Mike Hourani is a regular 27-year-old guy, works as a civil engineer and is a resident of Medford. But over the past few months, he’s made a product that’s been seen across the world.
You might have heard of him by now, or at least seen the product on local television news. He’s behind the viral campaign for the Pizza Pocket Hoodie, a hoodie with an insulated pouch shaped to hold a piece of pizza.
“Most people have these ideas and just let them go, but I was like ‘let me just follow through and see what happens,’” said Hourani.
As a kid, he had an interest in “engineering stuff,” as he calls it. He would take things apart just to see how it all functions. As he got older, he used those same skills of functionality to produce what everyone desired but what nobody wanted to make: a sweatshirt pocket dedicated to pizza.
“As I got older I was like, ‘screw it, what the hell is going to happen?’ It’s either I do it or I regret not doing it later if someone else makes it,” he said.
In all, it took Hourani four years of off-and-on-again tweaks to complete the finished project. And of course, the biggest challenge was finding a manufacturer that would make a triangle-shaped insulated pouch.
“I guess people don’t realize, when they see it they’re like ‘yeah that’s just a hoodie with a slice of pizza on it,’ but I spent a long time on it,” he said.
When the product released in February on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, he turned his seemingly silly idea into a bona fide viral hit. Within the first three days of the release, the project passed its goal of $5,000 and had been written about in the popular food magazine, “Food & Wine.”
Then local television news started picking it up, like 6ABC in Philadelphia and even a Fox-affiliated station in Tampa Bay, Fla. He was asked to interview on radio shows all over the country. It even reached beloved national shows, like “Good Morning America” and “Kelly & Ryan.”
But it wasn’t until a few customers had told Hourani that they heard about the hoodie on a radio show in Japan that he realized he was on to something interesting.
“That’s kind of the stuff that blew my mind,” he said.
Besides the geographical reach, Hourani was surprised that people of different cultures understood the joke, or obsession, that his fellow Americans have with the cheesy food.
“Do those people like pizza the way Americans like pizza? I was in Japan last year, and we were looking for pizza places…and we couldn’t find a pizza place that wasn’t a gourmet or fancy pizza place,” he said.
Those in Japan, and everyone else from around the world who helped fund the campaign on Kickstarter, will receive their hoodie in June. The product is also available at thepizzapocket.com and can be found on social media.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that this (the pizza hoodie) happened in New Jersey?” said an amused Dan Harris, co-anchor of “Good Morning America,” during the show.
