Case Study #4: Sole Envie, Inc. – Revolutionizing the Shoe Shopping Experience

Last year, I learned that a colleague of mine and her husband decided to start up a company. Monika Desai is the Chief Executive Officer of Sole Envie, Inc. and her husband, Eric Estabrooks, is the Chief Technology Officer of the company. Sole Envie (www.soleenvie.com) will revolutionize the way women shop for shoes – It will be an online social shopping community and e-commerce site that enables women to design, purchase and share with an online community the shoes of their dreams and express their style. The website will have an interactive configurator that will enable customers to mix and match a large assortment of design elements to create high quality, custom shoes that they desire. Customers will be able to order the shoes via the website and receive them within three weeks. Currently, the website is a blog that will be operationalized into the e-commerce site later this fall.

A few months ago, I approached this fashion-forward, technologically savvy duo about consulting for their business. Monika and Eric asked me to complete a five-year, unique visitor and sales conversion forecast model. I supplemented the model with a tactical marketing plan on how to achieve the unique visitor and sales conversion goals. I benchmarked sites such as Threadless, Zazzle and Nike ID to ground myself in online fashion customization. Then I identified quantifiable metrics for Web 2.0, I-phone application and search engine words that would be used by the Sole Envie target customer.

I admire how Monika and Eric manage their vision and passion for the business model with a seamless understanding of brand, product, manufacturing, distribution and financial inputs. They assume risk and reward based on several market, economic and operational factors. Most importantly, they embrace the sustainable, measurable growth of their brand. As cool as this concept is for the women’s shoe retail category, Monika and Eric realize they need to prove the concept. They are taking diligent measures to build integrity into the proof of the configuration technology.

And gentlemen, you won’t be falling asleep by the benches while your wives shop for shoes at the mall. You just need to get a computer for yourself when Sole Envie goes live!