If the shoe fits

MANILA, Philippines - Borne from their passion for traveling and lust for shoes, Jackie Tan, Kaye Ong, TJ Lumauig and TJ Rocamora have creatively mixed their two loves and turned it into an up-and-coming shoe brand called Suelas. Here, Jackie shares the ups and downs of having your own startup business.

Having been exposed to their family businesses at an early age, Jackie and Kaye have always toyed with the idea of putting up their own business. While their background gave them an insight on what to expect, Jackie shares that “Starting from scratch and running your own (business) is a totally different story.” During the time that they were starting out, Jackie and Kaye still had their corporate jobs while the two boys were busy reviewing for the bar exams making logistics quite hard. “We held meetings while having dinner and we’d plan and discuss ‘til midnight; delegation was the key though. We listed the things we needed to do and entrusted them to each other and set deadlines. This made us more productive, efficient, and effective.”

They started conceptualizing their first collection in August 2009 with a target launch just a few months after. In spite of the minor setbacks, primarily being understaffed, they went ahead with their market research through surveys and realized that there is a potentially big market for their brand. With the current travel boom, a lot of women are in need of comfortable, lightweight, and stylish shoes that they can use in their travels. Hence, the unique idea for Suelas, shoes that aren’t only fashion forward but can also be rolled or bended for easy packing. They then came up with their own designs for the shoes and even went as far a handpicking the materials to be used. The group also partnered with a local shoe factory that has been in the business for more than 20 years now. 

Jackie admits that their first few months into the business was overwhelming, “We launched Suelas in bazaars last November to take advantage of the start of the Christmas season. Our biggest challenge was time. We had work and bazaars usually started on Fridays, of course we also had to sacrifice our weekends. But we are really lucky to have our supportive group of family and friends. Some of them helped us with the marketing collaterals (photography and design), some offered to man the booth at the bazaars, and they also started spreading the word about Suelas to their friends.” It is really admirable how Suelas quickly gained popularity, this, Jackie says, can also be attributed to their marketing strategy which is to make use of social networking sites and online shopping. She adds, “These helped increased Suelas’ popularity in the Philippines and since it’s free, we took advantage of that.”

Currently, Suelas is on its third collection but their bestselling design to date is still the Llanuras (plain ballet flats) from their Holiday 2009 collection. “We produced a total of about 1,100 pairs then and it was sold out by January,” recalls Jackie. She shares that they have also been getting requests for a mother-daughter line as well as a men’s line although she’s coy about whether they’ll be releasing such shoes in the future.

For more on Suelas do visit: http://www.suelasonline.com. Check out Suelas up close by visiting their booth at the Rockwell Moonlit Bazaar on October 15 to 17, 2010, from 12:00 noon to 12 midnight at the Rockwell Tent.