Look up the word ‘hipster’ in the dictionary and I’m sure you will find my sister’s smiling face staring right back at you. About 10 years my junior, my sister listens to a wide variety of indie music, goes to concerts in the woods, tries to incorporate the word ‘gnarly’ into nearly every conversation, is a longtime, practicing vegetarian, spins fire, wears tight jeans and makes some of her own clothes.
She’s a cool cat. She always knows the latest trends, so when I noticed her wearing a new, never-before-seen (by me) shoe about four years ago, I had to know what they were all about.
“These are TOMS,” she said, pointing to her feet. “They are the most comfortable shoes in the world.”
Since then, I see the same shoe everywhere and in every color, and not only on hipsters—I’m even thinking of buying a pair myself and I’m far too square to be given that label.
Why are they so popular? In addition to comfort, the company is well known for its ONE FOR ONE model—buy one pair of shoes and one pair goes to someone in need in a developing country. So far, the company has donated 2 million pairs to individuals in 26 countries. Very cool.
The company was founded in 2006 by Texas-native Blake Mycoskie, 35, who can now add ‘best selling author’ to his resume. His book, Start Something That Matters, hit the No. 1 spot a few weeks back, so I thought it would be a perfect time to check in with him and find out how he’s made such a fascinating life and legacy for himself.
Q: What did you want to be growing up?
A: I wanted to be a truck driver. I saw a movie about it when I was really young and thought it would be so cool to drive across the country every week, visiting people. It is a little prophetic, if you think about it. Now my job requires me to travel all over the world—sometimes I’ll be driving for hours across Africa.
Q: What did you do early in your career?
A: I went to SMU in Dallas, but dropped out after two years, in 1998, to start a laundry business. I then started a media company and a software company. (He sold his part of the company to his business partners upon the launch of TOMS.)
Q: How did you end up in Argentina, learning about a shoe shortage?
A: I went to Argentina in 2006 for a vacation from my software company. I was sitting in a café one day and met a couple girls doing volunteer work. They were collecting shoes for children who didn’t have them and needed them for school. I invited myself to go along with them. When I saw how happy and excited they were to get a new pair of shoes, I knew I had to do something.
At first, I thought my goal was to help 250 kids with the ONE FOR ONE model, but we ended up selling 10,000 shoes in the first two months.
Q: What does TOMS stand for?
A: It comes from the word ‘tomorrow’—the idea that we can sell a pair today and give away a pair tomorrow. We started calling them ‘tomorrow’s shoes,’ but that [was] too long for the tag on the shoe so we shortened it to TOMS.
Q: What is the story behind the distinctive slipper-style design of the shoe?
A: The original design is based on a shoe in Argentina called the alpargata that I really liked. That style has been around for hundreds of years, I just improved the design with arch support and a rubber sole. Now we have several design styles like wedges for women and boot versions for the wintertime.
Q: How does your business model work/how are you able to make money?
A: Most footwear companies spend a fortune on traditional advertising, athlete endorsements, TV commercials and billboards. The only way TOMS works is if we spend no money on traditional advertising. All of our marketing comes from social media and word of mouth. We’ve replaced our largest cost centers with philanthropy.
Q: What were your biggest challenges starting out?
A: Our biggest challenge was production. I’d never made shoes and the construction was complex. When we first started, the quality wasn’t that good. Now we make a really quality shoe.
Another challenge was getting the word out. We didn’t have any money, so we spent time and energy on MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. We also had great videos on YouTube from the beginning days of distribution to kids and those videos went viral.
Q: When did TOMS get it’s big break?
A: Well, we’ve had a lot of great moments getting great press, but I think the big moment was the AT&T commercial that explained my life and TOMS. That commercial played during Dancing With the Stars, Survivor and American Idol and was the biggest moment to take us to the next level. Sales skyrocketed after that.
Q: Why do you think your shoes are especially attractive to the hipster crowd?
A: (Laughs) I think that generation is very forward thinking and progressive and they are interested in their impact on the environment. They like to support socially conscious companies. I also think the trend for people to wear skinny jeans that started around six years ago helped us because our shoes look amazing with skinny jeans.
Q: What does the future hold for TOMS?
A: We are trying to use the ONE FOR ONE model to help as many people as possible. In June, we launched an eyewear line of sunglasses. Every time someone guys a pair, we will give someone in need an eye surgery, prescription lenses or an eye-related medical treatment. We really want to get our eyewear line as big as the shoe line.
Q: What advice can you give to budding entrepreneurs?
A: I think the biggest thing is that it is not important to have the resources and experience to come up with a break-through idea for an amazing company. Companies with a lot of funding can fail in their early days because they may not work as creatively as they need to.
Don’t let a lack of resources be an excuse to why you can’t do something. I had no experience in shoes or retail. By not having experience, I didn’t know the rules—so I could break them.
