Shaping Up Success

How a one-woman business is keeping her customers fit

by Jennifer Dennard

November 19, 2008

B ootstrapping a start-up business usually requires strong laces - good credit, perhaps a small nest egg, and friends and family willing to part with a bit of cash to see an entrepreneur's dream come true. Not so for Trammell Wilson, founder of Shape Up Shoes, a one-woman home-based enterprise in Brookhaven. She self-funded her business, investing in a product she believed in and saw a potentially huge market for - one without laces to boot.

Wilson stumbled across the product, a specially designed shoe that she says provides a complete lower-body workout in just 30 minutes, in Pilates Style Magazine two years ago. As an avid pilates and yoga practitioner, she believed in the shoe's benefits - improved balance and inner core strength, reduced back pain and the ability to burn calories and lose weight, to name just a few - and decided to set up her own company as a distributor.

"I have two sisters that I got pairs for, and they loved them," Wilson says. "I got a bunch of my girlfriends in them as well, and got all positive feedback. So that's another reason why I knew this was something that was going to be worth putting a lot of effort, time and money into."

She's positioning her product as an efficient way to work out. "[Our shoes] are cut more dramatically, so therefore you only have to wear them 30 minutes a day," she says. "Your body has a tendency to rock back or forward while wearing them, so you have to stay balanced on the flat part under the ball of your foot just as if you were standing barefooted. That opposition to gravity is what actually works your muscles and gets into your core, improves posture and increases your circulation."

New Product Peddler
Wilson admits it was a leap of faith to jump from her full-time pharmaceutical sales job at Novartis as a contact lens rep to that of a shoe peddler.

"You just have to have faith and believe in your product," Wilson explains. "At first I was looking at the numbers and thinking, 'How am I going to pay the mortgage and live and do the things I like to do and just do this?' You just have to believe."

In the beginning, Wilson pounded the pavement, selling her product to local health and fitness stores. "I would go door to door with a pair of shoes and demonstrate and take orders. Nuts and Berries was my first wholesale store, and I was actually doing that just for fun on the side ... just because I loved the product so much. But then I ended up incorporating it and just decided to put 100 percent towards the shoes because I knew there was such a huge market and interest out there. Right now [are in] about 20 stores - mostly in Atlanta. We do have a few in Texas, and one in Nevada."

In addition to print, Shape Up Shoes were recently featured on CNBC's "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch." Up against Baby's Eat, Sleep and Poop Journal, and The Bijoux Box, Shape Up Shoes came out on top as the Million Dollar Idea viewer favorite. Wilson is also hoping to get her product on Good Morning America, The Today Show and Ellen. "The sky's the limit," she says. "The more exposure, the better."

Her main focus right now is on being a successful e-merchant and getting her products into as many stores as possible. She is intent on maintaining the integrity of her brand, focusing her efforts on stores such as Enhancing Health, a wellness, pilates and fitness studio in Duluth.

Steve Collett, president of Enhancing Health, believes in the technology behind the product, which works out the body's core stabilizing muscles, resulting in increased leg strength and lengthened muscles - effects also obtained through pilates. "It's hard to keep a supply," Collett says. "My customers enjoy them very much."

The Next Step
Big-box stores are not on the radar - yet. "We have been in business two years, and thankfully it's been growing. I expect it will continue to grow," Wilson explains, adding that she would eventually like to broaden her line of styles, which currently include the sandal, clogs and boots.

"Our number-one seller is the sandal," Wilson says. "I do see this style being branded the 'Original Shape Up Shoe,' and then developing other styles that are more like something a teacher could work in. If we ever have a whole line of different Shape Up Shoes then maybe we will have a store at some point in the future."

While "fierce" may be too strong a word, competition in the marketplace definitely exists. And, like any successful entrepreneur, Wilson is well aware of similar products.  "The Fit Flop, which is sold in Bed Bath & Beyond and Macy's, is one of our largest competitors," Wilson says. "Eventually I can see us having sales reps that go to the buyers there and try to get on board with those sorts of companies."

Keeping her customers ship shape at an affordable price point has made Wilson a believer in taking the leap to starting a small business. "My whole goal is to be financially secure and enjoy working for myself and having my own hours. I definitely want to grow."