Building Contango
Welcome! Buiding Contango is a chronicle of my experience launching a men's footwear line, called
CONTANGO shoes.
I'm a corporate desk jockey without a clue about starting a shoe business.
Feel free to post comments or questions and I will do my best to answer them.
I hope this blog helps anyone who's interested in taking the entrepreneurial leap!
CONTANGO HOMEPAGE
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“Your identity is just a series of habitual and familiar thoughts.”
I sent this picture of the finished shoes to my friends for some honest feedback. Unfortunately, almost all of them didn’t like the design. One friend compared them to rubber galoshes you wear over your shoes when it rains. I’m not sure I agree, but I appreciate his honesty. So with that, I’m back to the drawing board.
“So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no ‘traditions’ essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but—instead—exalting the simple laws of common sense—or of super-sense if you prefer—determining form by way of the nature of materials…”
Frank Lloyd Wright
Voila! The finished loafer. I’m not a big fan of the sole (too thick and wide - notice the glue!?), but not bad for my first shoe. The thermal counter and toe box are showing because I didn’t skive them, which means thinning the edges. I have to wait 24 hours before I can remove the last and try them on.
Sanding the bottom before attaching the sole removes wrinkles from folding the leather (leaving an even bottom), lightens the weight and creates a more adhesive surface for the glue.
‘Fallingwater House’ (Mill Run, Pennsylvania) by Frank Lloyd Wright
‘Fallingwater House’ (Mill Run, Pennsylvania) by Frank Lloyd Wright
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.”
Joseph Campbell
I don’t follow Joe Rogan (comedian, Fear Factor, UFC) but there are parts of him that make me want to. Beyond his loud, beefy and aggressive nature, he’s surprisingly knowledgeable, smart and thoughtful. Here’s an audio clip of him ranting about life, religion, being human and negative programming. It’s pretty on the money and reflects a part of the message I hope my brand will tell.
Not sure about the Daft Punk overlay, but it kind of works.
The Tweaker
I let go my branding guy last night. He’s a talented designer and a good person but we just weren’t on the same wavelength. The work product wasn’t quite there and the timeline was dragging on. Part of it was my fault - I didn’t give good direction. I was hoping the process would entail a bullet spray of amazing ideas, affording me the luxury of saying “Yes, that’s it!”, but it wasn’t. Each iteration of the brand was slow and moved further and further away from what I wanted.
My inability to provide the proper direction reminds me of a Malcolm Gladwell excerpt in The New Yorker. In his posthumous assessment of the great Steve Jobs, Malcolm proposes that Steve Jobs was less of an innovator and more of a tweaker.
******
Jobs’s sensibility was editorial, not inventive. His gift lay in taking what was in front of him—the tablet with stylus—and ruthlessly refining it. After looking at the first commercials for the iPad, he tracked down the copywriter, James Vincent, and told him, “Your commercials suck.”
“Well, what do you want?” Vincent shot back. “You’ve not been able to tell me what you want.”
“I don’t know,” Jobs said. “You have to bring me something new. Nothing you’ve shown me is even close.”
Vincent argued back and suddenly Jobs went ballistic. “He just started screaming at me,” Vincent recalled. Vincent could be volatile himself, and the volleys escalated.
When Vincent shouted, “You’ve got to tell me what you want,” Jobs shot back, “You’ve got to show me some stuff, and I’ll know it when I see it.”
I’ll know it when I see it. That was Jobs’s credo.
Read the full article here: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_gladwell#ixzz1iWyaGan4
Hello again
It’s been awhile since I’ve written. Work has been pretty busy, along with my other commitments, but I have made some progress on Contango.
Shoemaking Class
My first shoe is almost complete. As you can see from the photos, I’m making a cool blue leather loafer with some elastic on top to give it a casual feel. The process you’re looking at is called lasting, where you pull the completed upper over the last to create the shoe’s shape. The next and final step, which will take a few more hours, is to cut the sole, lay the welts and glue the sole to the upper. I wanted to do this during my last visit, but I forgot the last for my left foot. Believe it or not, it’s sometimes hard to remember that you have two feet, which is particularly important when you are pattern cutting. I’ll have pictures of the completed shoe up soon. As you can see already, they look amazingly comfortable.
Production
I’m deciding between two U.S. agents to manage my production in China. They both have extensive backgrounds producing products overseas but only one has footwear experience. The other, however, came highly recommended and is committed to working with start ups. I like that. The footwear-experienced firm requires a monthly retainer and a high commission on the production cost. The startup friendly firm has no retainer and a relatively low commission but locks you up for three years. Ouch! I plan to make a decision by early January.
A big issue I’m facing is that very few factories are willing do my order size, which is under 1,000 pairs. Most factories require 10,000+ minimums and the floor is pretty strict given the weak economy. I’m able to negotiate with boutique manufacturers but in order to do it at a reasonable price, I need to compromise on the number of colors and/or sizes. Each new color means less quantity discounts on the hide. And the more sizes you have the more lasts you need to create. There is also set up costs each time you change the style and size of the shoe. We’ll see how well my budget holds.
Branding
I’ve noticed that I’m a bit schizophrenic with the direction of my branding. I have so many messages I want to convey that it’s become a jumbled mess. Oftentimes I’m getting so deep and personal with my concept that it’s incoherent to the average person, far from simple and completely un-commercial. A few nights ago, after listening to my endless branding dribble, my wife made a really good point. She told me that my business would fail because I’m trying to tell a story of who I hope to be rather than a story of who I am now. At first, I was a bit offended that she said my business would fail, but then I realized she was absolutely right. My wife recognized an important nuance that is easy to miss. I always knew that my brand had to be about me otherwise it wouldn’t be authentic. However the “me” I was trying to project wasn’t really me. I desired and strove to be [blank] with my brand but I wasn’t yet being [blank] in my life. As such, my customers would never believe it. I know this sounds like philosophical over-thinking but it’s the truth and it matters.
In terms of progress, I’m still working on the logo. I’m behind schedule but I know it will be worth it.
Website
As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve decided to build Contango’s website myself. I’m not starting from scratch per say, but I am fully customizing a Shopify theme. I’ve been learning HTML, CSS and Javascript. These are technically markup languages, not real programming - I’m ambitious, but not that ambitious. A good friend of mine recently built this website (www.igokids.com) from scratch with zero programming experience. Pretty amazing. His search engine is incredible.
Havingcomplete control over your website is so cool and awesome, and it’s not that hard. Once you start digging in, you’ll realize how easy it is. Paying a decent web developer/designer will cost you. You’ll always want to make tweaks and add functionality, so the dollars will build up quickly. Of course, some things require professionals, but not basic e-commerce sites. Use your browser’s web developer tools (Google it) and start hacking around your favorite sites. You’ll be able to mess around with the code and see your changes live.
This post is getting long.
This video shows the lasting process for the blue loafer. That’s my instructor.
