How to Start Your Own Shoe Company:
If you want to start your own shoe brand and design and sell your own shoes, you need to think about many important details. I have listed some key points for you to consider when getting your footwear brands started.
Target Market:
What is the target market for your new shoe company? You will need to decide where your shoes will be sold; specialty shoe stores, discount shoe retailers, or will you sell directly to your end-user? The answer to this will help you decide how many shoes you will need to make to get started.
Target Customer:
Figure out who the end-user is for your shoes? Business executives? Punk rockers with tattoos? High school kids? Knowing your customer will help you set the price, look, and materials for your new shoe. What kind of shoe do you want to make? Casual, performance, fashion, or do you have a totally new idea?
Name Your Shoe Brand:
Based on your target customer it is time to select a name for your footwear brand and to legally set-up your shoe company. Contact your local city hall to register a Doing Business As (“DBA”) or Fictitious Name statement. Register your shoe company, get a vendor’s license, and a tax identification number. Don’t forget to check the names online for availability before you register them with the state. If you can’t get a website domain name that is close to your new shoes company’s name your customer may have a hard time finding you on the web!
Research and More Research:
Visit your target retailers and search online for the types of shoes your future competitors are selling and the prices they charge. Study the designs, logos, materials, and any other features these shoes have. Ask yourself, “What will make my shoe brand unique.” If you can’t answer this question, STOP. There are already thousands of shoe companies and the world does not need another “Me Too” brand!
Design your shoes:
Find a designer or design the shoes yourself. To design AND sell your own shoes is a big job, it’s okay to get help. Get your research and brand image down on paper. You will need clean shoe renderings that communicate your ideas. Don’t be afraid to hire this out. The world has many hired guns that can bring your ideas to life. Without great designs your new shoe company is going nowhere. Now, stand back, do these drawings say, “This what my new shoe company is about?”
Find a footwear sourcing agent or Shoe Factory:
Your next steps:
Check out our new book: How to Start Your Own Shoe Company
Read these articles: Can I start a shoe company and Finding a Shoe Sourcing Agent.
Please visit our: Online Shoe School.
Sneaker Factory came across this interesting podcast to share from NPR’s Planet Money, Episode 785: The Starbury.
You will need to raise some seed money to cover the product development, materials, and production costs for your new shoe company. There is no way to acquire product without paying for it. You can expect to pay at least 50% of the total purchase price of the shoes when you place your production order. Should you borrow from your friends, family or a bank? Maybe you should launch a crowd-funding campaign? Crowdfunding is a great way to reach out to customers, gain exposure, refine your sales pitch and secure backing for your new shoe company. Look into Crowdfunder™, Kickstarter™, and Peerbackers™. Learn more about the successes and pitfalls of these online services plus more information on raising capital and start-up costs in Chapter 6 of 
Do you dream about creating a shoe brand and starting a company? 
Chapter 1 : Your Shoes and Your Brand
Chapter 2 : Creating Your Shoe Company
Chapter 3 : Designing Your Product Line
Chapter 4 : Planning Your Shoe Business
Chapter 5 : Manufacturing and importing Your Shoes
Chapter 7 : Brand Promotion and Footwear Marketing
Chapter 8 : Footwear Sales and Distribution
Chapter 9 : Shoe Company Operations
Chapter 10: What’s Next for Your Shoe Brand?
Chapter 11: Going international
Chapter 12 : What Can Go Wrong?
Chapter 13 : Shoe Making Terms You Should Know
Chapter 14 : Sample Documents
Financial Modeling For your Shoe Company:
For the custom shoe making process you can hand cut every piece with scissors or a sharp blade. Most shoe factories don’t actually buy cutting blades, they sharpen a small piece of steel in a few different shapes to suit what they are cutting. In the video you can see a paper pattern template is used to trace the design onto the shoe materials. The materials are then cut by hand. This process is used on all the leather and mesh parts.
Once the parts are cut you can see the edges are being skived. In the video this is done by hand. This is a time consuming process and it’s very easy to damage the cut shoe parts. A shoe factory sample room will have a small electric skiver like this one, they don’t cost very much and will save time in our mini shoe factory.
In the Wired™ article you can see some of these the machines lined up. The flat bed machine is the standard most recognizable type of machine. The machine is built into a table and run by an electric motor and has a foot control to advance the stitches automatically or one stitch at a time. This is the most common machine for assembling the flat pattern parts of the shoe.
per of the shoe has been stitched together, it needs to be “closed”. This closing operation creates an upper that cannot fit under the standard flat bed machine. The second most common sewing machine you will see in a shoe factory is the “Post” style. Bulky items can fit under the machine for easy assembly. This type of post sewing machine will be used to attach the tongue to the shoe or to secure the lining inside the shoe once it has been assembled into the final 3D shape.
With the upper almost complete we will need a special sewing machine to finish it. This machine is used to sew the bottom fabric onto the upper. This closes the upper. Now the upper is ready for lasting and assembly.
machine is very powerful and can easily drive the needle and thread through the leather and rubber.
This is the hard part! You are going to need some capital to bring your shoes home from the factory. Friends, family, kick starter- you are going to need some money. The shoe factory and agent will not give you delayed terms. You will need to pay the entire amount to get your shoes shipping. Roughly, your shoes will cost about 25% of the selling price to import from Asia. So, if your shoes will cost $100 in the store, plan on $25 for the shoe with shipping and import duty included. So….$25.00 X 6000 pairs = $150,000!!!!!