We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shea Coughlan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made?

Over three years into running my business I made the best investment I have to date. This investment is the best not only in terms of time and money, but of opportunity and overall happiness as well.

For the three years prior, I solely painted on sneakers and on occasion would use a vintage manual leather patcher to stitch small pieces of fabric onto pre-made sneakers. It was during May of 2021, that I had just finished my second year of university and was preparing to take summer courses for extra credit when I came across a series on YouTube of making sneakers from scratch that instantly had me captivated. I watched the whole two hour long series on the spot, and had a light bulb moment. I knew I wanted to teach myself how to make sneakers. The rest of that day and into the rest of the week, I continued my research on the process, the materials, and everything else needed to pursue this endeavor. Not even a week later, I was spending the limited funds I had to purchase several thousands of dollars worth of equipment that I would need. From a specialized $3,000 sewing machine, to $1,000 worth shoe molds and patterns, along with hundreds more in materials, this +$4,000 investment for a student during the midst of the Covid pandemic was a lot to manage, but it quickly became worthwhile.

After everything had been delivered over the next few months, I put my countless hours of research and studying to the test and started to make pairs of sneakers for myself. Some were failures, others were successful, but in all of that, I was learning. I developed connections with shoe makers local to me that were kind enough to share their experience and expertise, and from that I started to get better. To date, I have made 7 pairs of shoes and more recently have been experimenting with different makes and models, trying to innovate existing sneakers to add my own artistic and creative flare.

As I reflect on this investment at the end of 2023, I now realize the opportunities that lie ahead of me. The market for custom made, or bespoke footwear in my area is massively untapped and premature. Building on the experience I already have, I can become a pioneer in the sneaker making community and capitalize on my early entry into this market. Additionally, making footwear is something I love to do. I find joy in the process like no other, and would be happy to make a living creating custom footwear. During my time making sneakers, I have learned to problem solve in new ways, be patient, but also to have confidence in my work. I have learned things through this medium that I have been able to apply in other areas of business that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. It has helped me grow not only as an artist, but as a business owner as well.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Shea Coughlan also known as Kicksbyshea and I am a 22 year old multidisciplinary sneaker artist, footwear designer, and shoe craftsman based in Toronto, Canada. I have been creative my entire life, but it wasn’t until early 2018 when I was only sixteen years old that I picked up a pair of sneakers and a paintbrush at the same time. Since taking on this pursuit at such a young age while going through school, I have found ways to balance being a student-slash-business owner simultaneously. I use my art as a method of stress relief and a regulator of my mental health in order to keep up with the pressures of student life, while also dealing with the inevitable stress of running a business. This helps me focus and emphasize my passion for quality and value, which results in extremely detailed, precise, and durable work.

In my 5+ years of experience, I have made, painted, restored, deconstructed, reconstructed, stitched, and customized hundreds of pairs of sneakers. Currently, I am focusing on bespoke footwear, which entails crafting shoes piece by piece from scratch, and custom artwork for wear and stationary display pieces. I am not afraid to push boundaries and try new things in my work. At such a young age, I try to bring a youthful thinking when I conceptualize my work, figuring out how I can make something better while still bringing top of the line quality forward.
In my years of experience, I have had the opportunity to work with some large clientele which include: Disney, Nike Toronto, Footlocker Canada, MLSE, OverActive Media, Everlast Canada, and many others. I am extremely proud of the work ethic that I put into every pair, and my constant willingness to improve as an artist.

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

I started working with sneakers in the 11th grade of high school, starting March 2018. It was something I saw a demand for within my school community, as a lot of my peers had sneakers they wanted to keep clean or dirty sneakers that needed to be brought back to life. At the time, I approached a friend with this idea and we split our upfront costs with the intention to run this side hustle as a joint venture. Before long, I went solo and started offering sneaker restorations and cleanings, with the odd custom commission, my first full shoe custom being in October of 2018.

By mid 2019, I had stopped offering cleanings and restorations to focus solely on the artistic elements that custom work provided me. During this time, I was also partaking in a program called The Remix Project, a hub and incubator for young creative entrepreneurs within Toronto. I was taught new ways to look at my endeavor, and pivoted from referring to myself as a sneaker customizer to a sneaker artist. Later that year, I entered a business program at Toronto Metropolitan University, majoring in Entrepreneurship. Over the next several years, I continued to improve and test my limits as an artist. Trying new techniques, different styles, and picking up several large clients along the way. One of the largest and earliest being my work that was featured in the Disney movie “Sneakerella”, which remains one of my largest milestones.

More recently, I graduated from university in June of 2023 and not long after decided to pursue art full time. I had taken on a full time contract job over the summer that allowed me to commit to my passions come the fall and after 5 and a half years working in the industry, I decided it was time to give self employment a try. Presently, I am continuing to work hard at my side hustle turned full time job, and I am excited for what the future holds.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

As an artist, our projects dictate so many other components of my life, it’s hard to always use the same formula when it comes to creating and releasing content. Some projects I can take as much time as I need and I can post as I go, whereas others I need to complete in 72 hours with minimal sleep. Nevertheless, I aim to build my audience using authenticity and transparency. I see a lot of artists, business owners, and influencers that appear to have everything together and seem to have made “all the right moves.” However, I know I have not. I try to capitalize off of this, sharing my faults, learning experiences, and inner thoughts with my audience. First and foremost, I am still building my own audience and trying different strategies to find the one that works best for me. But having said that, I try to show my audience what my work looks like through my eyes. I’m a young artist still learning how to navigate life, business, and my passion, this is the lens I go through. I recommend to anyone building a following to be authentic to themselves and try to develop a personal connection with your audience.

One of the things I’ve learned about social media is that people don’t like brands or products, people like people. I try to be a person first above all, that just so happens to make some really cool stuff as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: Kicksbyshea.ca
• Instagram: @kicksbyshea
• Facebook: Kicksbyshea
• Linkedin: Shea Coughlan
• Youtube: Kicksbyshea