Congrats to all those who made it work out of their car!

Last week I posted a question about what companies are known to have started out of the trunk of a car….and even better what kind of car?? Well, I received quite a few emails and here is the list:

 Kenneth Cole-Actually started out of a truck. It’s a pretty cool story. Apparently the reason the company is called Kenneth Cole Productions is so they could park a big truck on the street in front of the Hilton during a shoe show back in the early 80’s. They had to pretend they were a film production company to gain authorization by the city. Crafty!!  You can read for yourself on their website here: http://www.kennethcole.com/content/index.jsp?page=our_story&h=1150&w=898

 Italian Shoemakers-This comes straight from the owner of the company, Peter Romanelli:  1983 Ford Escot,  5 speed, with no factory A/C, color Blue.  It was the cheapest car on the Ford GUS Machado dealership.   …. Awesome!! From what Charles Podesta their VP of Sales tells me, the rest of Peter’s family were doctors. He had an opportunity to bring Italian footwear to the US, so he went for it and today they are one of the largest exporters of footwear from Italy. The people at Italian Shoemakers are quite honestly some of the nicest in the business and you will read more about them here on shoebizness soon. You can visit their website here: http://www.italianshoemakers.com/

Dansko-I know their story well since they were a client of mine, so I knew they started out of the trunk of a car, but did not know what kind. Well here is the answer, “they had a blue/green Volvo station wagon back in the day.” says Gwen Livingston, VP of HR. Gwen was their first employee and she tells me by the time they hired her they had “moved into a barn.” Nice. Dansko’s story is actually pretty interesting. Mandy Cabot started dating Peter Kjellerup and now they operate one of the most unique and charitable companies in the industry! There is of course more between the lines, but you will probably have more fun if you hear their story for yourself, so I recommend to go here: http://www.dansko.com/#innersole,0

TapouT-Started in 1997 with three MMA fighters out of the back of a rusty red Mustang. The company is now worth over $25 million and growing! Unfortunately they lost one of the founders, Charles Lewis, aka “Mask” in a car accident which I posted a few weeks back. They will continue to move forward and be an inspiration to people out there that hard work and passion do pay off! http://www.tapout.com/index.cfm?fa=AboutUs.home

Simple Shoes-“We financed a portion of our startup of Simple Shoes by selling our collection of three 1960′s VW Karmann Ghia Convertibles!  The car we kept… was a 1953 VW split window sunroof beetle… which I used as my driver.” –Eric Meyer, Founder  …. Pretty cool! The website has a great little presentation of the development of the brand. http://www.simpleshoes.com/info/history.aspx?g=info  Simple Shoes is part of Deckers based outside of San Francisco. Great company!!

I received multiple emails about Nike which I posted something on yesterday as well as Reebok and Under Amour, but am still trying to confirm the details.

I am sure there are more and I would love to know about them! If you know of others, please email me at julia@shoebizness.com.

This was a very fun topic and I was surprised by the response I received!