Building a footwear business from the ground up
How I got fed up with the lack of fashionable and comfortable shoes for my wider than usual feet and built a footwear business to address it
Solo founder, social media marketer, customer service rep, footwear designer
Product development, footwear design, e-commerce, brand development, market research, supply chain management
Women’s fashion, leather footwear, ergonomic footwear
I've had bunions all my life. And finding cute shoes that fit was a nightmare.
Whenever I tried on cute shoes, they were always too tight. It would take months for me to break them in. And there was no way in hell I was going to wear those boxy granny shoes.
In the U.S. alone, 55% of women have bunions.
The opportunity was clear to me, and the countless women I spoke to about their shoes.
So I did what any normal person would do. I traveled to China to find a manufacturer at a trade show.
But when I got there, I realized the trade show was for factory owners to buy footwear manufacturing equipment. I was not the audience.
I thought it was over, but a supplier I had connected with in Vietnam on a prior trip put me in touch with a footwear supplier named “Louis.”
So with only a day and half left of my trip to China, I paid a visit to Louis’ office in Dongguan, with no appointment.
Thankfully he was there, and he was nice enough to hear me out. He (miraculously) agreed to work with me and took me around to a couple factories.
That unexpected visit to a random office in Dongguan turned into a 2 year relationship where I worked with Louis to make my first designs come to life.
I visited China two more times, seeing the shoes come along at various points, testing out molds for the specialized insoles, giving real time feedback on every single detail.
I was doing this while working a full time job as a consultant, which wasn’t easy, but all I wanted to do was put these shoes into the world and just sell one to a real customer.
I had no idea how to sell things online, let alone build a whole e-commerce website and connect it to a third party fulfillment engine. Hell, I didn’t even know what third party fulfillment was.
What I realized through this whole process is that you can really just Google things and figure out how to do things. That’s really all there is to it.
This was pretty empowering because I truly didn’t know anything about anything, until I did. It made me believe that I can truly do anything. And it reminded me of a quote that my dad had on his office wall for decades: “everything is difficult until it’s not”
I launched the website, fired out newsletters and socials, and started getting sales.
First from my friends and family and then total strangers.
One customer emailed me:
“ I work in retail and I’m on my feet for over 10 hours. This shoe doesn’t hurt my feet at the end of the day and they don’t feel tired...I honestly think you have revolutionized the shoe game for me. I have bought so many shoes in over 7 years but this by far are my favorite. If you do come back I’ll be there for sure!!!”