Thanks for playing, Rob!
Can you give us a little background on the genesis of TRUE? The original idea, the meeting with Sean, etc. You may want to start keeping a journal, if you aren't already. I really enjoy reading books written by successful entrepreneurs. I could write one on what not to do...
Sure, I can give a quick summary of how TRUE happened.
As I mentioned earlier Sean Eidson, our co-founder and CEO, notice someone golfing in VFFs while he was playing in Dallas. He had read an interesting article in the NYT about the rise of barefoot running and how small companies were "wiggling their toes at the footwear giants." Since barefoot running was already becoming a trend he saw a great opportunity in golf - ie) if the barefoot guys got together with the walking golfers there could be a really cool product. Sean was a member of The Walking Golfers Society and we had communicated a couple times in the past after meeting randomly at Pacific Dunes. Sean knew I was working at a large footwear and apparel company and was a very passionate walking golfer who was always testing product. Sean had found a designer and started kicking around some ideas and drawings which he passed over. I provided him with my feedback and told him that I thought, if done properly, this product could absolutely kill it. What two surfaces to people enjoy walking on barefoot the most - grass and sand - through some water proofing around your foot and make a comfortable shoe and in our opinion you have the ultimate golf shoe - which can also be worn off the course.
I had been golfing for the most part in indoor soccer shoes and whenever I made recommendations for "comfort" improvement in product I had been testing for my employer they did not seem interested. Their concern was making product for the guys on tour - although it seemed strange to me that if you practice/play everyday wouldn't you want to be comfy? I was not involved in footwear at my employer, only footwear product testing.
So Sean and I had what we thought was a good idea - and as others saw what we were up to they were really impressed as well. The key for us was figuring out how to turn this into a business. We were fortunate on two levels - 1) being able to find interested investors early on and 2) having the opportunity to get our idea in front of Ryan Moore, his brother Jeremy and father Mike.
The Ryan story is interesting - Todd Rohrer of MacKenzie Golf Bags was down in Scottsdale the same time as Ari Techner from Scratch who was in town to do some work with Ryan. Sean and I put a power point deck together for Todd to give to Ryan. Long story short, Todd was able to hand it off to Jeremy Moore - Ryan's brother and manager. This was obviously very fortunate and it ended up being a serendipitous moment as Ryan was suffering through ankle problems with the shoes he was currently wearing and they were getting worse. Ryan was also frustrated by the weight and structure of golf shoes on the market and was really excited about a "barefoot" golf shoe that put you as close to the ground as possible. Ryan is obviously a unique pro golfer and we knew that his honest and "lone wolf" attitude would be beneficial for you TRUE. On top of that, Ryan is a really great guy who loves product - so we'd have a great product tester and partner who would validate our shoes on the PGA Tour.
We signed Ryan around The Colonial last May and he became our third co-founder. We have a great group of investors that helped us get up and running and Jeremy Moore, Ryan's brother, is an integral part of our company. Along the way we picked up Mike Wagner, who y'all should know from GCA, and a couple other young guns who were really passionate about what we are doing as a company.
The TRUE tour went on the market through our website for pre-sales in September 2010 and we began shipping the shoes out in October. We've been pretty much sold out since then as we get shipments in and they immediately go out to retail or customers. We absolutely killed it at the PGA Show and that added a lot of energy to 2011 which has continued. It has been an incredible ride thus far and we are continuing to get better in terms of product design, materials, quality, etc. We can't thank all of our TRUE friends for their support along the way - and there are a bunch of them on GCA - chapeau guys! We really appreciate it!