Company name: Kintec
Location: 1201 West Broadway, Vancouver and nine other locations in B.C.
Business Venture: Manufacturing and retailing professional foot orthotics and footwear
History: Mark McColman was destined to work with feet. Building on an active lifestyle as well as a lifelong fascination with human mechanics and propulsion, he earned a degree in human kinetics from the University of Waterloo before moving west in 1990 and opening Kintec the following year.
The company makes and sells professional foot orthotics and footwear to athletes, medical patients, health-care professionals and everyday consumers.
“When I founded Kintec, technology and shoes was just starting to really come into play,” said McColman.
In the early ’90s, Nike was among the first shoemakers to try to wow consumers with technology.
But from the consumer perspective, the technology of footwear perhaps hasn’t advanced a whole lot since then.
After all, a normal shoe-shopping experience for many people remains paying a visit to the local Foot Locker to pick up shoes that likely don’t veer much in design from the original Nike Air.
Kintec wants consumers to know just how far shoes and the shoe-shopping experience have come.
The company uses medical technology, a hands-on touch and advanced manufacturing processes and materials to create orthotics and shoes that account for every nuance in their owners’ feet and step.
McColman noted that many injuries occur because of too much stress on the body’s soft tissues or premature wear and tear on articulating joint surfaces.
It comes down to your body’s alignment, suspension and shock absorption, he said “and that comes down to your feet, what you wear on your feet and how you walk and propel yourself.”
Kintec has invested more than $1 million in licensing and researching technology, much of which was originally designed by health professionals involved in athletics.
When customers walk into a Kintec store, they are first given a gait analysis: they are hooked up to sensors and made to walk on a treadmill. Pressure-sensitive insoles and pads and a series of cameras capture the customer’s movements and rhythms from various angles.
Kintec’s certified pedorthists use all the data gathered to assess imbalances and biases in your step and contours in your foot
Those biases, imbalances and contours are all accounted for in the customer’s new orthotics, which are made in the company’s own labs using laser scanners, plaster and wooden foot moulds.
The end result is an orthotic that can include dozens of various synthetic materials, which, together, give the orthotic the correct bounce.
Challenge: One of Kintec’s biggest challenges is separating itself from the pack. A Kintec orthotic can cost between $350 and $480, which includes an hour-long assessment.
Many people may be used to paying for costly orthotics, but McColman warns that quality can vary.
For example, he says that receiving a gait-analysis from some orthotics-makers entails nothing more than momentarily walking up and down a hall barefoot or walking on vaguely accurate pressure-point mats that don’t account for the three-dimensional shape of feet.
“By incorporating the best in performance footwear along with being able to provide custom orthotics for those who need them, we’re somewhat uniquely positioned in the marketplace,” said McColman.
Major shoe manufactures all make great shoes, said McColman, but they make shoes that, from a pedorthist’s perspective, are one size fits all.
Brand-name shoes, and the soles within them, said McColman, don’t account for body characteristics like high arches, low arches, over-pronation, over-supination and lower-limb alignment.
“With this unique business model of using technology, multi-view cameras, and pressure-plate analysis, we’re able to evaluate your individual needs,” said McColman.
“Then we match you to the appropriate footwear, which we’ve cherry-picked from the top manufacturers for their best features.”
Analysis: Kintec has grown to eight retail locations and two satellite locations in B.C. In the last three years, it has opened stores in Abbotsford, Richmond and most recently Port Moody.
Sales have grown 20% annually in each of the last three years.
McColman calls the company’s growth “controlled.”
“I could have had 500% growth every year but due to the constraints that I put on in terms of the level of service and the experience we want our customers to have, that is growth that would be too tough to control.”
The company gets thousands of referrals a year from 1,800 physicians in B.C.
The company has fitted the entire BC Lions football club with custom orthotics.
After using Kintec’s orthotics, Robert Esmie, a gold medal runner in the 1996 Olympics, applied for a job with the company and continues to work in its customer relations department.
Kintec is taking its show on the road with a mobile “fit lab” that is travelling to public events around B.C. offering free gait analyses to British Columbians in order to educate them about their own biomechanics.
Said McColman: “Our goal has always been to essentially help people move and perform better.”