There's one group of people that may be the most important group to discover the value and benefits of natural movement and barefoot inspired shoes Who are they we're gonna find out and have a conversation about that on today's episode of the movement movement the podcast for people who want to know the truth about What it takes to have a happy healthy strong body start feet first You know those things that are your foundation the things at the end of your legs and we break down the propaganda the mythology Sometimes the flat-out lies you've been told about what it takes to run or walk or hike or play or do whatever it is You like to do and they do that enjoyably and effectively and efficiently and I guess I'd enjoy I know I did because it was a trick Question actually didn't ask question, but anyway, so fake out. That's what I was gonna say anyway I'm Stephen session co-founder co-CEO zero shoes calm host of the movement podcast which we call it that I can't do English since today anyway We call it the movement podcast because we're creating a movement that involves you more about that in a second natural movement How to let your body just do what it's made to do without getting away and the movement part is your help spread the word It's really easy. You can start by going to www dot join the movement movement calm Nothing you need to do to join no secret handshake No money involved No song you just say every morning when you get a band just that's where we have all the previous episodes all the links The places you can find us on social media all the ways you can share and spread the word like give us a review Give us a thumbs up hit the bell icon on YouTube Whatever, you know, look, you know the drill if you want to be part of the tribe just subscribe So let's have some fun Emily do me a favor tell people who you are and what you do and then maybe what you're doing here Okay, so my name is Emily Jantig I am from Brooklyn, New York And I am making children's shoes because when my son was born a socks were falling off They don't like shoes on and shoes are there her their feet and make them fall So I started tinkering around to make something that would stay on and put these off like a sock and or like a show So so you just gave away the punchline right away. We have to say for that.
So the punchline of course It's just the value of getting kids into or keeping well either getting kids who've been in quote regular shoes out of those into something that's more natural or keeping them something more natural to be with and you're starting at the very small end I mean you're dealing with like, you know, you're starting with like the smallest humans when they're gonna be starting to use their feet We're getting them into something that's gonna let them be natural How did you decide to do other than your it was anything more than just the experience with your son that made you think? Hey, this is a good idea Yeah, you know what actually there was one week when I was in the park with my son and in the same week I had to help two different mom friends search around the park for lost Tyler shoes And and I have been having the same issue myself because they don't leave them on they're irritating to them And they're falling down, you know, I had a feeling that so yeah, I started playing around after that Yeah, and you know when layman I started zero shoes that we have is we had this idea and then we uttered the five dangerous entrepreneurial words How hard could this be so? How do you relate to that and what made you decide to take a leap into doing this as an actual business? Which as you know, I could not recommend less I I Guess I just started tinkering I started I started cutting this box And I added little snaps on them making them a little more like a shoe But that was easier to slip his foot on and different ideas like that and you know before I knew it I was hunting around for factories is finding someone that would just help me make a prototype and kind of one thing led to another Oh my gosh, and I'm being glad when I say, you know, it's not recommended simply because it's starting any business running any business is Just way harder than we ever imagined Absolutely everyone's in the end.
Did you ever see the Chevy Chase Christmas movie where he's makes these beautiful lights for Christmas time? And then he's just thinks it's gonna be wonderful and then you know like a bulb is out and Alex barking and here and there'll be on a beautiful And it's like always something early on we had friends who would say to us. Oh, you have your own business That must be really fun. We'd say yeah, you've never done this before have you They're immensely satisfying but immensely satisfying but the fun part, you know that comes and goes there's mostly a lot of work And and so had you I mean in terms of the sort of barefoot barefoot nests is that a word?
Alright, let's use that the barefoot nest of things Have you done had any pre-experience with us? Did you have to start doing any research about this or you kept what's been going on about any This or was it literally just like let's make something that stays on my kids foot and doesn't let them fall in his face because they're slippery I mean you're a lot more hip to a lot of the things than I am but definitely I think it was just a mother's instinct I realized that putting a big you know shrunken down adult sneaker on his a little mushy feet just didn't make sense, you know And so so I knew that much and then now now I've learned so much more, you know I mean their feet are basically cartilage They don't even really have strong bones so to put them on like a little inch of foam is you know They're like teetering around like I'm like around skills, you know I don't know if I told you this when we talked before but dr I mean Davis who was is one of the top researchers in the world about minimalist footwear and natural movement She's now the president of the American College of Sports Medicine And she said to me if we just got kids wearing minimal shoes in 20 years We wouldn't be treating adults for the billions of dollars of foot ankle hip knee back problems. They currently have Wow how about that? Yeah, yeah, because you know as I've read that the bones don't even completely harden and solidify until like 18 to 22 late team, you know There's still stuff happening fusions happening and things like that to become the 26 bones, you know that we have adults Yeah, I mean most people don't think you become you know fully adults.
