This CEO's Crazy Pants Landed Him A Gig With Google

Joe Garvey, founder and CEO of a scavenger hunt startup called CLASH, estimates that he owes about 20% of his company's 2014 revenue to his crazy pants. Seriously.

Garvey owns half a dozen pairs of bright-colored or patterned pants that he says win him about five compliments per hour, on average, when he's hanging out in downtown San Francisco.

The key is turning those compliments into conversations, and those conversations into connections that lead to business deals.

Garvey told Business Insider that he landed one of CLASH's early gigs with Google after an employee he met at a bagel shopped was "floored by the pants."

"We were talking, and she said she worked at Google, and I told her that I set up scavenger hunts for tech companies," Garvey says. "She said, 'Oh, my team is always looking for off-site ideas!' and next thing you know, we're putting together a hunt for them."

CLASH, which launched in 2012, has hosted events for Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Lyft, Vox, Yelp, Pinterest, Fitbit, Cisco, Pandora, and Sony, among others. Garvey describes the hunts - which typically involve drinking, neon facepaint, and goofy pictures - as "high octane."

The company is on track to reel in $1 million in revenue this year (and, as an incentive, Garvey promised his employees he'd get his nipples pierced if CLASH doesn't hit that target).

Garvey buys most of his crazy pants from a company called LoudMouth Golf, which also supplies loud trousers to the likes of Bill Murray and George Lopez.

He got his first pair when LoudMouth sponsored a "Pub Golf Crawl" event that he put on. After the party, he started wearing the pants out-and-about and couldn't believe how many people would compliment his style.

"I just felt so great!" he says. "They're the ultimate ice-breaker."

Here's another pair: