Shoe Business Start-up

Callum checks in with this article on shoes...

Barry Katz, a professional radiologist and part-time inventor, may see a future customer. Since 2010 his Bridgewater (N.J.)-based company, Ektio, has been marketing what it says is a better basketball shoe. The sneaker, called the Breakaway, has a system of straps and outriggers designed to prevent ankle rolls, and retails for $130. The company has raised about $2 million in seed funding and inked deals with former NBA stars Rick Barry and John Starks, who talk up Ektio during media appearances. That leaves one big problem left to solve: finding customers.

Yes, one should find customers first.  Customers a not "something later."

He was issued patents in 2004, but after some “feeble” attempts to license the design, Katz gave up on the idea. 

A yes...  if you can't find customers, resort to the violence-backed regime of intellectual property rights, never depend on the free market voluntary exchange!

Those shelves that aren’t filled by swooshes are generally stocked with sneakers from other large brands, such as Adidas, Reebok, or Under Armour. “The retailers know for sure that they’re going to be able to sell the big companies’ shoes,” says Katz, who kept his day job as a doctor. “There’s no reason to take a lot of risk on someone like me.”

Just keep believing your own PR.  Never mind that before those companies dominated, Converse, Jack Purcell and Wilson (who?) dominated.  Never mind that Adidas, Reebok, Nike all started as customer oriented companies.  Of course retailers do not take risk, neither do entrepreneurs.  The good doctor should read a little Drucker on entrepreneurs, not what you learn in an online MBA program.  This fellow has 7,200 likes on his shoe before making his first one.  As the carpenters say, measure twice, cut once.

Still, the company has sold fewer than 12,000 pairs. “I have total belief in the concept, but I’m not getting rich off of it right now,” he says. 

Wait, what?  Since when is starting a company about getting rich?  I hear that occasionally, and it is a dead giveaway that the speaker will get no where.  There are another two dead giveaways failure ahead:

1. I just know this will work (total belief in the concept).  Again with the "own PR (public relations)" problem.  We know nothing.  Our opinions NEVER matter.  The only opinion that ever matters is that of the customer.

2. I just know this won't work. Again with the "own PR (public relations)" problem.  We know nothing.  Our opinions NEVER matter.  The only opinion that ever matters is that of the customer.

Ektio is also exploring partnerships with military suppliers 

Ah, well... yes, there is always war profiteering.

He recently filed patents on technology for football helmets. “We think we’ve figured out the problem of why people get concussions,” he says.

No doubt without ever talking to customers, as with the shoes.  If you do not have customers, you don't have a product.  No customers, no business.  And now that he has patents, no one will work with him.

At some point you must speak to a customer, right?  Let me say it again: there is no reason why the first step in business cannot be speak to the customers.  Those who succeed do.  But if your motivation is exceptional wealth, then the focus is on self, not customer.  Good luck with that.

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