How to Spot a Market Your Industry Ignores: Rick Blackshaw on Stoke

Apr 30

5 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Rick Blackshaw has spent his whole career in footwear. He ran the Chuck Taylor business at Converse, ran Keds, and ran the Hey Dude division of Crocs. By his own calculation he has put between 500 million and 600 million shoes on people's feet. And from inside that system he noticed something most people accept. The industry builds on narrow lasts from a century-old idea and markets to teenagers and elite athletes. Meanwhile, as Rick tells it, a study of half a million 3D foot scans found that 75 percent of men have wide feet. The man on his feet all day, working and raising a family, was being ignored. So Rick founded Stoke to serve him. For any founder, his story is a lesson in where opportunity lives. It sits in the gap between how a product is marketed and how people actually use it.

Inspired by Paper Napkin Wisdom Episode 361 with Rick Blackshaw.

Why insiders are often the last to question their industry

Rick loves the brands he worked on. He ran Chuck Taylor for years and calls it the most popular sneaker of all time. His point is that those brands win people's hearts and minds on something other than comfort. Chuck Taylor and Keds both rest on vulcanized technology more than a century old. Boat shoes, in his words, have not an ounce of comfort in them. As CEO of CCM he saw hockey skates, which he calls the ultimate constraint tool.

Once he looked at the products with a straight eye, the gap was hard to miss. The industry he calls big sneaker focuses on 13 to 24 year olds because it believes they drive footwear culture. It sells either elite performance or a hipster look. According to Rick, 80 percent of men who buy running or court shoes never use them for their intended purpose. They just want something comfortable.

I notice how often this happens in any established business. The people closest to the product are the most loyal to the story around it. That loyalty is powerful. It can also keep you from seeing the customer standing in front of you.

How to validate a gap with both observation and data

Rick describes two kinds of evidence. The qualitative kind came from airports. He travels constantly and looks at people from the ankle down. Men's feet were spilling over shoes that could not be comfortable, because that was the only choice they had been served.

The quantitative kind backed it up:

The study of half a million 3D foot scans, which found most men have wide feet.
In his experience, any time a brand made a wider version of a core model, it became the best seller.
75 percent of men have wide feet, yet only 25 percent buy wide shoes.

He says he had been thinking about this for seven or eight years before deciding to act. Before launch, Stoke ran a 12 week fit and wear test with the target customer. Half the men loved the shoes the moment they put them on. Brand concept research showed most of them felt the brand resonated with them.

After 60 days on the website, Rick reports that 25 percent of buyers were already repeat purchasers. Some had bought five, six or seven pairs.

What it means to design for the customer the market forgot

Stoke's customer is specific. Rick calls him the engine room of North America. He might be a first responder, a teacher, in security, on a factory floor or at a job site. This man is on his feet all day. Rick says he is running life, not marathons.

Rick has a line about the slip-on design. "I love to tie my shoes said no one ever." Every product choice follows from that customer:

A wider fit at the ball of the foot, which Rick calls big ball girth.
A forefoot with no cup, so the foot can spread as it expands through the day.
A thick, cushioned stack for comfort.
A price under a hundred dollars, at 80 and 85 dollars, about half of the models he benchmarks against.

The voice is deliberate too. Stoke speaks in a male-centric, humorous tone that is slightly antagonistic to the rest of the industry. Rick says every part of the brand is built to draw a sharp contrast with big sneaker.

Why physical discomfort costs a leader confidence

This conversation was personal for me. I have had issues with my feet since I was 16. I tried the shoes, the doctors, even surgery. When my feet got bad I stopped walking and stopped playing sports, and it hit my health and my confidence. I used to think it was normal to finish a couple of hours of keynote speaking with my feet, ankles, knees and lower back in agony.

Rick connects comfort to confidence directly. When your feet are in survival mode, it's hard to think about anything else. When they are comfortable, he says, you feel ready to go.

I shared something I had seen recently. Morgan Freeman, on a late night show, recalled advice from Clint Eastwood. Don't let the old man in. I wonder if the first place a man feels old is in his feet. Staying active is how he keeps the identity of someone who walks with his spouse and plays outside with his family.

How to find the gap in your own market this week

Rick's story is about shoes. The pattern applies to any business that has been running on its industry's assumptions.

Write down how your product is marketed. Then write down how customers actually use it. Look for the distance between the two.
Go and watch customers in their real setting, the way Rick watches feet in airports.
Look for the version of your product that outsells the rest, and ask what it tells you about who is underserved.
Notice where your customers have adapted to discomfort and stopped complaining. That is often where the opportunity lives.

Then sit with the question I left listeners with. Where in your business, or your life, have you been adapting to something instead of asking whether it was ever right for you?