Shoe Designer Runs After $1 Million Challenge

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Shoe designer runs after million dollar challenge. Why can't dress shoes look great and perform well at the same time? That is the question that perplexed today's featured side hustler. He set out to solve this question to find in fact the sole solution 'cause he's a shoe designer. He actually creates a brand of his own.

This brand started several years ago. We talked about it a number of years ago. It is still going strong. And I think it's a great example of a concept I talk about often, which is where there's a problem, there is a potential solution and not just a potential solution, but also a potential moneymaker. So in this case, a friend challenges him to make a dress shoe that you could run a marathon in, which is pretty crazy.

And you'll hear more about that in the story. But he also overcomes all sorts of hardships to achieve this really big sales number at the end of his first year. So pretty inspirational story. It's gonna give somebody out there an idea. I'm pretty sure.

Shoe designer runs after a million dollar challenge. That is in fact today's case study. I'll bring it to you right after this. [Music]

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 wanna just dream, so he called up the Adidas customer service line and asked about a summer internship. And then he called again and again.

After a few weeks, he finally got through to the senior designer of cleated sports, that is in fact a real title, 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 wanted to do something more exciting and unconventional. He eventually stepped away from the shoe world for a few months to sketch newly discovered plant species in Madagascar for National Geographic. He needed a break and was starting to burn out.

And it was there that his hustle idea came to him. A friend from back home called him up and said, you know, I just bought an expensive pair of handmade English dress shoes, but they're killing my feet. Why can't dress shoes feel good? This was just the type of challenge Justin was looking for. So he threw himself into it.

He gave himself 90 days to dream up a design, find a manufacturer and create a prototype. Since he was already somewhat connected in the industry, it wasn't hard to find a manufacturing partner. He went to the shoe capital of Mexico. There is in fact a place in Mexico that makes a lot of shoes, he went there. Now the design was not 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 imagined. He named his future brand Wolf and Shepherd to convey the ambition of the brand, that would be the Wolf, as well as its mission to guide and protect the foot. That would be the Shepherd.

Now the problem at this point is Justin had about $15,000 to invest, but the minimum manufacturing cost was $60,000. So he needed to raise a lot of money. Justin went outside the Cytosville school model. I'm gonna give him credit, he did it well. He went to his parents, his friends, his coworkers and to friends of friends.

He pitched his new shoe to everyone he could and he asked those people to then pitch it to everyone they knew. It wasn't easy convincing people to buy a pair of shoes before trying them on, but somehow after four grueling weeks of calling and emailing and selling and selling some more, he had 600 pre-orders for this shoe that still didn't exist. He wired the money to his partner factory, waited impatiently for a couple of months while the shoes were made. And then he waited some more, more impatiently because something was taking too long and he had to go see for himself. Now, long-time listeners probably know what happens next.

We've had this often where there's a factory and it seems like everything's going well, but then there are delays, the communication is poor. So the Cytosville needs to get on a plane and go see what's going on. And Justin does that. He arrives at the factory just one day before the shoes are supposed to ship to customers. And guess what?

Trouble was afoot, literally. 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. This was extremely frustrating, but Justin wasn't about to call it quits. He had worked too hard.

He had made too many promises to let his dream die or let his customers down. So he started looking around the factory. He opened every single door. If he could find something to replace the tops of his shoes, he could make it work and he was determined. He eventually came across a storeroom of leather for the factory's own brand.

He knew they'd want to save it for their own products, but he swore he wouldn't leave until his shoes were fixed. It took hours, but he finally convinced the factory manager to use their leather to replace his shoe tops. I mean, it was their fault, right, with the spill. The manufacturer called in 10 craftsmen. Justin paid them double over time.

And all of the shoes were ready to finally ship out two days later. Disaster reverted. 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 for them. Those first pre-order customers became some of his best brand ambassadors. Now with a website, a round of happy customers, and some extra stock to sell, it was time to market the product.

And Justin wanted to really focus on the innovations and technology that made his shoes unique. And it worked. Press inquiries started coming in. Friends of those first pre-order customers began to order and even retail stores started calling to ask about supplying the brand. And by the next February, just one year after Justin announced his new company to friends and family, Wolf & Shepherd made its $1 million in one year.

And Justin wasn't about to get comfortable though. He wanted to keep growing the brand. He wanted to do something different, something bold. He reached out to a friend who was an NCAA champion and asked him to compete in a half marathon race wearing his dress shoes. That friend agreed.

And later that year, he created a new Guinness World Record, the fastest half marathon while wearing dress shoes. At the time of our original story, Wolf & Shepherd had sold over 200,000 pairs of shoes and had retail partners all over the country. And Justin still isn't done. He's thrilled about a brand new product launch coming up and a big time brand ambassador that's going to lead the marketing. My friends, I hope you enjoyed this story.

I loved working on it for you. If you want to check out Justin's store, it is wolfandsheppard.com, wolfandsheppard.com. You can order products there directly. I see that the shoes are being sold in some Nordstrom locations as well as others. So it seems that even a couple of years after we first featured him, the business is going well.

Well done, Justin. Thanks for being an inspiration to me and to so many others. And listeners, speaking of inspiration, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. I hope that you like these stories, but not just like them. I hope they get you thinking about what it is you can do or create or make.

What can you do to get closer to a goal that's important to you, to advance yourself, to create more economic empowerment for yourself so you're not dependent on a day job, even if you like your job. And of course, the podcast will be here for you every single day, always free. Listen and subscribe or follow wherever you get your shows. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.

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