Building A Barefoot Footware Company With Steven Sashen, Co-Founder and CEO of Xero Shoes

11/29/21 • 59 min

Steven Sashen is the Co-Founder of Xero Shoes and he is building a barefoot running empire. When Steven started sprinting again at the age of 45 after a 30 year break, he found himself getting injured constantly. One day, a friend suggested he run barefoot and Steven never looked back. Steven quickly put together his own pair of barefoot running sandals and thus Xero Shoes was born. Today, Steven is a Masters All-American sprinter and one of the fastest men over the age of 50 in the US.

Steven was also a professional stand-up comic, cognitive psychology researcher, and taught Tai Chi and Zen Archery. Steven is also the creator of Scriptware, the industry-standard word processor for film and TV writers.

Join us as Steven shares about his journey with barefoot running, how he built a community of loyal fans, and his shark tank story.

Resources:

https://xeroshoes.com/ - Check out Xero Shoes!

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Giving away your knowledge and best tips for free is a great way to build community, trust and goodwill with your customers. Don’t worry about people “stealing your ideas”. They can steal your ideas but they can never steal your brain.

2. The best way to ensure quality control is to have eyes on the ground. If you are manufacturing overseas, find or hire someone you can trust to make sure that the manufacturers are producing the goods to your required standard.

3. Whenever you are pitching to investors, it is important to know your numbers and to have a very clear range in their mind as to what you were willing to accept.
Connect with Ted on:
His Website at : www.tedteo.com
LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
Instagram at: @ted.teo
Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Join us as Steven shares about his journey with barefoot running, how he built a community of loyal fans, and his shark tank story.

Resources:

https://xeroshoes.com/ - Check out Xero Shoes!

Actionable Take-aways:

Previous Episode

Embracing The Bitter With Scott Ohlgren

Scott Ohlgren join us today to share about his past experiences growing Brain Toniq and the lessons that he learnt from his failure. At its peak, Brain Toniq sold over 2 million units a year in Whole Foods supermarkets and over 1,400 independent retailers in USA, Europe and Russia. Despite its success, Brain Toniq ultimately folded and Scott has learnt the importance of embracing the bitter as he finds acceptance in himself and his new drink formulation called Cognition as he builds his come back story!

Join us as Scott shares about the key reasons that led to Brain Toniq’s failure, how he was able to recover and move on from the failure and how he is now applying the lessons he learnt with Cognition.

Resources:

https://synapticscientific.com/ - Check out Scott’s current venture

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Getting into brick and mortar shops like retail stores and supermarkets comes at a price. While you will be able to appear in front of more eyeballs, it does come at a price and your profit margins may be lowered to the point where you need to move a large amount of product volume to even break even. If this is a problem for you, consider moving towards e-commerce or another model where you have more control.

2. Don’t grow your business constantly even when you are loss making on the idea that someone will acquire your business at a later date like most technology firms. This is a dangerous game to play and you might just get burnt. Slow and steady wins the race.

3. Failure is a part of life and business. Be ready to go through the different stages of grief but ultimately it is acceptance that will help you overcome it.
Connect with Ted on:
His Website at : www.tedteo.com
LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
Instagram at: @ted.teo
Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo

Next Episode

Helping Millions With Their Flexible Spending Accounts With Jeremy Miller

Jeremy Miller is the Chairman and Founder (former CEO) of Health-E Commerce, which includes companies such as FSAstore.com, a site which focuses only on customers with Flexible Spending Accounts by exclusively carrying only products and services that are eligible for purchase with credits in their Flexible Spending Accounts. After realizing that over $400 million worth of credit is being forfeited by American employees every year, Jeremy set out to build his business to help his customers fully utilize their Flexible Spending Accounts and to provide access to Flexible Spending Accounts eligible healthcare.

In today’s episode, Jeremy shares the importance of planning ahead for the end of year fourth quarter holiday sales, the challenges he faced with respect to regulatory compliance and how educational materials can help build brand loyalty and improve sale conversion rates.

Resources:

https://fsastore.com/ - Check out FSAstore.com

https://hsastore.com/ - Check out HSAstore.com

Actionable Take-aways:

1. The fourth quarter of any calendar year is usually the busiest for any retail business. Start planning ahead and determine what you need to have in place to get ready for the surge in business or risk losing precise sales to your competitors.

2. If your business idea is one which is in a highly regulated industry, make sure your business model is in compliance with applicable laws and has the relevant licences and that you stay up to date with any regulatory changes. Reach out to the relevant legal advisors for help if necessary.

3. Providing educational materials can be a great way to establish customer loyalty and improve sales conversion. Like any form of content that you produce, it will pay dividends in the long run so start investing in creating good content for your customers.
Connect with Ted on:
His Website at : www.tedteo.com
LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-teo/
Instagram at: @ted.teo
Facebook at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/tedteo