Feel the World’s shoes born to run – to the top

BOULDER – Trying to figure out just how long Feel The World LLC can grow at its current stupendous rate may be as difficult as figuring out how far you can run in a pair of its Xero Shoes minimalist sandals.

“This was all basically a hobby until we hit the $200,000 mark,” said Steven Sashen, co-founder and chief executive. “Then we said, ‘We need to take this seriously.”

For the record, a company employee has about 10,000 miles on one pair of the as-close-to-you-as-it-can-get barefoot sandals, which come with a 5,000-mile guarantee.

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Meanwhile the company has grown from $247,000 in revenue for 2011 to $851,573 in 2013. That’s a 245 percent growth rate, placing it first on BizWest’s Mercury 100 list of fastest-growing companies in Boulder and Broomfield counties for companies reporting less than $2 million in annual revenue.

The whole idea gelled in 2009 after Sashen saw a Tarahumara running team compete in the Leadville 100, all in sandals made from used tires. Sashen himself had converted to running barefoot in 2007 – he’s an All-American Master’s sprinter – and the Tarahumara were also featured that year in the New York Times bestseller, “Born to Run.”

Sashen and his wife, Lena Phoenix, were making a few pairs of their minimalist sandals a week when another barefoot runner and track coach, Michael Sandler, offered to put them in his book if they started a website.

“My wife thought it was a horrible idea. I agreed,” he said. “When she went to sleep, I built the website.”’

Phoenix is actually not a barefoot runner at all, Sashen said, but using the sandals for hiking and everyday activities helped her improve her posture and the way she walked.

That is also the way the company has grown, Sashen said. A dedicated barefoot runner may be inspired to buy a pair of the sandals, but soon friends and family members are just as intrigued, even if they are not runners.

“Our focus is not on the runners,” he said. “It’s on the lifestyle of all the benefits you can get from letting you feet move naturally; all the sensations you can get from actually feeling the world.”

Sashen said the business was bootstrapped from the very first few pairs sold, continually reinvesting all the revenue into materials. Originally, the company sold only kits or custom-made sandals, and actually did not sell off-the-shelf sizes until last October when it became apparent that’s what a great deal of the public wanted.

That change helped drive even more business, he said. Sashen said he isn’t sure how long the company is going to keep up its current growth rate, but he and Phoenix were assured enough to turn down $400,000 in funding from one of the millionaires on “Shark Tank” last year.

“The whole thing was practically nonexistent in 2009 and now it’s 20 percent of the running shoe market,” he said. “Now every major shoe company has something … but almost all the ‘minimalistic’ shoes are about as minimalistic as a pair of stilts.”