We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Steffie Tomson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Steffie below.
Steffie, appreciate you joining us today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?
Covid has made our model even stronger. Women have historically tolerated pain for beautiful shoes, and to some extent we still do. But for day-to-day, day-to-night regular wear, women remember the daily Covid comfort of sneakers and slippers. We just don’t have patience for what the fashion footwear industry has to offer anymore.
I lost patience about a year before Covid, which is what led me down this path. As a scientist in the Texas Medical Center, I couldn’t dress up *and* be comfortable walking at the same time. That was a complete oxymoron. I wanted the support and squish of sneakers while also looking sophisticated and sexy.
In my mind, building the foundation of a heel out of sneaker material was a no-brainer. Turns out, it took years of development to get just the right formula for optimal support and elegance. After a year in sales, our clients are over the moon about our innovation. I cannot wait to share these shoes with anyone who will give them a spin!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
About Me: I am a mom of two delightful girls, Tessa and Georgia in Houston. I have made a career as a research scientist and instructor. I am proud of all that I have accomplished, and I feel that my latest twist as a shoe designer is a necessary extension of my training. I identified a problem: heels are either gorgeous and painful, or comfy and ugly. There is almost no intersection. I identified the ideal solution: I want my heels to look great and allow me to walk around all day as if I was wearing sneakers. I worked within the constraints of the shape (the heel) to create a foam wedge, then I built an elegant shoe on top. I tested and retested every iteration of our design, looking for pain points, blisters, aches. Each iteration got better and better until we landed on the final version of our inaugural wedge.
Top question people ask: What do you mean the wedge is made of foam? Like, there’s foam on top? Answer: nope! The entire wedge is foam. Two full inches top to bottom of shock absorbing goodness. You can pound around in these for days and not even notice!
What is a Getaway Stick? Getaway Sticks is an old term from the 1920’s that means legs. It quickly morphed into a term for sexy women’s legs. “wow, she’s got a great pair of getaway sticks!”
The best thing about our clients is that they are open and willing to share their experiences with us. If something goes wrong (“ah I stepped in paint! how to I save my shoes!?”) or right (“how is it possible that this exists!? What have these other companies been doing all their lives!?”), they share it all. Customer interactions and testimonials are one of my favorite parts of the job.
Fun fact about our process here at Getaway Sticks: when our first batch of shoes arrived, I took them to my lab and sliced them in half with a bandsaw. I wanted to make sure the foam was correct and photograph the layers for customers to see. Like a good scientist, I realized I needed a control group! I ordered about $2000 of shoes from comparable brands and sliced those in half, too. You would be shocked at what we found! All the brands we tested (I won’t name names, but these are the go-to brands if you need heels for work) were made entirely out of plastic, supplemented by metal, nails, and more plastic. If we were lucky, we would see maybe 2-3mm of memory foam right on top in the insole. No way 2-3mm of memory foam is going to do the job of absorbing walk shock all day! We photographed everything and made videos to document. See our Instagram and Tiktok pages for more of what we found!
Bonus feature: our ankle strap adjusts just like a typical buckle, but it attaches with a hook! Adjust the buckle once for your ankle size, then just slide into the hook and off you go!
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
We design all of our shoes and have them manufactured to our specification. Finding a factory took a solid six months. We started with a factory in Italy, where they pretty much wouldn’t give us the time of day. We had phone calls with them and I even sent them a few sample reference shoes (that they never sent back!), but ultimately they ghosted us.
Next we moved to a factory in Leon, Mexico. It was a great fit geographically because Houston is an easy flight, I speak Spanish, and Leon is famous for their leathers. My designer and I did a development trip to Leon, which is where you meet with manufacturers, look at packaging materials, labels, buckles, and otherwise get all the components of the final product in order. This trip occurred in late February of 2020. Two weeks later, Covid shut us all down. We waited and waited, not know if things would just pop back open. Finally in July of that year with no sign of reopening, we had to switch again.
By this time, China had already experienced Covid and was one of the only countries back up and running. They were hungry for business, and we were itching to get started. I know that there is negative sentiment about products made in China, and I had some hesitation, but honestly our manufacturer was an outstanding partner. They take detailed notes, communicate often, measure everything, and truly care about the design and safety of their products. We had the added benefit of having access to factories who know how to make custom molds (for our heel) and pour custom foam into those molds. It ended up being about an 18-month long development timeline from start to final samples, all without leaving our homes. It’s pretty amazing, when you think about it!
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I think one of the biggest mistakes I made when I started selling shoes was assuming that because I had an amazing product, people would find me. HUGE mistake. My product is definitely amazing, but I still have to chase my customers and entice them to try it on. If a woman tries on our shoe, we have >90% conversion rate (meaning they will purchase). We can achieve this rate because our shoes are truly something you’ve never felt before. It’s this feeling that keeps customers coming back. The realization that shoes can be something other than plastic and metal makes many of our customers into self-proclaimed brand ambassadors.
That said, there are plenty of terrible products out there that we’ve all fallen victim to, with fancy marketing and targeted ads. I try to find the balance between getting my shoes out there and letting customers decide for themselves. By nature, I am not a pushy person, so advertising feels unnatural to me. However, I have realized that all my efforts will be wasted if I don’t spend the time/effort/marketing/budget to showcase our brand.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.getawaysticks.com
- Instagram: @getawaystics
- Tiktok: @mygetaways
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GetawaySticksOfficial
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWiH2HCEDrIvoK5rd-cCcIA