case study on shoes

Teaching Entrepreneurs & Business Students

Case Study: TOMS Shoes – The One-for-One Business Model

Introduction

TOMS Shoes is a company that has revolutionized the way businesses operate. Founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, TOMS Shoes has become a leader in the corporate social responsibility movement. The company’s one-for-one business model has been widely praised for its innovative approach to giving back to the community. Through this model, TOMS Shoes donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes purchased. This model has allowed TOMS Shoes to become a successful business while positively impacting the world. This case study will explore the history of TOMS Shoes, its one-for-one business model, and its effect on the planet.

How TOMS Shoes’ One-for-One Business Model Has Revolutionized Corporate Social Responsibility

Exploring the impact of toms shoes’ one-for-one model on the global footwear industry, examining the challenges and opportunities of toms shoes’ one-for-one model, analyzing the success of toms shoes’ one-for-one model in developing countries, evaluating the impact of toms shoes’ one-for-one model on social entrepreneurship.

TOMS Shoes has revolutionized corporate social responsibility through its innovative one-for-one business model. This model, which was first implemented in 2006, is based on the idea that for every pair of shoes purchased, TOMS will donate a pair of shoes to a child in need. This model has been incredibly successful, with TOMS donating over 95 million pairs of shoes to needy children in over 70 countries.

The success of the one-for-one model has been attributed to its simplicity and transparency. Consumers can quickly understand the concept and appreciate their purchase’s direct impact on those in need. This has resulted in a strong sense of loyalty among TOMS customers, who are proud to be part of a company making a difference in the world.

The success of the one-for-one model has also had a significant impact on the corporate social responsibility landscape. It has demonstrated that companies can be profitable while also positively impacting society. This has encouraged other companies to adopt similar models, resulting in a shift towards more socially responsible business practices.

The one-for-one model has also positively impacted TOMS’ bottom line. The company has seen a significant increase in sales since implementing the model, as customers are more likely to purchase from a company making a positive difference in the world. This has allowed TOMS to expand its operations and reach more needy people.

Overall, TOMS Shoes’ one-for-one business model has revolutionized corporate social responsibility. It has demonstrated that companies can be profitable while positively impacting society and has encouraged other companies to adopt similar models. This has resulted in a shift towards more socially responsible business practices and allowed TOMS to expand its operations and reach more needy people.

The TOMS Shoes one-for-one model has significantly impacted the global footwear industry. The company, founded in 2006, has become a leader in the industry by providing a unique business model that has revolutionized how shoes are produced and distributed. The model is based on giving away one pair of shoes for every couple purchased. This has enabled TOMS to provide shoes to those in need while creating a sustainable business model that consumers worldwide have embraced.

The impact of the one-for-one model has been far-reaching. It has encouraged other companies to adopt similar models, increasing the number of companies offering shoes to those in need. This has increased the availability of affordable shoes, positively impacting the global footwear industry. Additionally, the model has encouraged companies to focus on sustainability and ethical production practices, which has helped reduce the industry’s environmental impact.

The one-for-one model has also had a positive impact on the economy. By providing shoes to those in need, TOMS has helped reduce poverty and improve the quality of life for many people worldwide. This has positively affected the global economy, as it has helped create jobs and stimulate economic growth.

The TOMS Shoes one-for-one model has significantly impacted the global footwear industry. It has encouraged other companies to adopt similar models, leading to an increase in the availability of affordable shoes and a focus on sustainability and ethical production practices. Additionally, it has positively impacted the economy by helping to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth.

TOMS Shoes has become a well-known brand for its innovative One-for-One model, which provides a pair of shoes to a child in need for every couple purchased. This model has been praised for its potential to impact the world positively but has also been criticized. This paper will examine the challenges and opportunities of TOMS Shoes’ One-for-One model.

One of the primary challenges of TOMS Shoes’ One-for-One model is the sustainability of the donations. The company has been criticized for not providing long-term solutions to poverty, as gifts are not always used most effectively. The facilities are not always distributed equitably or beneficial to the local economy.

Another challenge is the potential for the One-for-One model to create a dependency on donations. This could lead to a lack of motivation to develop sustainable solutions to poverty, as people may become reliant on donations from TOMS Shoes.

Despite these challenges, TOMS Shoes’ One-for-One model has the potential to create a positive impact on the world. The donations provide immediate relief to those in need, and the company has taken steps to ensure that the gifts are used most effectively. Additionally, the model has raised awareness of poverty and has encouraged people to take action to help those in need.

The One-for-One model has also provided TOMS Shoes with a unique marketing opportunity. The company has leveraged charitable donations to create a positive brand image and attract customers looking to make a difference.

In conclusion, TOMS Shoes’ One-for-One model has both challenges and opportunities. While the model has been criticized for not providing long-term solutions to poverty, it has also been praised for its potential to impact the world positively. Additionally, the model has provided TOMS Shoes with a unique marketing opportunity.

TOMS Shoes is a for-profit company that has gained international recognition for its one-for-one model, which provides a pair of shoes to a child in need for every couple purchased. This model has been successful in developing countries, where access to necessities such as shoes is often limited. This paper will analyze the success of TOMS Shoes’ one-for-one model in developing countries, focusing on its impact on the lives of those in need.

The success of TOMS Shoes’ one-for-one model in developing countries can be attributed to its focus on providing necessities to those in need. TOMS Shoes has improved the health and well-being of those in developing countries by giving shoes to needy children. Studies have shown that access to shoes can reduce the risk of soil-transmitted diseases, such as hookworm, which can cause anemia and other health problems. Additionally, shoes can provide protection from cuts and scrapes, which can lead to infection. TOMS Shoes has improved the health and well-being of those in developing countries by giving shoes to those in need.

In addition to improving the health and well-being of those in need, TOMS Shoes’ one-for-one model has also positively impacted developing countries economies. TOMS Shoes has created jobs in the countries it operates by providing shoes to those in need. This has positively impacted the local economy, as those employed by TOMS Shoes can earn a living wage and contribute to the local economy. Additionally, the money spent by TOMS Shoes on materials and labor in the countries where it operates has positively impacted the local economy.

Finally, TOMS Shoes’ one-for-one model has positively impacted the environment of developing countries. By providing shoes to those in need, TOMS Shoes has reduced the waste created by discarded shoes. This has positively impacted the environment, as discarded shoes can decompose and release harmful chemicals into the atmosphere for years. Additionally, TOMS Shoes has been able to reduce the amount of energy used in the production of shoes, as the company uses recycled materials and energy-efficient production methods.

In conclusion, TOMS Shoes’ one-for-one model has been successful in developing countries, as it has positively impacted the lives of those in need, the economy of the countries where it operates, and the environment. By providing shoes to those in need, TOMS Shoes has improved the health and well-being of those in developing countries, created jobs, contributed to the local economy, and reduced the waste produced by discarded shoes. As such, TOMS Shoes’ one-for-one model has been successful in developing countries.

The One-for-One model of TOMS Shoes has significantly impacted social entrepreneurship. This model was first introduced in 2006 and involved the company donating shoes to a needy child for every pair of shoes purchased. Other companies have widely adopted this model and have become a significant part of social entrepreneurship.

The impact of the One-for-One model on social entrepreneurship can be seen in several ways. First, it has helped raise awareness of social entrepreneurship’s needs. By making the concept of giving back to the community a part of the purchase process, TOMS Shoes has helped to make social entrepreneurship more visible and accessible to the public. This has helped to create a greater understanding of the importance of social entrepreneurship and its potential to impact society positively.

Second, the One-for-One model has helped to create a more sustainable form of social entrepreneurship. By providing a tangible benefit to those in need, TOMS Shoes has helped to create a more sustainable form of giving. This has allowed other companies to adopt similar models, completing a more sustainable layout of social entrepreneurship.

Third, the One-for-One model has helped to create a more equitable form of social entrepreneurship. By providing a tangible benefit to those in need, TOMS Shoes has helped to create a more natural form of giving. This has allowed other companies to adopt similar models, completing a more simple layout of social entrepreneurship.

Finally, the One-for-One model has helped to create a more efficient form of social entrepreneurship. By providing a tangible benefit to those in need, TOMS Shoes has helped to create a more efficient form of giving. This has allowed other companies to adopt similar models, completing a more efficient layout of social entrepreneurship.

Overall, the One-for-One model of TOMS Shoes has significantly impacted social entrepreneurship. By raising awareness, creating a more sustainable form of giving, creating a more equitable layout of giving, and creating a more efficient design of giving, the One-for-One model has helped to create a more effective form of social entrepreneurship. As such, it has significantly impacted social entrepreneurship and helped create a more positive impact on society.

The TOMS Shoes business model is an excellent example of how a company can use a one-for-one approach to create a successful and sustainable business. By providing a product that is both fashionable and socially responsible, TOMS has been able to develop a loyal customer base and a strong brand identity. The company has also been able to use its one-for-one model to positively impact the lives of those in need. The success of TOMS Shoes demonstrates that a business can be both profitable and socially responsible.

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A Case Study On A Sustainable Footwear Company: Allbirds

Written by Alexandra Amoresano
Fashion Sustainability
May 4, 2023

Shoes are necessary to our lives, and their manufacturing and disposal are inherently unsustainable. Shoe waste and pollution from shoe production are at an all-time high.

The problem

Every year more than 20 billion shoes are manufactured, and of those 20 billion shoes, 300 million pairs of shoes end up in landfills. Unfortunately, it is tough to recycle the metal parts in the shock-absorbent soles of shoes, and this results in 95 percent of shoes being thrown away at the end of their life instead of being recycled. When shoes enter landfills, they contaminate the environment by emitting chemicals into the soil and the groundwater. The dye on the shoes release heavy metals, and the soles of the shoes decompose into chemicals that harm the environment. The materials that most shoes are composed of cannot biodegrade quickly, and shoes take between 25 to 1000 years to biodegrade (depending on what they are made of). Leather shoes take 25 to 40 years to biodegrade, whereas shoes made of synthetic materials take up to 1000 years to decompose.

According to Unsustainable Magazine, the manufacturing process of shoes releases large amounts of carbon dioxide. Manufacturers use unrenewable energy sources such as fossil fuels or coal to power factories. When these materials are burned for energy, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses are released into the atmosphere. Another issue involved in the manufacturing process of shoes is transportation. Because most companies outsource their labor from developing nations, they must ship the shoes using planes, ships, and trucks. Transportation issues contribute to the sustainability issues of the shoe industry.

The shoe industry is responsible for 1.4% of GHG emissions in the world.

How is the shoe industry changing to mitigate these problems?

Brands are focusing on how they can produce shoes differently to become more sustainable. Better manufacturing standards, eco-friendly shoes, and shoe recycling programs are developed to combat the growing pollution problem that comes from shoes.

What is a sustainable shoe?

According to Sustainable Urban, footwear must adhere to four sustainability pillars to be considered sustainable.

Responsible materials: The product does not use harmful materials or degrade natural resources by using nonrenewable materials.
Ethical production : The product has ethically sourced and fair labor.
Efficient life cycle : The product has a small carbon footprint, is long-lasting, and creates minimal waste when it is used.
Minimal impact disposal : The product can be recycled or turned into another item for continual use

What can we do?

A solution to the environmental problems created by the manufacturing and disposal of shoes is investing in environmentally friendly and sustainable shoes. A shoe company that focuses on innovating environmentally conscious shoes is AllBirds. I own AllBirds shoes, which is one of the reasons why this topic is interesting to me.

AllBirds – History

Two native New Zealanders, Tim Brown, and Joey Zwillinger teamed up to create shoes inspired by natural materials with environmentally conscious practices in mind. AllBirds is a certified B-Corporation and they are striving to reduce their carbon footprint to near zero by 2030. The company is well on its way to reducing its carbon footprint. In 2021 alone, AllBirds reduced its average carbon footprint by 12 percent.

The foundation of the AllBirds company is the idea of “better business practices”. Allbirds defines “better business” in three different areas: accountability, reduction of their carbon footprint, and commitment to change.

Accountability

One way that Allbirds is holding itself accountable is by measuring its carbon footprint. The company is transparent and measures “everything that contributes to our carbon footprint, from the factory floor to the lights in HQ”.

Priorities to reduce carbon footprint

Allbirds believes in doing more than offsetting the negative impact they are making on the environment and they employ strategies to reduce their footprint to zero. One priority that Allbirds has developed is regenerative agriculture . Regenerative agriculture is important because modern agriculture practices destroy land by stripping carbon from the soil. When the soil is damaged it is no longer able to remove carbon from the atmosphere to store it in the ground. Regenerative agriculture introduces an opportunity to reverse climate change and increase the long-term viability of the land. Allbirds prioritizes getting to know the farmers that they work with and helps transform their farms into regenerative farms. The company also offers financial incentives to encourage their farmers to use their land to store carbon.

Another priority that Allbirds focuses on is using renewable material in their shoes. Allbirds shoes are made of natural materials like wool, trees, sugar, and trino. By replacing petroleum-based materials with these natural materials they are combatting the depletion of nonrenewable resources. When the company is unable to find a suitable renewable resource replacement they innovate new materials to stay sustainable and natural. SweetFoam is an example of one of these materials created by Allbirds. SweetFoam is a trademarked material used to make shoe soles. Plant leather is also used for aesthetic purposes on shoes.

