Sean Clark cut his e-commerce chops working at Vancouver’s booming eyewear retailer Clearly Contacts (TSX:COA). In 2012, he left his job to start his own business, an online shoe retailer called ShoeMe.ca, in his parents’ basement.
That company now has an office in Vancouver and another in Toronto, employs 35 people and has experienced “triple-digit growth,” according to Clark.
But while selling shoes online is a proven business in the United States, Australia and Europe, Canada lagged behind when Clark started – and getting traditional shoe companies onside was a challenge.
“I spent time and money going to all the shoe shows … in New York and Vegas and Toronto, and I would go to these shoe shows and pitch and sell,” Clark said.
“I had so many doors slammed in my face. I would go to these booths where Clarks were or Timberland or Skechers (NYSE:SKX). … At one point or another they all said no to me.”
Clark doesn’t think he would have been able to persevere without an Energizer bunny-like store of passion for his business idea. He said he’s seen other potential entrepreneurs founder because they lacked the staying power to stick with a winning business idea. That passion was what won over his first shoe business partners – and what attracted investment funding from his former boss, Coastal Contacts CEO Roger Harding.
“Understand that you have to win people over to change their minds. I’ve had to develop relationships with these guys, like the guys who have the rights to distribute Keen or Merrell,” Clark said.
“The reason some of them opened up was because I was so passionate about it – I was like, ‘I quit my corporate job, I moved back into my parents’ basement suite.’”
