In 2016 I went through an incubator program to try to start my first company. This year-long program ran through my school and took me through the entrepreneurial process. I had been very interested in business in the past but when I started this incubator I was hooked. In the beginning, everyone went through an ideation phase where we came up with problems people and our selves had. After that, we went through a solution phase where we came up with potential business solutions to the problem. And after lots of thinking, my problem became apparent.
At the time I was a track & field athlete and had an issue with track spikes. People who use track spikes know that in order to take spikes in and out of your shoe you had to have this special tool to crank out spikes from your shoe. It also takes forever to do this process (5-15 minutes). Also, if you ever wear your spikes on cement or hard surfaces then they will dull or fly out of your shoe and as a result, you have to walk on your heels. You also have to keep all of these little spikes around and try not to lose them which is another pain point. Along with all these other pains, different events require different shoes that each cost anywhere from $90-$130. (There are sprinting spikes, long distance spikes, high jump spikes, triple/long jump spikes, throwing spikes and then indoor track variations of all those spikes I just listed). So either you have multiple pairs of spikes or you can’t afford to buy more spikes for other events.
During our solution phase, I came up with the idea to essentially make a shoe that has a removable sole with other soles that you could replace it with that had various spikes and material on the bottom. This way you would be able to keep track (pun intended) of the types of spikes you had because they would be different sole inserts. You could insert the regular sole for cement walking and it would take less than 30 seconds to do so, you wouldn’t have to keep track little spikes or a tool. Also if the sole started to wear down you could just buy another insert for $15 instead of another $100 shoe. You would also have different inserts for different events.
People in the program then would decide if they wanted to keep moving forward with their idea or join another group/ idea. I had become so attached to the track shoe idea and had already gotten ahead of myself and envisioned what its potential could be. I stuck with the idea and 5 people (including myself) had decided that it was a great direction to go in.
We proceeded to meet regularly as we also worked together every day on the market size, finances, elevator pitches, potential marketing campaign and gave presentations regularly to show what we were working on, how we were improving, and in general our activity. Halfway through the year, we did a pitch in a shark tank to a board of local investors and entrepreneurs for an MVP (minimal viable product). This would essentially grant us money to work with on R&D and start some basic operation. We pitched the idea and received $500 with the assumption that we would come back in another 4-5 months with another pitch about our progress and see if any investors would like to come on board.
(Image from Beliot News)
From that point on we had to hustle to try to get a prototype product made. We had meetings with engineers, lawyers, shoe industry experts, local shoe shop owners, business owners, and many more. As time went on we knew we would need some extra help because we couldn’t put it all together with our selves. One of our main goals was to be able to get a life-size 3D model built at least to show the board. A connection with a local product development facility allowed us to get a meeting with the head engineer, however; the head engineer had devastating news.
The cost of being able to make the prototype and start production would cost anywhere from $100K-$400K with their company. That’s not including patents. Damn. We were destroyed as we watched everything our team had envisioned and tried to build slowly come to a screeching halt. The drive home from that meeting was quiet and depressing. We later went back to the board at the end of the year and told them that the project had come to a halt. We couldn’t continue.
Among many product difficulties, team struggles, and politics we had kept together until the end. We did have to let one member go due to motive and team incompatibility. But working as a team is another blog post.
Looking back, I realize a better strategy would have been to scale up from a baseline shoe or just an athletic shoe instead of working on a product that needed lots of R&D. Starting with a regular shoe first would have allowed us more experience in the industry, more product development, faster development, and funds to pursue more technologically advanced endeavors.
Overall, I personally learned an incredible amount about entrepreneurship, product development, teamwork and dynamics, and tons of life lessons.