Allbirds also prioritizes responsible energy usage by maximizing the use of ocean shipping instead of using planes to deliver their products. A special care label is put on each of the products to encourage customers to wash and dry Allbirds products in an environmentally conscious manner. Another important fact to mention is that Allbirds understands that responsible energy requires change on a global scale through legislation and policy changes, and they state that they use their voice to encourage these changes.

To review Allbirds’ carbon footprint tool, visit this website: Sustainability Guide & Practices | Allbirds

Carbon offset projects

Even though Allbirds is working towards being completely carbon zero, they are not there yet so they still invest in carbon offset projects to neutralize their current carbon footprint. Some initiatives Allbirds has invested in are the Argentina regenerative wool project, the Capricorn Ridge wind energy project, the Sichuan clean cookstoves project, and the new renewables portfolio project. Each of these projects focuses on different areas of sustainability from land to energy and air.

During the Argentina regenerative wool project, Allbirds worked alongside farmers in Argentina and provided financial support in exchange for the ability to learn about how sheep can help create natural carbon sinks. This project increased biodiversity, watershed health, and profitability for farmers. When sheep can take carbon out of the land, the soil will be depleted much slower than without the sheep.

The Capricorn Ridge wind project consisted of AllBirds sponsoring NativeEnergy’s work to accelerate the development of wind energy. This project created local jobs and community development all while reducing the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.

The Sichuan clean cookstoves project supported low-income families in the Sichuan province by providing them with more efficient cookstoves and biogas digesters. This initiative is impactful because it removes the health and environmental hazard that is coal and wood-burning stoves.

Allbirds supports NativeEnergy’s new renewables portfolio to ensure that their operations in North America are run on 100 percent renewable energy. This project encourages solar energy usage.

To stay in the loop on Allbirds’ carbon offset projects take a look at Sustainable Shoes & Clothing | The Most Comfortable Shoes in The World | Allbirds

What kind of shoes does AllBirds sell?

Allbirds offers running sneakers, hiking shoes, and stylish wool shoes for men, women, and children. When you click on an item on the website there is a details section that describes the sustainability features of the shoes and the carbon footprint of the individual shoe. For example, the Women’s SuperLight Tree Runners have, FSC-certified TENCEL™ Lyocell (eucalyptus tree fiber), SuperLight Foam made with sugarcane-based green EVA, Bio-based TPU eyelets, Shoelaces made from recycled plastic bottles, and SweetFoam® insole foam. The carbon footprint of the SuperLight Tree Runner is 2.85 kg CO2e.

Allbirds customers can also choose to shop for used products on the Allbirds ReRun website. Not only are these shoes a less expensive option than new shoes, but reselling gently used shoes helps prevent the shoes from entering the landfill. When the shoes reach the landfill their useful life ends, but when they enter the ReRun store they are given a new life. Another incentive to trade in shoes is the 20-dollar payment in return for sending your shoes in.

Check out the ReRun program here: Gently Used Allbirds Shoes | Allbirds ReRun

If you are looking for a shoe company that is committed to making social and environmental change, make sure to check out AllBirds!

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Case Study | Can On Set a New Pace for Sportswear?

Daniel-Yaw Miller

Key insights

The start-up has stood out from the get-go by prioritising wholesale relationships with speciality running stores over DTC.
On has attracted luxury and streetwear consumers thanks to partnerships with Loewe and Kith along with wholesale agreements with Nordstrom and other high-end retailers.
The NYSE-listed company, valued at around $6 billion, has evolved its channel mix and is set to record 2022 net sales of CHF 1.1 ($1.14 billion).

In just over a decade, On evolved from a little-known Swiss footwear start-up, endorsed by a small but passionate community of runners and outdoor enthusiasts into a premium global sportswear brand that has caught the attention of the fashion industry.

But the route from a prototype cobbled together in a backyard in Switzerland to an NYSE-listed retail wunderkind was not always smooth.

Undeterred by their lack of footwear industry expertise, On’s three founders — Olivier Bernhard, Caspar Coppetti and David Allemann — knew back in 2010 what they needed to do to win. “We had really no idea about how to make shoes, but we knew that the technology we had developed was unique,” said Coppetti, now an On executive director.

To realise their ambitions, the founders had to build a supply chain that would help them scale; prioritise where to grow the brand geographically; craft a disciplined approach to distribution and marketing by focusing on speciality retail; and earn credibility for the brand’s product in a crowded, yet niche market. Those forces would need to coalesce if On stood any chance of competing with the big incumbents like Nike and Adidas, as well as smaller players like New Balance, Asics and Saucony.

On’s reputation for forging its distinctive path to growth has helped it differentiate itself. While other start-ups over the past decade have focused first and foremost on being direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, On pivoted towards speciality wholesale initially, enabling it to build a niche and loyal following, before entering into larger wholesale agreements and gradually introducing DTC. On has also secured its place at the top end of the global sportswear industry — worth around $384 billion in 2021, according to McKinsey & Company — by avoiding discounting under a disciplined strategy so that supply never exceeds demand.

The Business of Fashion speaks with On’s founders, management team and product designers at the company’s sleek new 16-storey headquarters in Zurich to explore its growth strategies.

This case study unpacks how start-ups can grow into billion-dollar companies through a combination of continuous innovation, adaptability and opportunism in a fiercely competitive market, and an ability to swiftly learn from their mistakes while never losing sight of the core essence of their brand.

The report covers four key components of On’s growth strategy:

1. Thinking Big and Scaling Fast

What challenges On needed to confront to build the brand globally.

2. Speciality Retail Relationships

Why On’s founders zeroed in on speciality retailers to underpin their distribution and marketing, prioritising wholesale over direct-to-consumer.

3. The Federer Effect

How tennis superstar Roger Federer helped open the way for new products and partnerships.

4. Continuous Innovation

How On taps its community to maintain a steady pace of product innovation.

Click below to read the case study now.

Editor’s Note: This case study was revised on Sep. 22, 2022 to correct the current job titles of On’s founders as well as an engineer who developed On’s early footwear. The year that On received an early award for innovation has also been amended.

Daniel-Yaw Miller is Senior Editorial Associate at The Business of Fashion. He is based in London and covers menswear, streetwear and sport.

Roger Federer
David Allemann
Caspar Coppetti
Olivier Bernhard
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Module 6: Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility

Case study: social entrepreneurship at tom’s shoes, learning outcomes.

Give examples of corporate social responsibility

young child wearing a pair of TOMS shoes

While there is no universally accepted definition of social entrepreneur , the term is typically applied to an individual who uses market-based ideas and practices to create “social value,” the enhanced well-being of individuals, communities, and the environment. Unlike ordinary business entrepreneurs who base their decisions solely on financial returns, social entrepreneurs incorporate the objective of creating social value into their founding business models.

Social entrepreneurship has become exceedingly popular in recent years, and a number of prestigious business schools have created specific academic programs in the field. It is often said that social entrepreneurs are changing the world. They are lauded for their ability to influence far-reaching social change through innovative solutions that disrupt existing patterns of production, distribution, and consumption. Prominent social entrepreneurs are celebrated on magazine covers, praised at the World Economic Forum in Davos, awarded millions of dollars in seed money from “angel” investors, and applauded as “harbingers of new ways of doing business.”

Social entrepreneurs are thus often hailed as heroes—but are they actually effecting positive social change?

Undeniably, social entrepreneurship can arouse a striking level of enthusiasm among consumers. Blake Mycoskie, social entrepreneur and founder of TOMS Shoes, tells the story of a young woman who accosted him in an airport, pointing at her pair of TOMS while yelling, “This is the most amazing company in the world!” Founded in 2006, TOMS Shoes immediately attracted a devoted following with its innovative use of the so-called One for One business model, in which each purchase of a pair of shoes by a consumer triggers the gift of a free pair of shoes to an impoverished child in a developing country.

The enthusiasm associated with social entrepreneurship is perhaps emblematic of increased global social awareness, which is evidenced by increased charitable giving worldwide. A 2012 study showed that 83 percent of Americans wish brands would support causes; 41 percent have bought a product because it was associated with a cause (a figure that has doubled since 1993); 94 percent said that, given the same price and quality, they were likely to switch brands to one that represented a cause; and more than 90 percent think companies should consider giving in the communities in which they do business.

Despite the eager reception from consumers, critics of social entrepreneurship have raised concerns about the creation of social value in a for-profit context. Thus, TOMS is sometimes mistaken for a charity because it donates shoes to children in developing countries, yet it is also in business to sell shoes. The company earns an estimated $300 million a year and has made Mr. Mycoskie a wealthy man. While companies are starting to look more like charities, nonprofits are also increasingly relying on business principles to survive an uncertain economy in which donors expect to see tangible results from their charitable contributions.

Our understanding of social entrepreneurship is complicated by the absence of any consensus on ways to measure social outcomes. As a result, there is little concrete statistical data available on the impact of social entrepreneurship. Indeed, there is not much agreement on a precise definition of social entrepreneurship, so it becomes difficult to say to what extent any given company is an example of social entrepreneurship. TOMS’ Chief Giving Officer, Sebastian Fries, recently told the New York Times that the company is “not in the business of poverty alleviation.”

Does this mean that increased social value is merely a happy byproduct of the business of selling shoes? If so, what makes Blake Mycoskie a social entrepreneur?

Some critics go so far as to suggest that social entrepreneurs are merely using public relations tactics to engage in social or environmental greenwashing—taking advantage of consumers’ desire to do good. In some cases, it has been argued, social entrepreneurs can even do more harm than good. Lacking a full understanding of the socioeconomic and cultural dynamic of the developing countries in which they intervene, social enterprises can undermine fragile local markets and foster dependence on foreign assista nce. But in the end, the individual impact of social entrepreneurial ventures may outweigh some of these concerns.

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Revision and adaptation. Authored by : Linda Williams and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Good Corporation, Bad Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Economy. Authored by : Guillermo C. Jimenez and Elizabeth Pulos. Provided by : Open SUNY Textbooks. Located at : http://pressbooks.opensuny.org/good-corporation-bad-corporation/chapter/5/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Toms. Authored by : Danielle Henry. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/waterandglass/5826939576/ . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
TOMS - Gives new shoes to children in need. One for One. Provided by : TOMS. Located at : https://youtu.be/7MV3HWQHl1s . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
Thank You Notes From The Field. Provided by : TOMS. Located at : https://youtu.be/7b05syjxe2E . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

Continuing education
Research and mandates

Teaching case studies: On shoes, a real world success story

22 Sep 2022

The case study dedicated to the company On Running, creator of the eponymous sports shoes and written by Rico Baldegger and Marco Biscaro from the HEG-FR, is now available in international case studies catalogs.

Look at the shoes people around you are wearing. Chances are there is at least one pair stamped with the On logo, a brand famous from Australia to the United States to Switzerland, where they were created. Both Marco Biscaro, Ph.D. candidate and scientific collaborator and Rico Baldegger, dean and professor at the School of Management Fribourg (HEG-FR) were fascinated by this entrepreneurial success. That is why they developed a pedagogical case study recently published in the International Journal of Case Studies in Management and Harvard Business Publishing catalogs.

This case study tells the success story of On by following the steps of David Allemann, one of the three co-founders of the Swiss SME. This case aims to help business school students put themselves in the shoes of the company's managers. What decisions would they have made in their place? Would they have contacted Roger Federer as an investor, designer, and advisor? Was On's IPO a good idea made at the right time?

Learning from Swiss companies

Professors at the HEG-FR have always used case studies in their courses which include real-life situations. The case On, about a very successful Swiss SME, was subjected to a blind peer review, the results of which were positive. This ensured high quality.

Thanks to the publication of this case in renowned educational case catalogs, students from the canton of Fribourg, Switzerland, and all over the world will be able to test and consolidate their knowledge in management.

The educational case entitled " How a startup is putting the running shoe industry back on track " can be ordered at :

The International Journal of Case Studies catalog: https://education.hec.ca/centredecas/app/en/cases

The Harvard Business Publishing catalog: https://hbsp.harvard.edu/

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Smart shoes: Innovations revolutionizing the future of footwear

From measuring athletic performance to tracking fitness and evaluating health metrics , smart shoes are here to provide personalized feedback to users. Efforts are on to engineer traditional shoes with integrated technology to boost comfort, convenience, and good health. Smart shoes feature insoles that can act as a Bluetooth-connected accessory and can link activity or position to a smartphone app. They can function as a high-tech brain. In this article, we address the current status, challenges, and future of smart shoe technology.

Key players in the market:

While the market is still in its infancy, that hasn’t stopped a lot of shoe companies from releasing their own smart shoes with intelligent trackers. Some key players in the market are mentioned below:

One of the world’s biggest shoe companies, Nike, launched innovative self-lacing HyperAdapt 1.0 shoes. The shoes have pressure sensors in the soles that sense when to put the foot inside and triggers an algorithm that allows an automatic lacing. With integrated LEDs, the shoes can alert a user of low battery or a tight fit. Moreover, these shoes do not need charging every day, and the charge can last up to two weeks.

Under Armour

HOVR Phantom and HOVR Sonic shoes released in February 2018 by Under Armour have inbuilt sensors to record a number of metrics important for runners. These include pace, distance, steps, stride, and cadence. These chip-laden shoes can be easily synced to the Map My Run app and are compatible with iOS and Android phones. The users can experience zero gravity and a great energy run with the shoes’ excellent cushioning properties and comfort.

