9 Tips For Starting A Successful Shoe Brand (2024)

Updated: January 19th, 2023
Start A Shoe Brand

Want to start your own shoe brand? Here are some tips you should know:

Learn more about starting a shoe brand:

Where to start?

-> How to start a shoe brand?
-> Shoe brand plan
-> How to finance a shoe brand?
-> How much does it cost to start a shoe brand?
-> Pros and cons of a shoe brand
-> How to get clients for a shoe brand?

Need inspiration?

-> Other shoe brand success stories
-> Examples of established shoe brand
-> Marketing ideas for a shoe brand
-> Shoe brand slogans
-> Shoe brand names
-> Shoe brand Instagram bios
-> Shoe brand Instagram captions

Other resources

-> Profitability of a shoe brand
-> Blog post ideas for a shoe brand
-> Shoe brand quotes

We've interviewed thousands of successful founders at Starter Story and asked what advice they would give to entrepreneurs who are just getting started.

Here's the best advice we discovered for starting a shoe brand:

#1: Steven Sashen, founder of Xero Shoes:

We chatted with with Steven, founder of Xero Shoes ($4M/month). In our interview, Steven says:

If you’re a true entrepreneur, there’s no way I can convince you not to start your own business (no matter how bad your idea may be)

Additionally:

One thing that I spent years NOT doing, that I now kick myself about, is adding an "exit intent pop-up" to our site, which lets people enter a sweepstakes to win a Xero Shoes gift certificate.

article

Read the full interview ➜

#2: Kartik Gurmule, founder of KASA:

We chatted with with Kartik, founder of KASA ($80K/month). In our interview, Kartik says:

One should never fear failures.

article

Read the full interview ➜

#3: Matthew Walters, founder of CODDI:

We chatted with with Matthew, founder of CODDI ($2K/month). In our interview, Matthew says:

My life changed my senior year of college when we did our senior thesis. Instead of designing one product like everyone else, I decided to try and stand out by designing an entire company. I instantly fell in love with building something massive from the ground up.

Additionally:

Consistency is an absolute must. When people get excited about something...they put in 100 hours the first week, and then they burn out. I don’t care if you work for 5 minutes on something...if you have a dream, work on it for 5 minutes to 5 hours every single day.

Further:

You will have strangers, colleagues, friends, and unfortunately even family tell you that your idea is crazy and that it won’t work. Let that type of negativity fuel the fire.

article

Read the full interview ➜

#4: Steven Sashen, founder of Xero Shoes:

We chatted with with Steven, founder of Xero Shoes ($4M/month). In our interview, Steven says:

Know your numbers inside out and backward so you can make informed decisions about what and when you can spend money to support your business.

article

Read the full interview ➜

#5: Steven Sashen, founder of Xero Shoes:

We chatted with with Steven, founder of Xero Shoes ($4M/month). In our interview, Steven says:

Be on the lookout for evidence that what you believe is WRONG and be ready to change directions, or pull the plug on something, rather than sticking to your hope that things will work out the way you want them to.

article

Read the full interview ➜

#6: Bret Rasmussen, founder of KURU Footwear:

We chatted with with Bret, founder of KURU Footwear ($/month). In our interview, Bret says:

We upped our cadence from 3 sends per week to 5 sends per week to our engaged audience and doubled our revenue via that move.

article

Read the full interview ➜