âIf you want to start a footwear brand and compete with Nike or Adidas, youâll need the funding of a small country and an army,â says No One founder and designer Mark Gainor sitting in a small studio lined with cobbler tools, shoe-making machines, and work benches in Venice, California.
The 42-year-old Gainor, whoâs spent over a decade in the footwear industry working for Adidas, Gourmet, and Native, knows a thing or two about designing, manufacturing, and marketing sneakers, and now heâs setting out on his own to bring handmade shoes to the public one pair at a time. But heâs not the only person whoâs living the dream of owning their own sneaker brand. Thereâs been a rise in smaller footwear brands recently that straddle the line between sportswear and high fashion, including No One, Sonra, and John Geigerâs eponymous label. Whatâs it like launching your own sneaker brand? What are some of the challenges these upstart companies face? We spoke to the brains behind some of these rising companies to find out. Â Â
The thought of having your own shoe -- designing it from start to finish -- has likely crossed everyoneâs mind who obsesses about sneakers, but it takes more than just a piqued interest in shoes to bring a piece of footwear to life. Thereâs sketching the design, sourcing the materials, creating the last (the mold that gives a shoe its shape), finding a place to manufacture the product, and then selling it to the public. And a lot of money.
âSneakerheads think this is easy, but I was in the warehouses in Italy and they said, âIf this was so easy, then everyone would do it,ââ says 31-year-old John Geiger, who launched his own sneaker brand last year after working with Nike on Darrelle Revisâs first signature sneaker and creating a successful line of custom Air Force 1s with shoe customizer The Shoe Surgeon over the past few years.
Making shoes isnât for everyone, even if they have an idea in their head that theyâve wanted to execute. âThere might be 10,000 who can draw a really fresh sneaker, but only 10 people out of that bunch can go out and make that shoe,â Gainor says. âDoing that in the America, and itâs 10 times more difficult.â
For Geiger, getting his shoe off the ground financially took drastic measures, and it required him to unload his love for other brandsâ sneakers to create his own pair. âI funded it, I designed it, and the sole took a year because I wanted an air bladder in it,â he says. âRight before I moved from Pittsburgh to Miami, I sold my whole sneaker collection in bulk to make the sole mold. The sole mold was almost $15,000. A lot of people use pre-manufactured soles. They buy them from Margom. Thatâs the easier route. I went through, like, a million soles, but theyâd send them with no air bladder. Thatâs not what I wanted.â
Although he didnât provide an exact number, Gainor says that creating your own brand is going to cost much more than youâve set out to spend. âYou should do your research, talk to as many industry people as possible, then multiply that number by four [to find out how much itâs going to cost],â he says. âIt is so expensive and so many things that can go wrong. There are so many details that youâre going to overlook.â
Gainor and Geiger have both chose to manufacture their sneakers in the USA, and while itâs a more expensive process than making them in Asia, it gives them the quality and control that theyâre looking for in their product. âI want to do something and be known for doing it in the USA, but I want it to have the quality of being made in Italy,â Geiger says.
For Gainor, choosing to make his shoes domestically gave him the control and convenience that he didnât have with previous companies. âI was flying [to China] 12 to 13 times a year. It got to the point where I was like, âFuck thisâif I could do this 10 minutes from my home, it would be a good thrill,â he says. âYouâre not going to get into high-quality facilities in Italy or China with the volume that weâre looking to create as a startup. If youâre able to produce your product domestically, it gives you the right amount of control. Unless youâre going to be a psycho and fly over to China to check on your shoes two times a month.â
Making shoes in the USA seems like a novel idea to some consumers, but theyâll also pay the price, literally, for buying domestically manufactured sneakers. âYouâre going to pay so much to make a domestic product, you just have to make that back with marketing the product,â Gainor says. âItâs the only way you can justify making product here. Itâs going to cost you two to five times more to make shoes domestically.â
Factories located outside of Asia, whether theyâre in Europe or the U.S., arenât able to pump out the same quantity of sneakers on a daily basis, which presents its own set of problems to those trying to start their own brand. Hikmet Sugoer, who founded German sneaker boutique Solebox and started his own brand after selling and leaving the business, has started his own sneaker line, Sonra, and makes premium running sneakers in Germany. âThe biggest problem is dealing with a small factory, because they have a maximum that they can produce per year,â Sugoer, 44, says. âI forecasted a small quantity, and now thereâs no possibility to [make more shoes]. Youâre dependent on the factory, especially if you want to produce regionally, because there arenât many factories around. If I were to produce in Asia, it would be much easier, but producing in Europe is much harder.â
Once the shoe is made, selling and marketing it is the next challenge that faces someone who starts their own sneaker company. And it can make or break the brand. The process, however, all starts with making a good shoe, as simple as it may seem. âMarketing and design impact each other. If you nail a design, itâs going to market itself. So the hard work is in developing or designing the shoe thatâs truly innovative,â Gainor says. âThere are so many silhouettes that look and feel the same that occupy the same space, so the marketing becomes much more difficult. If your product doesnât stand out, then youâre going to have to put in a lot of work to make people notice it in todayâs market, especially with big players like Nike and Adidas making shoes.â
Experience in the sneaker industry will help you launch your own sneaker brand, but having a recognizable name in that same space will get more people to pay attention at the start. Sugeorâs had his hand in some of the most coveted sneaker collaborations over the past decade and has built a cult-like following, where heâs applied his older colorways to his new shoes. The same people who craved his old sneakers wanted a pair of Sonras. âWithout proving myself with my work in the past, this wouldnât be possible,â he says. âItâs not easy to put your sneakers in top-tier stores. I sell my shoes at Hanon, 24 Kilates, and Patta. This wouldnât be possible if people didnât know me. Itâs because they know me from my work that I did while I was at Solebox.â
Designing a great shoe, selecting the right materials, and finding the right marketing strategy are what it takes to make a successful shoe, as well as a little bit of luck, financial planning, and the right co-signs. But youâre not going to make it far within the footwear industry without hard work and, ultimately, a passion for sneakers. âIf you work in this industry, itâs a given that youâre passionate about sneakers. To deal with everything thatâs going to happen, youâre going to need a real love for footwear. The downside is that it might make you crazy, thinking you fucked up a colorway,â Gainor says. âIâve learned to go through my design process and live with and accept my mistakes. I realize that weâve made the very best shoe that weâve made today. We can all make a better shoe tomorrow.â