Shoe Designer Runs After $1 Million Challenge

Growing up, Justin Schneider spent a lot of time running. In high school he was a natural track star. He then ran for Notre Dame and won a handful of awards, including setting the school record for the Heptathlon.

While in college, many of the projects for his industrial design degree came back to the same thing: athletic shoes. He loved dreaming up ways to improve shoes, sketching designs he hoped to turn into reality someday.

But he didn't want to just dream, so he called up the Adidas customer service line and asked about a summer internship. Then he called again. And again. After a few weeks, he finally got through to the Senior Designer of Cleated Sports, who he convinced to give him a spot in the internship.

After graduating, he spent a few years working in the industry—but he was never fully satisfied. He eventually stepped away from the shoe world for a few months to sketch newly discovered plant species in Madagascar for National Geographic. And it was here that his hustle idea came to him.

A friend from back home called up. "I just bought an expensive pair of handmade English dress shoes, but they're killing my feet," his friend said. "Why can't my dress shoes feel good?"

It was just the type of challenge Justin was looking for—and he threw himself into it. He gave himself 90 days to dream up a design, find a manufacturer, and create a prototype. He went to the shoe capital of Mexico.

Shoe design, however, wasn't so easy. It took weeks, but he finally landed on a direction he was confident in: custom-designed memory foam insoles, grade-a calfskin lining, a layer of carbon fiber, and a laser-cut outsole that looked as professional as ever.

Somehow he had a prototype in his hands 90 days later—and it was just what he had imagined.

He named his future brand Wolf & Shepherd to convey the ambition of the brand (the wolf), as well as its mission to guide and protect the foot (the shepherd).

Problem was, Justin only had $15,000 to invest, but the minimum manufacturing cost was $60,000. So he went to his parents, his friends, his coworkers, and friends-of-friends. He pitched his new shoe to everyone he could, and he asked those people to pitch it to everyone they knew.

After four grueling weeks of calling and emailing and selling, he had 600 pre-orders. He wired the money to his partner factory, and waited impatiently for a couple months while the shoes were made.

When Justin arrived at the factory just one day before the shoes were supposed to ship, he was in shock. There were all of his shoes, hundreds of them, covered in a thick layer of blue dish soap. A simple spill had destroyed the top layer of leather on every single shoe.

It seemed like it may be the end, but Justin wasn't about to call it quits. He started looking around—opening every door of that factory, looking for extra leather. He eventually came across a storeroom of leather for the factory's own brand. It took hours, but he finally convinced the factory manager to use their leather to replace his shoe tops.

The manager called in ten craftsmen, Justin paid them double overtime, and all of the shoes were ready to ship out two days later. Disaster averted.

Justin later shared this story with his customers as a way of telling them that he would do anything it took to deliver a stunning product—and those first pre-order customers became some of his best brand ambassadors.

Justin wanted a fresh take on shoe marketing, so he focused on the innovations and technology that make his shoes unique. And it worked. Press inquiries started arriving, friends of those first pre-order customers began to order, and retail stores started calling about supplying the brand—and by the next February, just one year after Justin announced his new company, Wolf and Shepherd made its one millionth dollar.

At the time of our original story, Wolf and Shepherd had sold over 200,000 pairs of shoes and had retail partners all over the country.