Under Armour | HOVR HAVOC Shot Compilation from Bryan Talkish on Vimeo .

Smart shoes by Digitsole features a wide range of uses and is fit for everyone. These interactive smart shoes provide personalized feedback to analyze health, fatigue, posture, steps, and calories and create precise data for improving health and preventing injuries. It is easily connected to Bluetooth 4.0 device and provides personalized coaching in real time via a smartphone app. The lightweight next-gen shoe design boasts of auto-lacing and temperature regulation.

Xiaomi, another big player in the market, has developed chip-laden MiJia smart shoes . These shoes are easily connected to Xiaomi’s MiFit app to detect speed, distance, calories, hours slept, and even weight. By just shaking the shoes, one can connect and synchronize the data with the app. Moreover, these sporty looking shoes possess a long battery life.

Altra Torin IQ

These shoes feature razor-thin, lightweight sensors and transmitters to provide data for each foot individually. Moreover, they provide live coaching feedback, including impact rate, landing zone, distance, pace, contact time, and cadence. The coaching can be made audible depending on the preference of the runners. Altra IQ shoes communicate directly to the company’s iFit app on smartphones. App screen settings are easily customizable with feedback relayed in real time.

What are the different technologies used in smart shoes?

Smart shoes require a reliable system for data acquisition, data transmission, storage, and data analysis. A wide variety of sensors are used to acquire data for smart shoes:

Inertial-magnetic measurement units made up of an accelerometer, a gyroscope , and a magnetometer are used for gait analysis.
Satellite navigation systems such as GPS, GLONASS, and GALILEO are used to provide information for the real-time location.
Pressure sensors are used to provide information on the distribution of body weight mid-gait.
Ambient environmental sensors, including atmospheric pressure, light, and sound sensors, are used for acquiring data from altitude-dependent activities and the surrounding environment.
Internal status sensors are used to provide information on battery and memory capacity.

Besides sensor recording, data acquisition systems often have cloud-based transmission abilities. Raw sensor data is processed to get relevant information using filters, drift correction, or gradient descent-based algorithms. The data is further segmented using sequential model-based approaches, template-based approaches, multidimensional subsequencing, and a dynamic time warping approach. And gait or activity patterns can be extracted and analyzed for personalized feedback, visualization, and various health applications.

Smart shoes with a noble cause:

Apart from the above-mentioned shoes for evaluating and boosting performance, other smart shoe companies, including Zhor Tech , have created shoes designed for construction workers. These shoes feature a safety insole that can count steps, detect fatigue, and evaluate posture. Insoles can detect and alert a manager or supervisor in case of a slip or an accident. Lechal footwear designed by Ducere Technologies is for visually impaired people. The interactive haptic-based navigation system in the shoes detects the vibration in the feet and guides them to their destination. If the wearer needs to turn left, the vibration is sensed in the left foot, and vice versa. The users can easily sync the shoes to the Lechal app via Bluetooth for guidance to their destination.

Challenges and the future of smart shoes:

So, despite all these innovations, why are smart shoes not used widely? Shoe companies need tremendous investment and technical know-how to make smart shoes. It requires expertise, innovative engineering, and a lot of resources. Then there are some social hurdles to jump, as well. Many consumers do not see smart shoes as a part of their life yet. However, as technology is advancing , these issues can be resolved.

A new industry insiders’ report suggests that the market for smart shoes will continue to grow steadily through 2022, at a CAGR of about 23% over the next four years. Already, companies like Adidas and Salomon are in the process of testing shoes that can be customized with foot biomechanics. In collaboration with Puma, MIT Design Lab is developing biologically active smart shoes capable of sensing how we feel, which can therefore adapt to the wearer. App l e is designing smart shoes that could prevent damage to feet, helping users to avoid an injury. More companies like Sensoria, Garmin, Vivobarefoot, E-Traces, E-vone, and others are shaping the future of athletic wear with their innovations. The era of smart shoes has just begun. Let’s wait and watch for the next best pair of smart shoes.

If you have any questions or would like to know if we can help your business with its innovation challenges, please contact us here or email us at [email protected] .

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15.14: Case Study- Social Entrepreneurship at Tom’s Shoes

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Learning Objectives

Give examples of corporate social responsibility

Social entrepreneurship has become exceedingly popular in recent years and a number of prestigious business schools have created specific academic programs in the field. It is often said that social entrepreneurs are changing the world. They are lauded for their ability to effect far-reaching social change through innovative solutions that disrupt existing patterns of production, distribution, and consumption. Prominent social entrepreneurs are celebrated on magazine covers, praised at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and awarded millions of dollars in seed money from “angel” investors, and applauded as “harbingers of new ways of doing business.”

Social entrepreneurs are thus often hailed as heroes—but are they actually effecting positive social change?

Does this mean that increased social value is merely a happy by-product of the business of selling shoes? If so, what makes Blake Mycoskie a social entrepreneur?

Contributors and Attributions

Revision and adaptation. Authored by : Linda Williams and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Good Corporation, Bad Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Economy. Authored by : Guillermo C. Jimenez and Elizabeth Pulos. Provided by : Open SUNY Textbooks. Located at : pressbooks.opensuny.org/good-corporation-bad-corporation/chapter/5/. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Toms. Authored by : Danielle Henry. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/waterandglass/5826939576/ . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
TOMS - Gives new shoes to children in need. One for One. Provided by : TOMS. Located at : https://youtu.be/7MV3HWQHl1s . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License
Thank You Notes From The Field. Provided by : TOMS. Located at : https://youtu.be/7b05syjxe2E . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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Geox: Breathing Innovation into Shoes

By: Ali Farhoomand, Havovi Joshi

Length: 29 page(s)
Publication Date: Jun 24, 2010
Discipline: General Management
Product #: HKU895-PDF-ENG

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On 28 July 2009, the board of directors of Geox approved the footwear and apparel company's half-year results, which showed consolidated sales of US$653 million. This was a remarkable achievement and recognition for a company that had only been in the business since 1995. In the early 1990s, inventor, entrepreneur and erstwhile winemaker Mario Moretti Polegato, suffering from hot and sweaty feet, used a pocketknife to cut holes in the soles of his sneakers, thereby creating the first pair of "shoes that breathe". Convinced that his creative solution could be transformed into a commercially successful product, Polegato spent several years developing a breathable membrane for shoes that allow the feet to breathe while remaining watertight. When he succeeded in producing the prototype of such a technology in the laboratory, he immediately patented it and began marketing it to existing shoe manufacturers. However, none showed any interest in his product. He thus decided to embark on his own, and commenced manufacturing these "breathing" shoes under the Geox brand name. Since then, Geox's innovative products have continued to carve out a niche for themselves in the global footwear market. By 2002, the company had extended its "breathability" technology to fabric and entered the apparel market. By 2009, after a mere 14 years, Geox had become a global name and was ranked the world's second-largest casual lifestyle footwear sector operator. The company conducted its business in 68 countries around the world through over 10,000 multi-brand points of sale and 997 single-brand Geox shops. By introducing yet another product to the established and intensely competitive shoe industry, Geox had successfully demonstrated the power of innovation. But like any other innovative company, Geox has to fret about sustainability of its competitive advantage.

Learning Objectives

This case stimulates discussion on creativity and product innovation, and helps students understand how an innovative product can disrupt a mature industry. The teaching objectives of this case are:

To analyze how a creative innovation can impact existing industry dynamics

To discuss the key principles for a new firm to follow in introducing an innovative product and entering a mature market successfully

To discuss the strategy such a firm needs to adopt to maintain its presence in the market.

Jun 24, 2010

Discipline:

General Management

Geographies:

Industries:

Apparel industry

University of Hong Kong

HKU895-PDF-ENG

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Case Study: How TOMS Shoes made a cause the centre of its activities

Us-based toms shoes gives away one shoe to a poor child for free, for every shoe it sells. this case study looks at how toms shoes has made the cause contribute to its revenues..

Print Edition: Jun 07, 2015

A circle of happiness: Children wearing TOMS shoes at a distribution event organised by NGO Magic Bus in Jasola, Delhi (PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOY JT/MAGIC BUS INDIA FOUNDATION)

Executive Summary

US-based TOMS Shoes created an out-of-the-box solution to its objective of helping people even while running a for-profit business. The company founded on the principle that it would give away one shoe to a poor child for free, for every shoe it sold. This case study looks at how TOMS Shoes made a cause the centre of its activities, even as the cause itself contributed to its revenues and profitability. And how it used social media for marketing.

For every pair of TOMS shoes sold, the company would donate one pair to a child in need. This revolutionary concept was called "One for One", and Mycoskie ensured poor children in different parts of the world got the benefit of its business. What made it work even better is the fact that a buyer, typically a young adult looking for an affordable yet cool pair of shoes, would feel good in the knowledge that his purchase has actually helped a poor child get a much-needed shoe for free. The business model worked perfectly, because the cost of the free shoe was built into the price of the one that is sold, making a seemingly charitable effort also contribute to its profitability.

So far, the company's website states that it has provided more than 35 million pairs of shoes to children in 70 countries across the world, and this includes India as well. As long as people continue to purchase TOMS shoes, children in need will receive a pair in return. The shoes that the company designs and sells are based on the Argentine alpargata design.

In later years, Mycoskie expanded the One for One model to other products as well. In 2011, the company introduced eyewear. It followed a similar principle for eyewear as its shoes, but again with a twist. Instead of donating a pair of glasses for every pair sold, TOMS would use part of the profit from that sale to save or restore the eyesight of a person in developing countries. So far, the company website states, TOMS Eyewear has helped restore sight to more than 275,000 people. Further on, the concept was extended to other product categories as well.

Mycoskie followed the same principle for his book as well - Start Something That Matters. The cover of the book states: "With every book you purchase, a new book will be provided to a child in need."

While cause-related marketing is followed by many companies, at TOMS the philanthropic component is critical to the success of the for-profit business. The TOMS business model and its heavy focus on marketing and use of social media is innovative and unique.

Using Social Media to Tell the Story of TOMS

TOMS offers more than a comfortable and trendy pair of shoes. It is about status and a story to tell. Mycoskie realised the power of the TOMS story since the early days of the company and has focused on it ever since.

Mycoskie wrote in his book, acknowledging Kendall Haven, who authored Super Simple Storytelling: "Human minds rely on stories and story architecture as the primary road map for understanding, making sense of, remembering, and planning our lives - as well as the countless experiences and narratives we encounter along the way." He added that smart, future-oriented companies use this ancient impulse in new ways, by telling stories that people can watch on YouTube and share on Facebook.

He quickly realised the strength of social and digital media to convey his story by saying: "People are no longer all listening to or watching the same few radio or TV stations each week - they're following their own carefully curated Twitter feeds, commenting on and creating blogs, channel surfing among more than 500 TV stations, watching Hulu on laptops, clicking on YouTube, reading Kindles and Nooks, and surfing on iPads."

In 2009, Mycoskie partnered with AT&T by filming a commercial, which ran throughout 2009 and was an enormous success. The commercial profiled TOMS as a for-profit company that donates one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased, and founder Blake who uses his AT&T BlackBerry to conduct business from around the world. Lots of people tweeted about the commercial creating awareness about TOMS and AT&T, and support for the TOMS business model.

Celebrities having a penchant for charitable causes, TOMS Shoes allowed them to help others and look trendy. The photos of these celebrities wearing TOMS Shoes spread on social media sites, which created huge awareness for TOMS.

Tom Felton tweeted "the @toms shoes come with a bag that says TOMS. that is me all over. and a sticker that says TOMS. I stuck it to my head."

TOMS has certainly benefited from these celebrity endorsements, perhaps more so because of their unofficial nature (which fits well with their brand image), and social media has made the wide reach of this possible.

TOMS's Social Media Marketing Excellence

In an interview in July 2013, Mycoskie had said: "Our community could be 20 million people on Facebook, if we employed the tactics that a lot of companies do - add mass followers, bribe them with raffles, contests and gifts. But instead, we purposefully kept our community kind of small, around two million, because that allows us to have a more intimate connection."

It's very clear when you go to the TOMS website, that there is a strong presence of social media links, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and Google Plus. Also, it has created a blog to share stories and educate others about TOMS's activities. Mycoskie realised the power of social media, which is less costly in comparison to the traditional advertising and fits better with his business model.

On top of that, many TOMS fans and consumers create their own digital content about their experiences with TOMS products and TOMS initiatives, allowing them to do much of the marketing for the company and spread the story.

Content Creation and Audience Engagement

TOMS's "One day without shoes" campaign creates awareness on global children's health and education issues. Participants can share experiences and upload images on Flickr and Facebook. Also, TOMS partnered with major companies such as Google and AOL, and created a separate website for it.

One participant uploaded images on Flickr and commented, "I'm going most of the day without shoes since about 740 million people fight hookworm, can't go to school, etc., since they don't have shoes."

A student at Columbia University uploaded her image on Flickr and commented: "It gets people thinking about children in the world, and may be leads someone into a career of helping children. That's the event; it's a simple gesture of wearing no shoes and communicating to people the situations and leading to changing a child's life."

The Future of TOMS

TOMS is no longer just a shoe company, it has expanded into other areas using its "One for One" business model. A for-profit business with a philanthropic component. The company is also actively looking for people to help them do this by offering grants to people with like-minded ideas.

It is expanding into many categories, including apparels, accessories and tech as well as expanding geographically. To keep the business model sustainable, it is of paramount importance to keep innovating and designing new products that appeal to worldwide consumers. On top of that, TOMS should closely monitor compliance of its activities and keep the promise of One for One.

TOMS's success in using social media in spreading its story and reaching a vast audience could be equally risky to its reputation and the whole business model in case of compliance and ethical issues as well as improper management of social media.

Key Learnings and Conclusion What Made TOMS a Success?

>> Fit between the valued customer and marketing mix (social media). The group that TOMS targets is very active on social media.

>> Fit between social cause marketing and using social media; active and socially aware consumers.

>> Having an active community that acted as brand storytellers - utilising peoples' people networks on social media.

>> Creating awareness, reaching to large audience and geographical coverage through social media with minimal marketing cost.

What Could Have Been Done Better?

>> Global expansion, better retail coverage and partnerships - they could do more in each of these areas and expand the business whilst remaining consistent with the 3Vs (valued customer, value proposition, and value network) that have made it successful.

>> Risk of competition - competitors such as Skechers are attempting to move in and replicate the One for One business model. Although TOMS is the first mover, it will need to be careful of other companies aggressively moving in on its key differentiator.

What Can Other Firms Learn from It?

>> Using social media more effectively by having an interactive and evangelistic community rather than having a large indiscriminate user base.

>> The power of the social cause and CSR activities being directly linked to the purchase of company products in the for-profit business. Customers feel they are directly driving higher investment in the CSR activities and this is key to the success of this model, and that aspect of it (the direct link from purchase to CSR) could be mirrored in many other business areas.

>> Making use of social testimonials, not as a sideline to traditional media but as a more effective way of growing and expanding brand presence through people's social network relationships.

TOMS Must Press Its First-mover Advantage

A live ticker with "35M pairs of new shoes donated to children in need" in the header of the site, including the shopping pages, could serve as a powerful form of social proof to help undecided buyers, who don't happen to drill down into the "How We Give" pages. Similarly, the programme could be much more prominently and consistently promoted in the visual merchandising provided to third-party retailers. Some partners, such as Nordstrom Rack, have no point-of-purchase information about the programme. Even when the store does have One for One signage, it's a simple statement with no imagery or social proof. It is especially important that the programme be emphasised on the TOMS brand pages and on their retail partners' sites, and not solely on product detail pages (as is the case now).

TOMS is very dependent on consumers already being familiar with and trusting in the One for One programme in most of their shopping experiences.

Social Marketing: TOMS was a clever user of social media to cost effectively get its message out. But the content marketing approach that TOMS depended upon to build its audience has been substantially depreciated. When social networks like Facebook were building their audience, they were happy to allow brands to publish great content and then have users organically spread that content on their own news feeds. But in recent months Facebook has dramatically curtailed the organic reach of a brand's content. In fact, less than six per cent of the three million users who have liked TOMS brand on Facebook will organically see TOMS content in their news feeds. Facebook now requires sponsored posts in order to reach a meaningful audience.

When consumers are exposed to a TOMS message via social media, there are not strong calls to actions to actually purchase products. Even when you click "Shop Now" from TOMS Facebook page, you are taken to TOMS website homepage rather than an actual shopping page on TOMS, so users will have to do at least three more clicks before they can add a product to their bag. This is simply too much friction.

TOMS Shouldn't Ignore the Lifecycle Aspect

Its Value Network is strong and there is no reason for it not to continue. However, why restrict it to donating shoes? Isn't it possible to create value in those South American countries by getting things made there, which can then become a self-sustaining for-profit/not-for-profit and help progression of and lend pride to the people who contribute and are a part of it? The strong family culture is good, the values are fine. But families grow, have different thoughts and the parent has to look at how they are allowed to spread their wings.

While TOMS has been successful in product additions - sunglasses, bags - its consideration of the lifecycle aspect of the customer seems to have been low. Ideally, a teen to 40+ should be covered via different approaches and content. A teen or collegegoer would be more prone to share content on a variety of platforms in an innovative manner. However, as you grow older, your offline reach becomes stronger and you create content that extends to disproportionate reach. Say, for example, a teen begins with buying a shoe twice a year, shares, engages, encourages five of his peer group to purchase shoes. As she/he grows, the possibility of drifting away remains (say half of the six) and this has to be brought back in via different platforms, products, engagement and sharing. A local offline ambassador programme could help generate content and awareness, in addition to the celebrity endorsements. Remember, on social media everybody is a celebrity in her own right and the influence extends in different directions.

TOMS's work on non-competing alliances also seems to have been slow. Here one does not mean selling of the product but more in terms of reach, engaging socially aware or, more importantly, aware but too-lazy-to-dosomething-about-it target groups. Similarly, with a substantial online reach and base, it becomes relevant to focus on offline, low-cost or zero-cost activities that translate into reach, engagement, creation of fresh relevant content from additional target group.

The use of social media for marketing is nice. However, from a like/love status the brand needs to move towards achieving cult status, thereby ensuring competition does not catch up. The cult status is a difficult proposition when only online space is used, given the fickle nature of the beast. The time has come when social media needs to become supportive, unique, testimonial with offline doing its aggressive bit. Competition may move in fast if there is a single differentiator - socially aware target group - but the need is to splice this group into regular, innovative engaging aspects, maybe even flip it around. For example, contribute monthly or weekly for a shoe donation and get your shoe when it is completed. And many more.

Case Study: TOMS Shoes and the One for One model

Today’s guest is Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS shoes. He made the slip on shoes that got everyone’s attention because every time somebody bought a pair, he donated a pair to somebody in need.

The company has donated 86 million pairs of shoes over the years. They’ve added other products, also using the one for one model. They helped restore eyesight for 600,000 people. They’ve provided over 600,000 weeks of safe drinking water, and supported safe births for 25,000 mothers.

He sold a portion of the company at the time when it was valued at $625 million. I want to find out how he did it.

Blake Mycoskie

Blake Mycoskie is the founder of TOMS Shoes, which designs shoes — as well as eyewear, coffee, apparel and handbags. Blake launched his newest venture, Madefor. Madefor is a ten-month program that applies the principles of modern neuroscience, psychology and physiology to make your brain and body better.

Full Interview Transcript

Andrew Warner 0 :04 Hey there freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m about to interview the guy who’s got the best COVID haircut that I’ve ever seen. Dude, you didn’t cut that yourself. Did you

Blake Mycoskie 0 :11 know I was actually down in Mexico quarantine and the only person that I got to see besides my ex wife and my kids was a trainer because he lived right next door. And so one day we were boxing and I was like I’ve always wanted a mohawk He’s like, now’s the time if ever so he shaved me a mohawk and yes, Oh, look at that.

Andrew Warner 0 :31 Yeah, kind of a wide Mohawk.

Blake Mycoskie 0 :34 I feel like outside Mohawk Yeah, I think he was a little bit nervous. It was the first haircut he ever gave. Maybe his last and so he didn’t want to go too narrow so but it was also a little while ago it’s grown out so it was a little bit more intense.

Andrew Warner 0 :47 Just wrong to say he had got you know, good looking guy to say that as I was looking at your at your book, reading your book. I looked at a photo of your family. Every frickin one of them. It looks good. Even your mom nobody’s mom. Good. Like when you’re an adult, you’re 29 years old in that photo your mom,

Blake Mycoskie 1 :04 your dad, good. brother, your sister. I’m actually talking to my mom later today about some stuff. So I’m going to tell you said that that’s embarrassing.

Andrew Warner 1 :11 All right, let me introduce the person whose voice you just heard. His name is Blake Mycoskie, Mike my kowski excuse me, why am I adding a W to it? That’s fun. Blake Mycoskie, he is the founder of TOMS shoes. Sky made I made the slip on shoes. That kind of got everyone’s attention because every time somebody bought a pair of shoes, he donated a pair of shoes to somebody in need. The company I just checked their website they donated 86 million pairs of shoes over the years. They’ve added other products which means that also using the one for one model, they have helped restore eyesight for 600,000 people. They’ve provided over 600,000 weeks of safe drinking water, supported safe birds for 25,000 mothers sold the company For reported while half the company reported, well, I guess at the time it was what $625 million in value. Wow. And you sell the whole company eventually or just have to buy in at that valuation?

Unknown Speaker 2 :11 Yeah, just have to be.

Andrew Warner 2 :14 Alright. And today he is here, not because he wants me to evaluate the looks at his family and his COVID haircut, but

Unknown Speaker 2 :20 he’s got a brand new product.

Andrew Warner 2 :22 It’s called made for and his goal is to help people improve themselves. He’s got a 10 week program. And it’s not one of these 10 week programs. It’s just online video and online email. He’s actually sending you something in the mail. And

Blake Mycoskie 2 :38 it’s totally analog. There’s no digital app, there’s no website that you interact with, besides when you sign up. That’s the only time you’ll ever kind of be online with made for in our program. It’s 100% analog and it comes to your house, which is great during

Andrew Warner 2 :54 to get something to play with it. Yeah, it’s not your phone. Like what what’s an example of something that you mail out to people

Blake Mycoskie 3 :00 So yeah, so like we focus on basic habits and practices that frankly, we’ve all heard and we all know about, but so few of us actually have integrated into our life in a sustainable way. So one of the simplest months of the 10 months, but one that really helps from a neuroplasticity standpoint of get you accustomed to doing something every day with intention is the hydration month. And so we found that when we did a bunch of research and met with a bunch of scientists, as we were building this program, that 65% of Americans are chronically dehydrated, and they don’t even realize it. And and what that does is it affects everything in their life. It affects your sleep, it affects you know, how their organs work and affects their energy levels. And so we have a whole month that literally is about drinking water and how much water to drink and debunking some of the myths around electrolytes.

Andrew Warner 3 :50 What do you send me and before I say that, I should tell people that this interview is sponsored by two great companies. The first is Click Funnels. They don’t want me to tell you that they’ve got a great landing page that will turn strangers into email subscriber And customers instead, they want me to tell you that I’ve got a new podcast called Traffic Secrets. And the second if you’re trying to create your own business, I’m going to tell you later why you should sign up for hostgator. My goal for this interview is to find out a little bit about Blake’s backstory, the stuff that he did, the businesses that he ran before he launched Tom’s, and then to understand how he took his story, his vision, and he, he made a tangible for people, he created events or people created events he created. Well, he made news and I want to know how he took his story and got all of us to talk about it. I’ve got this great example from my wife and what she did. And then also to find out a little bit about what he’s doing now. So the question that I was asking you before I interrupted with that intro is, why can’t you just say to me, Andrew, drink more water. Here’s the danger of non drinking water. Good luck. You’ve got a cup at home, you got a water bottle. What do you What

Blake Mycoskie 4 :48 are you sending me because everyone has done that. And still we have an issue with 65% of people are chronically dehydrated. So what we send you each month is a kit that includes three things. The first thing is about it’s a little book, it’s about 20 to 25 minutes to read. It’s all a consolidated science on why water is so important. And it really gives a stronger case. And really not that it would scare you by not drinking water, but it really shows how critical This is in your life. The second thing is, is we’ve designed a tool. In this case, it’s a specific water bottle that keeps track of how much water you’re drinking throughout the day. So a lot of people carry a water bottle around and at the end of the day, if I asked you how many bottles Did you drink, you might have no idea. And one day you might have drank in five or six and you feel great that day and the other day, you don’t feel so good and you don’t realize you only drink one bottle that day. So we have a water bottle in this case, it’s a beautiful glass bottle with a silicone cover and keeps track of how much water and then the third thing in the kit is the challenge card. And that’s kind of a way to keep track of how you’re progressing throughout the month and it also has a little bracelet that you wear on your wrist that reminds you of your commitment that month and so each week month, we focus on a different habit or practice that will have an impact on your either physical, mental or kind of spiritual life. And what we do is we send these kits once a month. So you have the whole month to work on it.

Andrew Warner 6 :12 Got it. And you’ve tested this, you’ve got some interesting results. I want to

Blake Mycoskie 6 :16 Yeah, it’s been found that and we we work with the head of the neuroscience lab at Stanford when we started building the program. And then he introduced us to, you know, several other labs across the country and many different disciplines. With at Harvard, we work to the head of psychology, we worked with the woman at at UC Davis on sleep. And so what we’re finding is now that we’ve done 1300, beta testers, the most interesting thing is focusing on people’s baselines. He’s very simple as habits and practices actually have effects in people’s lives that we never even anticipate in the program. So you know, two of my favorite ones is, you know, one of the things that’s fascinating is there’s nothing in the program about weight loss But we have so many people that say I finally lost the 20 pounds that I’ve always wanted to lose. And we have nothing about weight loss, but because they started focusing on all these other things, sleep, gratitude, breath, you know, hydration with more intention, that that intention naturally changed their, their mindset from a fixed mindset of I cannot lose 20 pounds to a growth mindset of if I can change my habits around water and hydration and sleep, you know, 20 pounds. So that’s kind of an example of something that’s not necessarily in the program. But the benefits come from changing people’s mindset through these intentions.

Andrew Warner 7 :37 I get that I get it. When I make progress in one area of my life, I feel more confident and more capable. And that momentum also builds in other parts of my life. Let me ask you something. Were you somebody who was a kid was listening to a lot of self improvement people do you have those Tony Robbins CDs at your house? You did?

Blake Mycoskie 7 :54 Zig Ziglar and yeah, I was I mean, it’s funny. I don’t know really as a kid. I would say what happened to me in my entrepreneurial story is I was wanting to be a professional tennis player my whole life. All I did is train for tenants. The tenants academies in high school, didn’t even live at home improvement tapes and books around tennis. It was all focused on tennis. And then I had an injury that stopped my tennis career, my sophomore year in college, and I broke my I had a really bad injury to my leg. And I in the process ended up starting my first business because I did add all this free time and that was a laundry business. And I did that because I couldn’t do my own laundry because I was on crutches. And I realized a lot of kids didn’t want to do their laundry and I went along with that. What was the laundry business, it’s called easy laundry, and pickup and delivery laundry on college campuses. And we did it at about five universities and, and I and I bring that up because what happened was is I dropped out of college my sophomore year, and I never knew anything about business. You know, my dad wasn’t in business. I was in business and so I really kind of zeroed in on reading biographies of successful entrepreneurs on and what I also did was I realized that a big part of being an entrepreneur was like your mindset and positivity and being able to sell and present yourself well and so that’s when all the zig ziglar tapes and Tony Robbins tapes and all this stuff infiltrated in my brain and I’m super thankful that did because I mean really, that is I mean that stuff it works like if you really your your mind is such a powerful tool.

Andrew Warner 9 :31 How did you apply it back then I remember listening to it and it would just put me in a good frame of mind but other than taking Tony Robbins CDs and going through his assignments in a Word doc I don’t think I did much.

Blake Mycoskie 9 :44 Well you know, you know if I think about it, I’m not sure if I did a lot as much as I just think it helped me think differently. You know, I think it I think, you know, listening to those things I used to listen to him like in on like cassette tapes in my car, which is old. Right. And so I think it was more of, you know, just having positive thinking constantly funneling through your brain, at least for me, versus just zoning out on country music or something when I was living in Nashville at the time, like that, I think had an effect and they just created that positivity and that I can do attitude. But you have I’m really honest, I think most of my entrepreneurial drive and discipline really comes from my tennis days. I mean, I was like the most at age 13 1415. I mean, I was so focused on on trying to be a professional athlete. And so why

Andrew Warner 10 :37 don’t you become cynical? Why don’t you say I tried, I gave it everything. They say if you give it everything, then you’re going to make it I believed in myself. I thought that I was going to do it. I failed. It doesn’t really matter anymore.

Blake Mycoskie 10 :50 Well, I never really and maybe this is the tapes. I never really see anything that didn’t work as a failure. You know, like don’t be bitter

Andrew Warner 10 :57 that you did this tennis experience.

Blake Mycoskie 11 :00 Gary had a great I got to travel the world I got to have incredible experiences and you know wins and losses and learn a lot about myself. And you know, when I was 19 years old and had this injury and realize like, okay, that’s the writing on the wall, then I was able to apply it to something else. And I don’t think I was like introspective at that age. You know, now it’s easy to look back and kind of, you know, even almost like retell the story with a great more deal of introspection, but I think it was just like, wow, like, okay, I can’t play tennis anymore. My laundry is piling up. I don’t know how to do it. Because I’m on crutches, I can’t carry it to the laundry place. I’m gonna start this laundry business. And then before I knew it, I had 40 employees and it was like a real business. And then I was like, shit, I got to learn about business. I started reading, you know, you know, all these great biographies, whether it was you know, Sam Walton, or Richard Branson, or Howard Schultz or Mary Kay. I mean, these were the things I started reading. And, and I learned a lot from their journeys and their stories. And I know we’re going to talk about story at some point. Want it? Yeah,

Andrew Warner 11 :59 cheers. Let me go through a little bit more backstory here. You told Fortune magazine about 10 years ago that you sold your share of easy laundry and then you went and created an outdoor media company. Who else was there? If it’s if it’s not just your share? I mean,

Blake Mycoskie 12 :15 my roommate, my roommate was my partner. Yeah, got it.

Andrew Warner 12 :18 Alright, so you sold it. Your roommate stayed on.

Blake Mycoskie 12 :20 Yeah, he stayed on and yeah, you ran it for many years after then he sold it to another company and still runs today. I mean, you got it. You go to these universities, you’ll see those trucks driving around.

Andrew Warner 12 :29 And that’s something you started.

Blake Mycoskie 12 :30 Yeah. 20, say 1943 24 years ago, it’s still in business. what’s the what’s the outdoor media company, that Clear Channel eventually bought up? So that was an interesting thing. So I went to Los Angeles, I was thinking about actually going back to college, because I didn’t finish in Dallas at SMU and I’d sold the laundry business and I was, you know, at that time, I was 20 or 21 years old. And I thought, you know, a lot of my friends are still in school. Maybe I’ll go back but I didn’t want to go back to Dallas. I say Maybe, you know, West Coast. And I was in California in Los Angeles. And I saw these massive advertisements on the sides of buildings, you know, like they have in Times Square. And I had never seen that we didn’t have any of those in Texas and Dallas, where I grew up. And I was amazed at how powerful they were like you could not avoid, you know, and then day where you can block out so much advertising, you could not avoid this massive dinosaur for the New Jurassic Park movie on the side of the building. And so I was just fascinated that how effective that was, and that that didn’t exist and the cities that I had grown up in, and at the time, I had just started one of my laundry businesses in Nashville, Tennessee. And part of my deal was when I sold it, that I would continue to manage that operation until we found a GM and that was probably going to be six months to a year. And I noticed that in Nashville, that you had every country music artists that live there, and they all had, you know, pretty big egos. And so I had to say that idea that if I put one of them on the side of a building, and the other one said to drive by and see Garth Brooks every day, and they would want their own building, because they would not want just Garth to have his his face on the side of a building, and it worked. So I actually went around the city, and I got contracts to rent the sizes of all the big buildings downtown. And I went to the music labels and said, Hey, I can put the Dixie Chicks for their next album release. And, and I was getting like, 20 $30,000 cash a month per building. I was crazy. And yeah, because I mean, this was the greatest advertising, you know, in the city, and we had the ego factor. And so yeah, I started that. I ran it for a couple years. And then the channel bought out and that was my first, I would say kind of financial success as an on how much was that? ultimate is about $4 million. So what do you do? How did your life change when you had $4 million in your 20s? Well, I didn’t have it. The deal was it was a toy like because the way that outdoor advertising works is You know, a lot of it is based on permits from the city. And so you can’t represent you’re going to get the permit every year like you got to be. You got to be on good standing with this city and make sure you’re not putting up anything that’s distasteful. And so at that, so the way a lot of times out or advertising companies get sold, especially small ones, is it’s like a multiple, so I got checks for like, 18 years or something. So there was no change my life it just gave me a nice allowance, so to speak. You know, every month, did it give you the confidence then to say I can do anything because I did this and I’m not gonna go poor. I got money. Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. That was the moment when I was like, Okay, I can now really set out and try to start interesting things. And live as an entrepreneur. I moved out to California. I kind of never looked back.

Andrew Warner 15 :46 You had a DMV business, but before or now a driver’s ed business. But before that, after the outdoor media company, what was the next thing what was a third business?

Blake Mycoskie 15 :54 I tried to start a reality cable channel. So one of the I really looked up to as Ted Turner still do. Yeah, I’ve read all his books I lived on a sailboat myself, was an avid sailor. He obviously got his start in outdoor advertising. I got my start an hour, two hours. And so I thought, well, Ted could start cnn at such a young age. And maybe I could start a reality cable channel. Now this is when the reality craze was just at its all time high. I was on a reality show The Amazing Race. So I had a first hand experience of kind of the 15 minutes of fame. And so yeah, so I convinced the founder of the channel to join me and we set out to launch a cable network, which proved to be an incredibly difficult thing to do. And after about three to four years, we were basically out of business ran out of cash. So now why do you think, well, Rupert Murdoch and Fox, about two years into our journey, announced that they were going to launch Fox reality and they did. And so all the operators They don’t need to reality channels, though. We were we were we were funded but not funded at the level of Fox. And Fox had so much of the programming already in the can. So it just became very clear. And so we had a really hard time getting distribution deals if you don’t have distribution deals, you can’t get advertisers, advertisers out of business. So that was a, that was a big public failure. I lost, you know, a lot of money myself, other people lost a lot of money. It was a really challenging experience. And you know, there were some dark days after that,

Andrew Warner 17 :33 the dark day, let me just not put you out there as the guy who looks great has success after success. And when there’s a failure, you just see it as a learning experience. I see even the way that you’re carrying yourself as we’re talking about this. It was painful. What’s the dark day for you?

Blake Mycoskie 17 :46 Well happened. I’ve had two real bouts with I would say very mild, not very mild, but mild depression. And one of them was then and then one of them was in 2015, which we can talk about, because that led to made for But this time specifically what it was for me was I just felt so bad, I felt so much personal responsibility for the 40 plus employees, I had to let go. And they had, you know, left jobs that were quite secure to join this cable startup based on my vision in my promises, because I had no anticipation of anything but success. And so that was really weighed on me. And I was young, I was 2625 26 years old. And so I just had a tremendous amount of pressure on myself. And that led to things like not eating, not wanting to get out of bed over consuming alcohol to kind of numb it and deal with it in a non healthy way. And and that went on for, you know, a couple months and eventually, you know, like all things they passes and just pass it on its own. Yeah, Yeah, I did. You know, it was really I went to a therapist, I did some traditional stuff. A lot of it really was, you know, just taking the time to, you know, really process everything, and then also being really well supported by the employees that I had to let go. And them really showing me that, that they had no hard feelings and that this happens. And, you know, just kind of learning some grown up entrepreneur lessons more than anything else. And so it did eventually pass and part of what past is kind of like a relationship, right? Like, one of the best ways to get over a heartbreak is to find someone else, right. And so that’s kind of in the entrepreneur world. That’s kind of what happened to is that’s when I started the the drivers online driver’s ed company. And I had a big question about that. Let me take a moment because you explained it in your book, which then made me write.

Andrew Warner 19 :50 Let me first talk about my first sponsor, and then come back and ask you my big question about the driver’s ed thing. The driver’s ed business. My first sponsor is a company called hostgator. Let me ask you this. We’re now going through a recession, maybe a dip crushing, but still creators are creating online businesses. If you were to start over today with no money, nothing except for a hosting package from say, Hostgator, my sponsor, what idea would you have? Or how would you get started? If you were starting from scratch? You just had the time to build a site, build a movement, build a story and create something, what would that be?

Blake Mycoskie 20 :20 In terms of what type of business or

Andrew Warner 20 :22 business idea? Is there an approach you would take?

Blake Mycoskie 20 :25 I mean, I think the most, you know, essentially, I think the most important thing right now is I mean, your your website is the I mean, it’s, you know, business cards used to be somewhat important back in the day when I first started. But I mean, now your website is everything, you know, I mean, it allows anyone in the world know what you’re doing to understand what you’re doing allows, you know, people in the countries you sell in Dubai. And so having a dependable website is critical.

Andrew Warner 20 :49 I would even say, a website, even for little ideas that are kind of flimsy. I’ll give you an idea of what I’m talking about. The other day, my kids at night, couldn’t stop asking me questions about insects. Now I got Google. So I started Googling but Number one, not everything’s in Google like, apparently nobody is asked an answer the question of what happens if a bee Stinger ends up on the floor and you took it and you stuck it into somebody’s finger? Would they then get a bee sting? And the same, same thing? Couldn’t find the answer to that. So I went on Twitter and I said, Does anybody know of an entomologist who can answer all these frickin questions that my kids can’t answer? Somebody said, Yes, I do know someone introduced me to Dr. Drew from the San Diego Zoo. I said, Would you get on zoom with my kids? He gets on zoom with my kids, because we know Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah, he gets on zoom with my kids and then I invite a couple of their friends on it not a big crab are just a couple of their friends. And the answer is that sure enough, you know what, like, if you do find a stinger and you put it into somebody’s finger, yes, absolutely in the stinger, is that that stuff and yes, they will have the same the same experience. Wow. Here’s the other thing you should know don’t just take out the stinger with tweezers. What you want to do is take a credit card and squeeze out the the stuff that the B puts in your thumb anyway, this guy was fantastic. even brought a little Snake that he had in his house who was supposed to eat how to eat a little tiny mouse so my kids can see that showed us all those animals at home.

Blake Mycoskie 22 :06 Oh, lovely guy. I love these stories that are happening during COVID-19 it’s like so yeah, open so generous with their time and, and, and connecting online like this. I mean, I know there’s so much suffering, but there’s just those stories just warmed my heart.

Andrew Warner 22 :20 He loves it. And he’s trying to think of what do I do next? So I said, Let’s get on a call later this week and we’ll just talk through one of the things I’ll tell him is put up a website and how you will do this daily for people let them pay to get on I paid have my kids he was so entertained for an hour, and then see where that goes. Alright, if you’re listening to me, and you’ve got any ideas, don’t look for the great idea. Just go and put out anything. Think of it as a sketchbook. One of the best things that I saw from Blake was an old notebook where he sketched out the first version of what his shoes would look like if he grew the company. That’s the way you should think about your website, not this thing that is put out there on the world for forever and ever just sketch and then see if it takes off the way that Tom’s did after Blake sketch. All right. If you want to get started with it, they’ve got a hosting package. It’s super cheap, very reliable, super inexpensive, I should say and reliable. And they’ll give you the lowest price possible if you go to hostgator.com slash mixergy hostgator.com slash mixergy. Alright, so I’ve got your book here starts something that matters. In it, you say I had to leave my driver’s ed business to go and start to sold this this, this shoe company. Here’s the thing. You describe it as an online driver’s ed company. That is, what was it that

Blake Mycoskie 23 :31 it’s the type of car that it’s Prius is that was the very first hybrid? Yeah,

Andrew Warner 23 :36 right high, right, the height the people needed to have hybrids and do online. How does all this work together?

Blake Mycoskie 23 :42 Well, the, you know, the real secret sauce to the online driver’s ed business was really two things. One was this was right when all the teenagers were on MySpace, even before Facebook. And so it was very easy to reach kids. very targeted and let them know that they don’t have to go into Do the boring classroom stuff anymore, they can do it online. And we had a pretty fun interactive kind of class. And from a testing perspective, it actually got better results because the kids had to pay attention and pass the quizzes to get to the next section. So that was a real like technological technologically, that was a breakthrough because it’s the first time that kids didn’t have to go to like an old department store or Sears or somewhere to do drivers that

Andrew Warner 24 :22 way. And you you would teaching them the written part of the tablet, not the not the driving part.

Blake Mycoskie 24 :28 The driving was the real innovation, because we did teach them driving just like every other driver’s ed company in the country. We had the written part and then we had the driving part. But the biggest complaint that we heard from teenagers, about their drivers instructors, was they were boring. They’re like retired people. They had nothing in contact with you know, with them and and like they don’t even go as far as they like it’s no man that stinks like I you know, they just did not enjoy that experience. So I don’t know when I got this idea. I was trying to shower or something, you know, random, but I thought what are teenage girls and boys care the most about and that is, you know, good looking people. And so I hired Abercrombie and Fitch models on their time off to be driver’s ed teachers. So I had like the hottest driver ed teachers. I mean, like, literally, these girls would like swoon for their drivers. They would all want pictures with them, then they would put them on MySpace, and then those pictures would go viral. And then that’s how the advertising happened for the drivers in person. Yeah, yeah. So we just because I was in LA, and so there are all these models and actresses that need extra revenue, right. And they have they need flexible schedules, because they have castings all the time. So we could offer very flexible work, great hourly pay, and yeah, and we became, I mean, the fastest growing driver’s ed company in California like overnight.

Andrew Warner 25 :49 Got it. I thought it was an all online thing.

Blake Mycoskie 25 :51 sold on Bing you did with this model. Oh, that’s all right. That’s amazing.

Andrew Warner 25 :58 All right. Why don’t we do a quick summary of how Tom started, I was gonna do it, but I feel like you should do it. And then I want to move on to the stories that you created. And you You brought to life as you built up Tom’s? Well,

Blake Mycoskie 26 :11 Tom’s, you know, it’s interesting. I mean, it’s now 14 years ago when I started it. And like you said, we’ve given almost 100 million shoes away. And it’s been this just incredible journey and experience and has affected so many ways that entrepreneurs think and building purpose into their business. But if you go back 14 years ago, it started from a very, very humble idea. I mean, I was basically in Argentina on vacation. I saw lots of kids on the streets that should have been in school, they didn’t have shoes. I inquired about it because I’m so curious person, and found that many of the kids couldn’t afford the school uniform, which included a pair of shoes to go to school. And at the same time, I discovered this slip on shoe that all the farmers and polo players and polo players girlfriends were wearing around town. that I thought was super cool. You know, all I knew about slip ons is really vans back, you know when I grew up and this was very different looking very light. Oops, mischievous off. And, and so anyways, so I had this idea. It was really simple. I said, What if we took these shoes that are everyone’s wearing in Argentina that no one’s wearing in the United States, we brought them back, we changed the design a little bit, made them a little bit more substantial, more comfortable. We sell them in the US and every time we sell a pair in the US we give a pair to a kid here in Argentina so they can have the shoes they need for school. And it was just a really simple idea. And I did it. I didn’t even call it a business. I called it a project. It was called the shoes for tomorrow project. And, and it was really just something that I thought would be fun. I was kind of at a stage where I’d been starting and building companies for at that point 10 years already. And I really was connected to some of these people that I met in Argentina. I love being down there myself. So it was lifestyle wise it was great. And started very simply just making the shoes in a guy’s garage in Argentina and selling them out of my apartment in Venice, California. Why didn’t you think this is going to be a distraction? I’ve got a business going. I’m traveling I think at the time you were retracing this, your footsteps through The Amazing Race. Great show, by the way. I haven’t seen in years but it’s great. Why? Why did you say I need this other thing? I’m going to learn how to make shoes. I’m going to learn how to sell shoes. I think for me, I’ve always been driven by my curiosity. And just like disruptive ideas, like it’s never ever been about making money or business or business plan. I mean, I didn’t. That’s not my background, our training like when I started the online driver’s ed it was because one of the people that worked for me and the reality cable channel at a at a company barbecue, I talked to her 15 year old son, and he was like complaining about his driver’s ed experience. And I was thinking, wow, like, you know, this kid’s not that engaged when he’s learning to drive that, that makes our roads even less safe. You know, went on the highways because he’s probably not paying attention and you know, so all my ideas I mean from laundry to you know, outdoor advertising that capitalized on country western egos trying to start a reality channel to driver’s ed then Tom’s they’ve all been in industries that I have no experience in. I you know, I don’t have any credibility and sense, but they’ve all been driven by kind of just falling in love with an idea when I had this idea for Tom’s about a shoe company that would sell a pair and give a pair so that people who needed shoes would get them when people bought shoes that they wanted. It just was like, it was like a butyl I mean, it sounds a little cheesy, but it was like this beautiful like equation had been like, like uncovered in my mind. And I was like, wow, this is like now looking back because so many companies have emulated similar models. And it’s such a part of our business culture. But back then it was so radical. I mean, people were like, you’re going to do what? How are you going to make money? Like come up with that idea now?

Andrew Warner 30 :10 Yeah. Would you come up with that idea?

Blake Mycoskie 30 :11 On the farm? You know, I was on the farm. I was drinking some coffee in the morning, I was thinking about some kids that just nonprofit was helping get shoes and how their model was not very sustainable because it was all based on donations. And I just had the idea, I wrote it in my journal.

Andrew Warner 30 :28 It wasn’t it wasn’t something that you seen anyone else do is just

Blake Mycoskie 30 :33 it’s more like a what if it was going, What if there was a shoe company that every time they sold a pair, they gave a pair? And then I shared the idea with my Polo teacher of all people who became my business partner. And he’s like, that’s an amazing idea. You should do it, because he knew I was an entrepreneur. And I was like, yeah, it actually could be a business and let’s, you know, why not? Let’s give it a try. And like I said, it started with such humble. I mean, we weren’t thinking about starting a company. We’re thinking about You know, helping hundreds of kids, not millions of kids saw that it was just a few hundred shoes. Yeah. 200 shoes. 200 is

Andrew Warner 31 :06 200. This is a laiho needy, needy. Yeah. Did he end up continuing to own a piece of the business?

Blake Mycoskie 31 :13 For about Gosh, I think he was involved the first three or four years and it was just he got married and it was very hard for him to travel as much and so I ended up buying him out. And he’s been retired polo player ever since.

Andrew Warner 31 :28 So you bring it back to the US in a duffel bag, right? Yep. You have to go and figure out how am I going to sell this? I look, I remember living in Los Angeles. Everybody seemed to either be in the movies or want to be in the movies, or they wanted to be in in fashion somehow. Yeah, it’s hard to get anyone to target buyers to pay attention to you when you’re trying to sell new clothes. How did you get anyone to pay attention to you?

Blake Mycoskie 31 :51 Yeah, so you know, I went to several places at first and did not have any luck. And then I went to a store called American rag which is on labrea is a very popular store in terms of kind of the latest trends and fashion. And I went in the shoe buyer. And, you know, the first thing I did rather than pull out the shoes out of my bag is I pulled out some pictures from the kids that I had given shoes to. And I told her the story. And I mean, it probably didn’t matter what the shoes look like, after I told her the story, she was totally hooked. And she said, I’ll do it. And that became my first customer.

Andrew Warner 32 :28 Alright, so then that brings me to the way that you tell your story. You said over and over in your book, how important stories are and I agree with you, I feel a lot of entrepreneurs don’t get that when they sit down here with me. All they want to do is go through facts and bullet points and preach and nobody is going to listen to that they want to hear the story and learn for themselves. What you did though, as I as I researched your story was I noticed you keep bringing stories to life. Like for example,

Blake Mycoskie 32 :56 maybe one of the earliest things that you did was you wore mismatched shoes. That’s kind of a small example. Why did you wear mismatched shoes? Because if I were a pair of red Toms on the left foot, a pair of blue Toms on the right foot, then for sure, without a doubt, like I did this a lot in the subway in New York City, because that was where, you know, it was a lot trying to sell the shoes. Someone’s going to ask you, they’re like that no one does that, like what’s with the two shoes, you know, like that just becomes it caused them to ask. And if someone asked you then now that gave me permission, you know, to use kind of a Seth Godin term, I gave me permission to tell them my story. Well, I’m wearing these two different shoes because I started this company called Toms and every time we sell a pair, we give a pair to a child in need. And I happen to like both these colors. And so I put two what two on today. I mean, it’s like that simple. But it’s amazing how if you get if you create opportunities as a business or as an entrepreneur, for people to ask you, I think this is a critical part. And I don’t know if I cover this in the book because that was written, you know, 10 years ago and I’ve, I think further crystallized My thinking around story is, it’s you need to. I mean, I believe firmly that having a really authentic powerful story is worth its weight and gold in starting in business. But also what’s important is to find natural ways for people to inquire because like you said, people don’t want to be preached at. And so, you know, finding ways for people to ask you about the story is I think super important. And that’s where I wear the mismatched shoes. Okay, the airstream. You traveled for what? Let me see 60 days. What did you do in the early days? 60 days in your Airstream? Ah, man, those are good memories. Oh, man. Yeah. So I mean, we didn’t have any money really for marketing. We had a bunch of shoes. We had some new stores across the country that signed up with us. And I knew I mean, let me just say this first. The quality of the original TOMS Shoes was crap. Like these shoes didn’t always fit very good. They weren’t that comfortable. I mean, we were just learning how to make them. We were making me in this guy’s garage in Argentina. So if you just put the shoe on the shelf next to a vans or a Converse or Birkenstock, I don’t think very many people are going to buy this shoe. What sells this shoe is the story. And so we were getting a lot of press. And so we’re selling a lot of shoes online. And because of that, you know, some department stores and stores wanted to carry us because they saw, you know, we were in Vogue magazine, we were in Elle Magazine, we were in LA Times. And so I said, Great, I’ll sell you the shoes, but unless you have a way of sharing the story, I don’t think they’re going to sell it just on their own, like their shoe itself. And their early day wasn’t going to do that. And so my idea was is for me and my intern Zach to go in this Airstream and to visit every single store from LA in New York and back in 60 days, and the store would host a party where people would come and I would share a slideshow of my trip to Argentina and we would tell the story. And that was how we launched the business because not only Every person come emotionally connect the brand to me to the story and buy one or two pairs. But they were all like, never heard anything like this. So then they would post about it on Facebook or MySpace or whatever back then. And then they would learn about it. And then they just it just it was amazing. I mean, it’s, it’s so interesting talking about this now because so much of businesses has caught on to this now and so many people have, you know, are now doing it, unfortunately in an inauthentic way. But back then it was just raw, it was powerful. It was disruptive, and people couldn’t help but share it with everyone they knew. And the wrong powerful part was,

Andrew Warner 36 :39 yes, we’re a business but I’m not going to sell you shoes. I’m going to tell you about these people who don’t have shoes and why it matters, how sick they can get from the dirt that they’re walking on how they care score,

Blake Mycoskie 36 :50 Tony osis are lots of diseases you get through your feet. Yeah.

Andrew Warner 36 :53 And by the way, a good way to help is if you buy a shoe we give away shoe that was the thing how it was How’d you get anyone to even show up to these events to come to the

Blake Mycoskie 37 :03 nice thing was as a stores did all that, right? Because the stores that bought the inventory, so they had a very big vested interest in selling the shoes. Okay. And, you know, most people who own shoe companies don’t offer to come hang out at your store for the evening. And so that they were like, wow, you’re going to show up like in an Airstream and like, answer questions and like, take pictures of people. And I mean, so it was pretty easy for them to, you know, back then to, you know, put fliers up and say, Hey, the founder of this company is coming and, and yeah, and new started travel. I mean, you know, that’s right. When that was like, literally 2007 was when YouTube went live when Facebook started going off campuses. I mean, this was the birth of social media. And so we naturally just, totally, I mean, we were such a native company in social media. I mean, now I think about how social media is such a huge part of everyone’s marketing. like back then it was just us telling the story and helping other people tell our story. And it was so authentic and raw and and it just was

Andrew Warner 38 :00 core philosophy that allowed you to innovate on social?

Blake Mycoskie 38 :04 Well, that’s the thing. There was no, like, all these challenges that, frankly, you know, that we try to think about now, even with the new company made for, like those weren’t even. I mean, there was no it wasn’t even a thought about strategy or innovation or whatever. It’s just like, there’s this new platform where you can put videos and people will watch them. So let’s make videos of us giving shoes to kids and people will watch them and then all sudden, they shared them millions of times. And then next thing you know, you’re getting more impressions and Nike is with their ad budget.

Andrew Warner 38 :35 And it’s because you just said we’re going to tell our story, and then we’ll see where it goes. And then I remember talking to Guy Kawasaki around the time that you launched. And he said, nurture your thunder lizards. I said, What do you mean, he goes, these are the people who are just so rabid in their devotion to your company that that you want to almost push them away because they’re a little too eager. Yeah, they come up with the great ideas. In fact, one of well you know, before I say what One of your Thunder, Thunder lizards came up with Let me take a moment to talk about my second sponsor. And then I also want to know would this work today with made for in a world where everyone seems to be, let me talk about my firt my second sponsor, it’s a company called Click Funnels, they’ve got a podcast all about marketing for people who are listening to me it’s called Traffic Secrets. If you’re listening to this, and you guys like what we’re talking about here, when it comes to marketing, they do social media marketing and other marketing. In fact, like one of the things that Russell Brunson, I think he’s gonna build a billion dollar business, he’s probably close. He’s over 100 million dollars in revenue now annually from this landing page creation software, creating stories. One of the things that he did when he started he said, You know what, I’m not a developer, I can code this thing up. What I’m going to do is I’m going to make a list of my hundred people who I idolize, who I ideally would like to work with, I’m going to then find ways to get into their lives, call this dream 100 and just keep staying on top of them until they bring me into their world. And so we had people like a Facebook group moderator that had his audience and Tony Robbins and so on and so forth. And since then, not only is he gone to all these Facebook Because he did this by infiltrating the people by people’s lives and getting together with them, but by one of the things that he did by being in their world was he got his marketing but he also started doing business with him. I see him with Tony Robbins at Tony Robbins events now all the time. Now Tony uses him as an example of what could be done if you if you follow Tony’s ideas. Anyway, it’s the dream 100 idea. And that’s just Episode Number 10 of this podcast. His whole podcast is full of techniques that he and his customers have used what’s work? What’s interesting, what’s exciting if you’re into listening to what we’re talking about here. You guys should go check out Russell Bronson’s podcast It is called Traffic Secrets and it’s based on his book and the techniques that he is used over the years himself. I think you dig him as a person by the way All right. Um, so one of the ideas was day without shoes I saw Charlie’s the Ron was doing was doing this Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, Nordstrom Microsoft a well I keep seeing their name. What What was that? Or what is day without choose? And then where did it come from?

Blake Mycoskie 41 :03 Yeah, just a really simple idea that we had some college students at University of Pepperdine. They were big fans of Tom’s they were the thunder lizards as you just referred to it. Yeah. And, you know, they realized that a lot of people who just didn’t know about Tom’s we were really small them. And a lot of people didn’t know about the most important part in that was that we were built to help kids get shoes. And so they decided to kind of in a in a not in a protesting way, but in a way to get attention just to spend a day not wearing shoes on campus. And every time someone said, hey, why aren’t you wearing shoes? They would say, well, there’s millions of kids around the world that don’t have shoes. And there’s this company, just down the street that is doing something about it, and they would tell our story. And it was it was genius. And so we caught on to it. They were in the newspaper and we were like, wow, we invite him to the to the warehouse, which was our office at the time and and then the next year, we said hey, let’s challenge others. colleges to do this. So then they challenged, you know, other colleges and then it was a college thing for a while. And then companies got involved like AOL and Microsoft, and, you know, all these different companies started doing it. And, you know, before we knew it, we had millions of people around the world going barefoot and it was truly at the height of it, which was probably 2012. I mean, it was a phenomenon. I mean, literally, you would have kindergarten teachers in Korea, going barefoot in Wall Street traders going barefoot and Demi Moore going on the Jay Leno show barefoot, and we didn’t know any of these people. I mean, they just caught on to the idea because of social media and thought, this is a cool thing. I’m going to partake in it. And sometimes if you just give people an opportunity to activate on something that they find interesting or important, it’s amazing what what can happen and so daily that’s used was you know, that I would say the most important thing to know about day without shoes. For anyone who’s listening, that is, you know, in marketing or entrepreneur is this happened in the spring. And on this day we specifically did not Mark do any sales marketing. We didn’t send out any emails. We didn’t have any promotions. We didn’t say by now by now by now, on the website, the whole website was dedicated all of our socials dedicated to just showing people barefoot, right? So we purposely did not try to sell shoes on this one day of the year. This day was always our biggest sales day of the year, even bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Unknown Speaker 43 :42 Wow.

Andrew Warner 43 :44 All right. So can this now happen today is

Blake Mycoskie 43 :47 Yeah, I think Patagonia did it recently, you know, last year or two when they said you know, you know, we’re gonna close our stores and then you know, I mean they did it, you know, or I think that was Rei Patagonia. We’re gonna give away 100% of the profits today. Like, I think when we do something that is authentic to your brand, and that is connected to a bigger purpose, even today now needs to be creative. You know, it can’t, it can’t be something that someone else has already done. So it’s harder. But yeah, I think it absolutely can happen today. And, you know, in a big part of, you know, story and sharing story is what we’re doing with made for. And that’s why we spent a year after the program is done, we could have just started launched the company over a year ago. But instead, we invited 1300 people from all walks of life to do the program. And now we’re taking their stories and their successes and the changes and transformations that happen in their life. And that’s exactly that’s the only thing we’re using to market made for now is their stories. We’re not, you know, out there kind of honking our own horn. We’re just sharing the stories of our members and the changes have happened in their life and that’s how we’re getting more members.

Andrew Warner 44 :55 I want to know how that’s different from everyone else, then who’s selling their success stories? Who shall You can get fit if just like these people who took our shakes who drain our vitamins who went through our exercise program.

Blake Mycoskie 45 :09 Okay. Yeah, I think it’s a good question I think a lot of it is, is who’s telling the story. So I should be more specific. And that, you know, what we’re finding is that are made for members themselves are sharing the story and sharing the months as they go through them on their own social media without any prodding from us. So it’s different, I think if we are the ones who are pushing it that could be effective to in a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad. But the most effective thing is when your customer themselves are the ones who are sharing the story like the kids going barefoot at Pepperdine. And so what we’re finding is, is that someone does the program, and we had a lot of HR professionals do the program initially because I gave a speech in Vegas two summers ago, and it was an HR convention and so I told him about what I was working on in my speech and Many of them signed up for the beta. And we’re finding is they did the program and a lot of their co workers, you know, saw them engaging with these unique water bottles or tools. And they asked about it. And then they shared ultimately how it affected them. And now we’re seeing like whole, you know, kind of teams sign up for the program in larger companies or someone has a program and then their wife wants to do it, or their partner wants to do it or they want to get it, you know that you want to get their college age kid to do it. So a lot of it is just really based on people sharing their own story versus us kind of pushing the story ourselves.

Andrew Warner 46 :34 You know what though, when I looked at how it’s being promoted online, I see you telling other people’s stories a lot. I think in fact, the call to action on the site is subscribe to our email newsletter while you’re here these stories right yeah. When I see how people report on you, it’s all about the guy who created Tom’s is now going to make you into a better person. It feels like that’s the first story my right like here’s a person Made it now he’s going to show you how to make it you respect how he made it. He’s going to make you feel that comfortable with the way that you’re going to make it.

Blake Mycoskie 47 :06 Well, I think I think my personal story has become a big part of the initial I think media that came out one because I think it was, you know, surprising to people that I was leaving Tom’s and the second thing is, is what led to made for and kind of meeting with all these different scientists from around the country was my own struggle in 2015 with having mild depression again, you know, I sold I sold half of Tom’s in 2014, stepped down from day to day responsibility. And, you know, 18 months later, I found myself not feeling that fulfilled, not feeling that engaged with life, like kind of asking myself these big questions and feeling like Gosh, I did everything that society told me to do. I, you know, built a great company help lots of people got married, have these wonderful kids have this, you know, wonderful home and I still don’t feel fulfilled and so I recognized that there were A lot of things that I had skipped over in working so hard to build Tom’s, and a lot of those things had to do with my own personal wellness. And as I started thinking about like, what could I do to take control of my own wellness, like with the same tenacity and, and being proactive like I did in business? What I found was there were people who were really thriving, and there were common practices and habits they were all practicing. And specifically what I found, and this was really with my my business partner, Pat, who was a, you know, in the military, he was a Navy SEAL for nine years is a very kind of structured focused brain on facts, and what does science and what is proven to work is what I found was is that there was actually a lot of science on personal well being, and it just wasn’t being communicated in a way that people could actually apply in their lives. And so as I started getting Meeting with these different labs around the country because I couldn’t get access to them because of my Tom resume and sharing them that I was personally suffering. But I found was there was like a lot of very basic things that I kind of knew, but had never fully committed to integrating into my life. And that’s when I realized that we could take this and create a program that could teach people in a different way in two of the biggest things we learned was, you could only learn one thing at a time. So you know, you couldn’t learn this in a podcast or reading a book and learn all 10 things in a weekend at a at a at a retreat or something, you really need to take your time and learning and go through a deep learning process. And the second thing we learned was that digital was one of the biggest enemies and learning a new habit or practice. So as many new meditation apps and and productivity apps and habit apps that there are out there right now. You know, I would be surprised to find very many people that find them really effective because they’re constantly being interrupted with The different notifications and all the other things on their phone. And so that’s the other big thing, we realized that it had to be analog. And so we built the whole program on those two tenants is one thing a month, really focused on learning one new simple basic habit. And it’s got to be completely analog. And I think that’s what surprised a lot of people.

Andrew Warner 50 :19 You know what, though, as I’m interviewing people, I see that a lot of them are kind of nuts, that they’re at least in the period where they’re where they’re building up. And it seems like maybe you had some of that experience yourself where you knew there things you needed to do, but you just didn’t do them. And I feel I’m thinking about entrepreneurs who make themselves sick almost by working so hard. Isn’t that the right way to go to go so hard on one thing that you exclude every other aspect of your life from your mind and make yourself sick almost while you’re trying to make

Blake Mycoskie 50 :50 it? I don’t think so. I think that is that’s the myth and that’s the you know, that’s the story that is that that creates this incredible dramatizing the entrepreneur experience. I mean, I do think there are times in which that’s necessary. And I think that’s why you see most, you know, new breakout companies are started by people in their 20s because they don’t have anything else to do. But But I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary. I definitely don’t think that’s the way you want your workforce working. And most people aren’t entrepreneurs, most people have jobs and responsibilities and manage people and you want those people to have a really strong Mental Health Foundation. And so yeah, I really I find that now you know, kind of launching made for and in having just as much energy to share what we’re doing there as I did when I started Tom’s but now practicing this stuff, I find that I can kind of do it all. Now I can actually be incredibly effective in building this business and helping a lot of people but also I can be a great dad and I can have, you know, a great social life and I think it all comes from taking control of my Life first letting my business kind of control me.

Andrew Warner 52 :04 Do you think now the the one for one model will work with made for or that there’s any kind of giving program that will that will stand out in a world where it feels like everybody’s got a given program?

Blake Mycoskie 52 :16 Yeah, I don’t think we know we’re not really using a giving program per se to market made for but we do have a very important program that we committed to called made for everyone where we never wanted price to be a deterrent for someone to do the program. And so we have a very generous scholarship program where anyone can apply and we give scholarships, everything from, you know, completely free to, all you have to do is pay for the shipping to, you know, 25 or 50% off. And so we’ve had a lot of people take us up on that if someone’s listening right now and they’re like, gosh, I’m really in a rut. I really could use something like this, but I’m also really financially struggling because of what’s happened, you know, in the last couple months with COVID-19, then definitely go to the website. Click on the made for everyone tab and apply for a scholarship because it’s something that we’re really proud of. And that’s our way of innocence, creating a business that helps people but also doesn’t exclude people who can’t afford it. I thought you’re gonna send them to what’s the URL that you guys created? You created a URL to give people some discount off of the program. Do you remember what the discount is? And I think the Yeah, it’s 20% off the program. And really, I just got information from Casey, you just go to made for calm and when you check out, you just type in mf mixergy and you get 20% off. Got it.

Andrew Warner 53 :36 The thing that I remember about us is when we were living in LA, I guess it’s been about a decade ago, maybe a little more. My wife organized an event for TOMS shoes. What are you organizing an event for a shoe company for? She did she just believed in what you were doing at the time was just radical and she was she gravitated towards that model. To this day, I texted her I said I’m about to talk to the founder. Tom’s what was the event that you were going to choose? You’re putting me on the spot and taking care of the kids. I don’t remember but I do know was for Tom’s I organized it. I thought wow, this is such an amazing brand that she just organized something she remembers the brand more even than the things she organized. And then since then I have to say that was when she was kind of when she was volunteering and she was exploring this whole model. She has then gone on to help for profit companies here in Silicon Valley in San Francisco with their nonprofit mission. So she ran Yahoo for good for a few years. She’s now running pager duty.org I think no one who’s not a debt in DevOps understands what pager duty is. But they’re a well known company that I got to watch go go public on the New York Stock Exchange, and they are now trying to do good in the world too. And I feel like this model that you innovated beyond the the direct numbers that we could attribute to you the eyesight that you’ve helped people with the shoes you’ve given me by feel like you’ve created a model for other businesses.

Blake Mycoskie 54 :59 I mean, no, it’s I mean, to me that is, you know, that is one of the things I’m most proud of is all the companies that I’ve seen, you know, follow suit, whether it’s just having a mission that is connected to helping people or the planet or one for one model. And I think, you know, there’s very few entrepreneurs today that go in and launch a company without considering how they’re going to have impact with their success and their revenue. And I think, you know, there’s been a lot of amazing companies in this space and I think that it’s the way of the future I don’t think it’ll ever go back because ultimately, customers have so much choice now more than ever, of the companies they support and they want to feel good about the companies that they support and that’s how you can build that connection with your customer.

Andrew Warner 55 :48 When I dig about how I should never go to made for calm, it’s actually get made for calm, I should never go there when I’m talking to someone because it’s just so beautifully built. Like look at this frickin thing my kid is i was i was prepping for it. This conversation this morning, watch me scroll and do the this this part right here where the box opens up Isn’t that great? Like

Blake Mycoskie 56 :08 how many times you do that over and over, we’ve got a lot of time. I mean you’re making it’s so funny because you know the difference between starting and company when you have nothing and starting a company, when you have a lot of resources. It’s just the amount of time it takes like, because when you don’t have any money and you have to start a company, like we went from literally having the idea for Tom’s I had the idea on a farm in Argentina, in February, into February, and I sold my first pair of shoes on Cinco de Mayo, okay, so March, April, May two and a half months later, I go from an idea on a farm to selling a shoe on a website. Okay, made four, we spent two and a half years. A lot of it was because we had to do a lot of work with scientists to really prove that these things would work. But then just building everything just takes so much more time. Because you’re, you know, you have the resources and you want it to be perfect. And so I would say, I appreciate the compliment on the website. And there’s a lot of hard work that went into it. But to entrepreneurs that are out there, it’s kind of like you said earlier with your sponsor, like it’s a sketch, you know, and sometimes a sketch is better than trying to make something perfect, because you’re going to get feedback and you’re learn and there’s already things on the website, we want to change. So it’s really funny that you brought that up.

Andrew Warner 57 :30 The website for people who want to go check it out for themselves is get made for.com. I just think your stuff just looks beautiful. And I understand the model. And I understand that in a world where everyone is coming at us digitally that you’re coming at us at with analog, they’re coming at us with it’s not just even when I see the hourglass, not just an hourglass that you physically hold your hand, it looks like something from I don’t know the MoMA or someone’s grandfather’s desk, right?

Blake Mycoskie 57 :56 Like Yeah, we I mean that’s, I give the credit. It my my partner there Pat like he is so fixated on just quality and and in detail and every single tool we design is like a piece of art. I mean like you know, here’s so this is like the water bottle here and you can see like, I mean it’s beautiful glass, bamboo it’s got the beads to keep track every time you drink a bottle.

Andrew Warner 58 :24 That’s how it keeps track of it. I thought maybe you had a digital counter I know there’s no all analog bead.

Blake Mycoskie 58 :29 Yeah, little beads that you move and there’s a there’s actually some real neuroscience behind the kind of serotonin release that you get when you move a bead. Like the physical tactile moving of it of like I just finished a bottle, I got to move a bead. There’s real science behind that what’s happening in your brain when that happens. So if it was a digital, you know tracker wouldn’t have near the same impact.

Andrew Warner 58 :53 I noticed that I noticed as I travel around the world, no matter what culture I went to, they seem to have some kind of beads either on their hands or in their pocket. It’s right are just trying to have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. It’s I wish I could just say made for calm but some Spanish company has that it’s hard to

Unknown Speaker 59 :12 get made for. So yeah,

Andrew Warner 59 :14 it’s get made for calm go check them out. And I want to thank the two sponsors, the sponsor that we just talked about enlike into sketchpad. It’s, it’s Hostgator if you need a website hosted go to hostgator.com slash mixergy if you’re with a hosting company, and you want to cut costs an easy way to cut costs right now. Hostgator comm slash mixergy And finally, now that this podcast is over, go check out my friend Russell Bronson’s podcast, it will give you a bunch of ideas, again, all related to through stories for how you can get more traffic, more people to pay attention what you’re doing. It’s called Traffic Secrets and whatever podcast app, you’re listening to me, it will be there. And if you’ve got a smart speaker like I do, you can play it there too. Like Congratulations, and thank you so much for being here.

Blake Mycoskie 59 :54 Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s really fun talking today. Bye. Bye, everyone.

Transcribed by https ://otter.ai

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But Air , a new film set in that same year, opens this week, and shows how Nike went on to become the world’s No 1 shoe and sports brand , a company whose revenue topped £37bn in 2022.

It’s directed by and stars Ben Affleck as Knight in all his shell-suit and mirrored shades-wearing, purple Porsche-driving 80s pomp. Air also stars Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, a Nike sports marketing executive in desperate need of a hit. But the real star of this story is the Air Jordan shoe.

Air tells how, against everyone’s advice, Vaccaro signed a sponsorship deal with the rookie basketball player Michael Jordan , luring him away from more viable rivals Adidas and Converse, by presenting him with his own sneaker – the Air Jordan. Even more controversially, at the behest of Jordan’s formidable mother, Deloris (played in the film by Viola Davis), he gave Jordan points on every pair sold, kicking off a revolution in the way sport and its stars were marketed around the world.

Michael Jordan and his mother Deloris Jordan in 1988.

Nike officially released the Air Jordan 1 sneakers to the public on 1 April 1985 at the price of $64.95. It expected to sell 100,000 pairs in the first year. Instead, backed by clever marketing that suggested the NBA had banned the shoes for being too colourful (it hadn’t), it shipped 1.5 million in the first six weeks.

You’d have done well to hang on to a pair. Today, unworn Jordan 1s sell for north of $20,000 (£16,000) on the resale site StockX. The Air Jordan brand sits at the heart of today’s multibillion-pound trainer collecting boom .

Jordan has been called the biggest pop culture hero in American history – someone who transcended not just his sport but race, class and generations. His rise from humble beginnings – a North Carolina boy who didn’t make the grade for his high-school team, the son of a bank employee mother, and a General Electric plant supervisor father, later murdered – made him the embodiment of the American Dream.

Last but very much not least, he was an astonishing athlete – as is obvious even to people with no interest in sport, much less US basketball.

Though Jordan retired for the third and final time in 2003, Nike has continued to introduce new models under his name each year. Today there are 37 Air Jordan styles available, not including countless colourways, collaborations, limited editions and retro Jordans.

In 2020, Netflix broadcast The Last Dance , the 10-part documentary that followed Jordan’s career in compelling detail. Coinciding with twin ramifications of lockdown – a captive audience, and a hunger for comfier clothes – it drew a global audience of 24 million and turbo-boosted interest in its star.

Last year, the Jordan brand made Nike $5.1bn, up 70% from 2020. Based on that figure, its namesake would have pulled in $256.1m from a decades-old licensing deal without lifting a finger, let alone a basketball – more than double the amount from his entire NBA career. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2bn .

It’s not only Nike and Michael Jordan who have benefited – the Air Jordan shoe has changed the market for both vintage and resale trainers and helped cement them as collectibles on a par with the art world.

Ben Affleck plays the Nike chief Phil Knight in Air. He is barefoot with his feet up on his office desk.

“ The Last Dance changed our lives,” says Robert Franks, co-founder and chief operating officer of Kick Game, a seller of exclusive, rare and sold-out trainers, with outlets in six of the UK’s biggest cities, plus Milan.

“We went from eight of us to 180 [employees] in a year-and-a-half. We went from £1.9m revenue to £45m last year – £24m of that was Jordan shoes.

“Our customers used to be 80% men. After The Last Dance , we were 50-50. White women started buying Jordans for the first time. Everyday people started buying them, particularly [reissued] Jordan 1s. That shoe appeals to everyone.”

In 2021, Sotheby’s auction house sold the earliest known Jordan/Nike shoes for $1.47m . This week, bidding opens on a pair of signed Air Jordan XIII “The Last Dance” trainers, worn by Jordan during the 1998 NBA finals. Those have an estimate of $2m to $4m, making them highly likely to be the most expensive ever auctioned. (Size 13, if you’re tempted.) “Jordan leads the way for the rest of the streetwear market,” says Brahm Wachter, vice president, head of streetwear and modern collectables, at Sotheby’s. “What helps drive the market is a longing for a certain era. When you think about Michael Jordan in 1985, lacing up his Air Jordan 1s, that gives ‘sneakerheads’ an incredible sense of nostalgia.”

Maybe, but people feel nostalgia for all kinds of things – seldom for that sort of money. To the majority of the population for whom trainers represent nothing more than a comfortable alternative to other shoes, the whole thing can be hard to get your head around.

A pair of Air Jordan 1 trainers worn and autographed by Michael Jordan.

“In 20 years’ time, it won’t be so much of a conversation,” Wachter says. “It’s very similar to stamps or comics or first-edition books, things that are created in mass that have gained, through time, a certain cultural importance to people, and therefore are valuable.”

Franks says the secondary trainer market has become the largest unregulated industry in the world. “It’s a phenomenal asset class – people are buying them and just holding them,” he says. “Wine, whisky, watches … there’s nothing that has outperformed sneakers in the last three or four years. I don’t see that changing. Sneakers are art now. They’re more than just shoes. And Jordan has led the way.”

But why Jordan particularly? It’s easy to find people who’ll wax lyrical on a once-in-a-generation athlete or riff on various technical innovations across the line: the air bubble on the III, the reflective tongue on the V, the ballistic mesh upper and carbon fibre spring plate on the XI. But even Jordan himself wasn’t particularly enamoured by some designs. For his final game at Madison Square Garden in March 1998 – his favourite place to play, as he says in The Last Dance – he chose to reprise his Jordan 1s. “By half-time, my feet were bleeding.”

Viola Davis and Julius Tennon play the athlete’s parents Deloris Jordan and James Jordan in Air.

Others offer a more pragmatic view. “What drives consumer interest is that, for the most part, Nike limit how many pairs they put in the marketplace,” says the veteran sporting goods and retail industry expert Matt Powell, of the consulting firm Spurwink River.

“It’s about selling out and scarcity, not the popularity of Michael Jordan. The whole key is to keep supply below demand.”

While Air is likely to further inflate the Jordan mythology – in reality, it was Jordan’s agent, David Falk, who brokered the deal, not Nike’s Sonny Vaccaro; and by most accounts it was his father not his mother who persuaded their son to sign – it is tremendous fun.

Made with Jordan and Nike’s endorsement, the film was announced during this year’s Super Bowl in an ad slot that cost $7m.

Like all things Jordan, an appropriately large number.

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Big Shoes to Fill

Michael Beer

A larger-than-life CEO left Innostat with larger-than-life problems. The new boss knows the company needs fundamental change, but the image of her predecessor hovers.

Reprint: R0605A

Jack Donally was a colossal figure who commanded a lot of respect, if not affection. Just before Jack suddenly died, the board appointed Stephanie Fortas as the new CEO to lead Innostat, the world’s best-known manufacturer of prosthetic limbs and surgical implants.

Innostat has recently been struggling; its once generous margins have been narrowing for the past several years as other companies have found ways to engineer around its patents and develop competitive products of their own. Worse, the company seems to have lost its innovative edge: It has not launched a major new product in four years. The previous year, the board rejected a plan for a large-scale reorganization that might have addressed many of these fundamental problems. Should Stephanie revive the plan?

Her coach tells her she doesn’t have the clout to survive a reorg and advises her to scope out new products and drive them through the way Jack used to. Meanwhile, Stephanie deliberates about whether or not to fire Frank Timoshotsky, the self-effacing head of production who had been Jack’s protégé and who was passed over for the CEO position.

Commenting on this fictional case study are Robert A. Eckert, the chairman and CEO of Mattel in El Segundo, California; Steven F. Dichter, the director of TruePoint Partners in Waltham, Massachusetts; Patrick J. Canavan, a senior vice president and the director of global governance at Motorola in Schaumburg, Illinois; and Kerry Sulkowicz, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded the New York–based Boswell Group.

The memorial service was a sellout. Jack Donally had been a colossal figure who commanded a lot of respect, if not affection. He’ll be a hard act to follow, Stephanie Fortas thought as she strained to make sense of the eulogy, delivered in a thick Irish accent by the same priest who had married Jack and Moira Donally 40 years ago. Moira must be feeling especially lost, Stephanie thought. A deferring, uncomplaining woman, Moira had apparently taken second place to Innostat all her married life, and just when it seemed that she would soon have Jack all to herself, he up and died.

MB Michael Beer is the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School, a cofounder of TruePoint Partners, and author or coauthor of 12 books. His most recent book is Fit to Compete: Why Honest Conversations About Your Company’s Capabilities Are the Key to a Winning Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2020).

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