneurial itch. So, he enrolled in an MBA program at William & Mary while working full-time. Not only was Hamilton working full time while pursuing his MBA, but he also had a side-hustle business creating leather bags. To make sure he was creating something that customers would want, he conducted over 1,000 customer interviews. Hamilton describes his strategy, “I spent every break, and every lunch and every happy hour with a customer throughout business school.” One of the key learnings was that consumers wanted their purchases