We were lucky to catch up with Brittney Andersen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brittney, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us a story about a time you failed?

Failure is where it started. With ZERO sewing experience, the trials and tribulations of learning that first before ever dreaming of turning this sewing habit into a full blown business came with a lot of failures at first. Most people are stunned to learn that when this business started, so did the lessons in teaching myself to actually sew. A decade later and I’m still the only one who carefully handcrafts each pair. Learning to sew was no easy task, it came with many struggles, many failures, and a few broken sewing machines beyond repair. Fast-forward to today and most would think that sewing no longer presents failures in our direction, however, its always keeping us on our toes and new challenges arrive often. Its how we address failure and grow from those struggles is where the real lesson lies.

Brittney, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

A bit about us, if you aren’t already familiar, in addition to our genuine leather, customizable baby shoes which we’ve become known for. We’re brand established in 2014 after creating shoes initially for our own two children, our customizable baby shoes are so unique and allow you to bring your visions to life. Our soft soled, genuine leather baby shoes are perfect for little ones and provide a less restrictive footwear option for their precious developing muscles and bones. Being barefoot or in something that mimics barefoot walking is essential until approximately age 4. Most new parents don’t realize how essential that detail really is to the natural development of muscles and bone growth in tiny tot toes, which is why our shoes solve the problem when barefoot isn’t an option.

Over the years we’ve expanded beyond shoes and we also offer several other products for all members of the household. Over the years, we’ve expanded to more than just moccs, incorporating handbags, wallets, cardholders, and keychains made from our high quality leather. We’ve also branched out to coordinating handmade blankets, car seat covers, and apparel in all of our exclusive designs. We stock over 70 colors of leather everyday on our website, and we also have over 80 exclusive to our brand unique, printed leather designs. We now even offer several embroidered items along with commercial embroidery services. Everything is often fully customizable and always handmade by us. To ensure there is something for all members of the family, we’ve recently started designing and hand-making notepads in our exclusive designs that everyone already loves.

We’re a small operation, just a husband and wife team based out of Las Vegas, Nevada and we love hand making every single item that leaves our office. Formerly a teacher, who resigned from the profession in 2018, becoming an Entrepreneur and being able to create a brand all our own with products our customers love has been beyond fulfilling.

We feel that the genuine nature of how we interact with customers beyond just being an order number, we pride ourselves in getting to know them, what they like, their style and how we can be of service in creating one-of-a-kind items for them. We also know that there are no other small or large business out there creating soft soled, leather footwear that is 100% completely customizable. We love seeing what our customers dream up for us to make into a reality.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Back in 2014, I was just a teacher, with two young kids and a desire to learn to sew. Specifically I knew i wanted to sew shoes for my little ones to wear. After learning the in and outs of what was needed to create a pair and quickly realizing I had a business adventure on my hands, I also quickly realized I had no initial capital to invest in said business idea.

Being that our shoes are made 100% from genuine leather, a very expensive textile, we had to get creative from the beginning. I couldn’t very well be practicing, and failing with such expensive materials. One of my teacher colleagues at the time had recently purchased a new leather couch and was looking to discard the old one. My creative instincts kicked in a light bulb went off! I essentially skinned the old couch, salvaged what pieces were still suitable for a shoe, free of blemishes and visible wear and we now had free materials. Having such success with that first couch, we began to hunt for those discarding old couches, finding inexpensive ones for under $20 at thrift stores. Most people don’t realize that for the first 6 months after we started our business, all of those pairs were made from upcycled leather essentially.

We reinvested the initial profits to buy our first two hides of leather and then reinvested those to add two more and eventually reinvest to add more commercial equipment and fast-forward to today, we have several commercial machines in our arsenal and now stock over 70 different colors of leather all day everyday.

We pride ourselves in the ability to have started from literally nothing, easily less than $200 and where that initial investment has carried us. We didn’t expand quickly and never invested more than what we set aside to reinvest to the business as we grew and as a result have never needed to seek investments or capital outside of what we’re generated on our own.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

When the hobby of making shoes turned into a part-time side hustle for a full-time teacher, I would have never dreamed it would eventually replace that 10 year teaching career. The first two years were slow, I was still learning the ins and outs of sewing and creating products, not to mention the ins and outs of starting a business. The next two years were really when the word got out, our brand was growing and FAST. The beauty of what we’ve created is that customers are drawn to the fact that they know exactly who has hand made each item and love the fact the all of the design choices, should they want to, are completely theirs to make. We realized that this “little business” had the potential to be something big and while the days were spent teaching and the nights were devoted to sewing, fulfilling orders and growing a rapidly expanding brand, we made the decision as a family to have me resign and pursue this small business, entrepreneurial endeavor full time.

In preparation for the pivot, we renovated a metal shipping container and converted it into a full blown office space on our property. It got the vastly growing small business out of our home and in it’s own space. This space has been able to house and hold all the moving parts of this business and every time we think we can’t fit another thing in here and function, we move things around, add another machine or two and find a way to keep the flow. We’re definitely outgrowing it quickly and are eager to see what we come up with next.

This is my 6th year out of the classroom and the things we’ve done with this business with it being my sole focus has been more that we could have dreamed. It was a risk, and one that made me beyond nervous. But that risk has paid off and I’m forever grateful.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.baresolesmoccs.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/baresolesmoccs
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/baresolesmoccs
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@baresolesmoccs

Image Credits
Shots with products were taken by us. Shots with us in them were taken by Sabrina of @socialmattes