They're dumb at med school. So that's At least that's the way it was my family and I apparently never became an adult because I just thought not to go to med school So that's the way I got around that problem and and say sorry this three years ago You know what was it like it's fun for me talking to people who have started this I actually annoyingly didn't well I didn't interview with my friend golden harbor who founded ultra and The annoying part was not talking to him the annoying part was as soon as I hit save on the for the recording Something crashed and we didn't get the recording and we had not been in it But it's fun to talk to people who are in the biz a because everyone's got a slightly introspective Which is interesting but also frankly we have to commiserate about what it was like So what were those early days like like what did you expect when you decided to build out build a website and what actually happened? I guess for me the one of the biggest issues was getting the product right or close to right or getting closer and closer to right I You know I thought it would be a great idea to have kind of poggles on the shoes and And they were great and they were wonderful but a couple times they fell off and you know It's just too close to a baby babies grab things and stuff like that And it is you know past all the small parts things anything But you know it's just nerve-racking to think of the things that could go wrong I guess yeah, so so you know I've learned a lot along the white things I didn't think I would have to learn it and definitely ordering new inventory before it's all gone You know so many things so many things to learn yeah, and when you launched the website What do you know that you existed? I We were really active on Instagram and that kind of seems to be where our crowd was so that's kind of took off And we had a lot of them, you know Then moms would post pictures of their babies and it was all just kind of a big connection and you know a lot of community there That's what happened for us.
Yeah, how about you when I started it was in 2009 and the barefoot movement was just kind of kicking in So frankly there's only one place that people were really gathering and that was a Google group And so I jumped in on there and just contributed whatever content I could think of that was meaningful I once I made a couple pairs of sandals I made videos of how I did that and I shared those So essentially it's a friend of mine's line If you're trying to make money it's easy figure out where the money is flowing and getting the way or another way of saying that in this context It's fine out where the conversations are happening and get involved in the conversation by getting involved I mean don't try to sell things try to offer something of value and that's how and so yes in those early days I'd made a bunch of videos and was syndicating and they were at that time about 40 different video platforms And I was on all of them and that was kind of the very very heady time when it comes to search engine optimization For any keyword that I cared about within a couple of months I had at least 40 of the top 50 results if you search for things like barefoot shoes and that wow Dramatically in the 14-year since but but that was that was the gist of it is I'm frankly we were running a search engine marketing business my wife and I and so I said when I built the website I said this will just be a case study where I can show that you know I can dominate this category in a few months and I was wrong and only took me a few weeks, but wow But those were again, it was a very different time But the biggest thing frankly was just those videos and just putting out content like I basically gave people the ability to rip off My entire business model and a number of people did I was fine with it I mean I was fine with the fact they were doing it because I wanted the awareness to grow I'm here to help people and change their lives not to you know become the next film the blank But what was annoying is the number of people who would say I was looking for something that I couldn't find so that I had to do it Myself and then they what they did is an exact copy of what I did so you know You know you rip me off to say you're ripping me off. I mean I don't it's not a problem So and then in this first in that first whatever period of time that you can think of in terms of delineating time How did things grow what was your experience of that and what were people you know reporting back one when they were getting product? I think things grew a lot actually from word of math So we would notice that like you know We would be shipping to one area and we would kind of consistently shift to that area It would be because moms talk and they're together and they recommend things to friends if it's working and so so that most of it has been word of Math I mean, you know, and that's just the best thing but I'm sorry. There's a second for your question I'm not sure what were you hearing and what was it like getting that feedback?
Oh Well, you know we had one customer say one thing that's like a favorite thing She called us the gateway show which I loved because it's like I like to not be a shoe I don't you know I don't think kids are ready for that you know to an under and three But I love that the gateway show to be kind of something a little bit to wear outside and around but you know Not heavy or clunky and pardon me one sec people were trying to call me and I'm turning off my phone Yeah, so you start three years ago. How do things feel again now compared to what you thought? I'll give you the teaser on my end Lane and I thought that by the three remarks somebody would have bought us out for some larger Money that has not happened So what we expect yes, yeah, how are things comparing your expectations? I mean, I definitely expected things to move a lot faster, you know I was you know, you're so optimistic and you think that things are going great and things are going good But things take a lot longer than you expect, you know I thought it would be just easy to be Doing a lot of retail and things like that And we are at Macy's and stuff like that But I have learned that some of these things that you think are gonna be like a great opening Maybe maybe sometimes keeping them simpler just being on the website and Amazon and things like that has been more like Just easier to get to the customers and not have anyone between us and it's a lot less complicated sometimes, you know And that gives a manufacturing so how did you find someone to make things and what was that like and again?
What does that whole experience been like? I'm more than happy to share war stories. Okay I I'm in LA and the prices that they were able to do well first of all there They're a lot more selective and so it was difficult to get them to work with me Just starting out and so but by the time I did it was um You know the prices that they would need to charge were a lot more than would have worked out for the price point So I did eventually use a manufacturer in China But I that's a while too because I only some factories do the the fine it and then certain factories do children's shoes So I had to get two different factories to work together and it took a while But now we've been very happy with one of the premier children's shoe factories in China. Did you go there?
Right, they do. Did you go whenever they're now? And so what which town are you guys or the factories in just I'll tell you stories about them? Shenzhen Got it So they just outside into the Dongguang region is getting really the weeds for people But you know what the hell?
I just gave it to Shenzhen, you know When I first time I went to China as a tourist was 1989 and Shenzhen was a farm there was nothing there It was I mean really yeah It was not a thing and I got out there And I think I was like the first white person that most people that I bumped in would ever seen it was very entertaining now Hold on sorry and I tell people you know the thing I say about manufacturing in Asia in particular Some people think that it's just a question of price which sometimes it is But you know what I say with the stuff that we're making we literally can't make this mistake and and then I'd like to be Smiling annoying and say people in the same you know Especially when people were complaining that we have to get a shout out or make things in America I go yeah It's literally not possible in the same way that it's literally not possible to have this conversation on a device that is made in America so but you're not throwing your computer away and yelling about that and It's it's just tricky and now the part that people can't rather brain around one of the towns with one of our factories is not too far from yours And I've been going there for down ten years and ten years ago. It was kind of a dump I mean there wasn't much going on although There was one thing going on that was wonderful that even better now that I mentioned the sec But ten years later, this is a thriving middle-class town that I would love to live in ignoring Chinese government politics I'll address just the town itself and the people amazing wonderful place and utterly delightful And one thing that has been delightful since day one and continues to be is the food and there's two parts of that My favorite Chinese restaurant in the town that we're in is not a restaurant It's just there's an area where every night is a night market and there's one guy out there who had like two big Cauldrons of broth and then 50 different things you could do with that and a couple of walks And I am starting to point at the things that I want and he quickly just kind of waves me away and realizes I was pointing at all the vegetable stuff and you know nothing with me And he just shoes me aside and then shows up five minutes later with this giant plate of the most incredible Chinese food I've ever had And it was 75 cents so and barely more expensive now than it was then so that was utterly delightful But the really fun part there's a bunch of people who were making footwear in that area way that went Who they realized there was no really good food in the neighborhood and a bunch of these people were Italian So they decided to get out of the footwear business and go into the restaurant business And they opened up an Italian restaurant a bunch of Italian restaurants And some of the best Italian food ever had and best pizza I've ever had is in this weird little part of China And one of my favorite parts is the waitresses They speak English with a Chinese Italian accent which as much as I would love to be politically incorrect and imitate it I just can't but it is utterly totally one of a kind anyway, so right now is it just you? Me and a couple freelancers. Yes.
Yes. How's going? Oh those are the days You know what you've done it. I mean I really I really Appreciate because we live through it It's like a lot of people they way over commit on day one and are not even confident that they have it Well, let me take back every entrepreneur is confident that what they have is a brilliant idea And many don't figure out whether it is or not until it's much too late and meaning that it's typically not So it sounds like you know other than having to deal with product things get things made You've done a fine job of being organic about this and not over committing which frankly that is the number one call to failure It's just like you think it's gonna be way bigger than it is and then you're not prepared when it's growing differently than what you expect Yeah, spread yourself too, then yeah Before I Was working at L'Oreal I was working as a copywriter started as a proofreader and then got promoted a couple times to be a senior copywriter So I love marketing advertising fashion all that yeah, so it sounds like a bit of a perfect storm in terms of all of your history working for what you're doing now Yes, absolutely.
I'm having so much fun. I love to yeah I think of styles and colors and definitely that's the fun part of it. Yeah, yeah What's I mean? I know this is a crazy question to ask because you're still really getting started I'll ask it anyway, what do you well?
It's two ways of asking one is kind of what's next together is what do you imagine? What do you want? Based on you know, let me do this in a totally different way based on what you know now How does what you want for the future differ from what you thought on day one? We didn't have the information and experience you got now Well, I think I imagined that I would just roll out all these styles and colors and sizes and it would just you know But I'm realizing now that I think it makes more sense to zero in on you know even just a minimum amount of colors and Maybe just two styles and just let it go from there and then you know eventually more colors and definitely more sizes because as As the kids grow out of our shoes We get emails, you know in the months need a bigger size or you know They want to stick with something minimal on the children's feet And you know and then actually we've done a lot of emails from people with children's with disabilities children that you know Or in maybe in a wheelchair or different things like that And they need some kind of really flexible comfortable thing on their feet.
So I would really like to do exercises That's on my mind. Yeah, yeah It's managing inventory is by far the most challenging thing and what I can tell you is that if you're looking for investment capital Finding people who understand and are okay with the idea of an inventory heavy business is a challenge And backing up to just the whole you know phenomenal for me what I knew going in on day one was a little bit about the All value of natural movement, but obviously what I've learned over the last almost 14 years hold a different story Well, how do you what's your evolution in that world or that aspect of this world like so, you know my knowledge about the natural movement had evolved because Yeah, I've learned more about it just talking to people But I was wondering if you heard this that there's an Ethiopian don't put children's shoes on a shinsheet and You're five and we've attributed you know this to the reason why they have so many fast runners and Olympic athletes Do you know that I didn't hear about the mothers not putting kids kids in shoes? So they were five but I definitely know of athletes who grew up running playing soccer playing baseball playing best Well playing whatever barefoot and then they come to America and they're super strong and they're putting big They choose and they're sitting over there having fun and he problems so I've seen the other end of that quite a bit But it surprised me I mean I joke that if you want to understand I mean the real value is about strong feet and responsive feet And if you want to find people who have strong response a feat goes somewhere where they probably don't have indoor plumbing And they also they also probably want to have podiatrists Because they're gonna be having problems with their feet and that seems to be born out by the research as well Yes, and Another thing that it just came to my mind is that when children have to look down so because they can't feel It's underneath of them as you do with bare feet You know and your body is just sort of picking up their signals without you looking down But you know when a child has a shoe on especially a small child But they have to sort of sense with their eyes what's underneath them and around them and look straight down and it makes them fall No, so it's down the whole process of learning to walk there was a red way that went about students in Japanese preschool Where the gist of it was the ones who were barefoot developed more quickly socially than the ones who were in shoes And the theory was that they had to be more attentive to what they were doing where they were walking whether they were Setting on stepping in and to each other than kids who were just you know like couldn't feel anything in a way They went and I thought that was very interesting. I don't know that it's been replant.
It doesn't sound like a surprising result Right, yeah, it's natural. Yeah Well, I hate to do this, but since we've been having just like a boat ton of connectivity problems I want to bring this into a nice soft landing and we can have another conversation another time But even if you ever tell people you know how they can discover what you're doing for them I was gonna say for themselves, but if it was for themselves they'd be really precocious because they'd be too You know how to get online and order things Their family for their children or grandchildren or great grandchildren or however If you're living somewhere where all of your everyone your family has kids about their 15 great great great great grandchildren. How can they find you? I'm like that's where I'm going It's booties calm h a rcs be O T E S calm and I made a discount code called movement with just capital capital word movement Well, I'd say that's perfect at least you made it through heart smoothies a JRT S B O O T E S calm movement Will be your discount code to use and thank you for doing that and of course on social media where they find you there?
And how the hell the go to your website your Yeah, this is one of those things I mean we've all lived through I mean, that's why I don't have I don't care But but anyway, thank you for everyone who's put up with our technical whatever's I hope you should get the most important thing Which is you know, it's a real thing to be getting kids letting them say natural as long as you can be possible It's the bottom line and we're doing things up with that as well But I'm thrilled that you've come from the very far other end if you will to give kids for just getting started walking something They give them that natural experience with the production comfort that they need also It's you know couldn't be more important and so for everyone else just a reminder go to www.join the movement movement calm Find all our previous episodes how you can find us on social media how you can leave a review and give us a thumbs up and And a like and a hit a bell icon on YouTube You know the drill and more importantly if you have any questions suggestions recommendations people you think should be on the show Or if you or someone you know wants to tell me that they think I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome I'm cool with that as well And in fact is one of my one of things that I've been trying to do for years is to get somebody on the podcast who vehemently disagrees with me And have a conversation I have not had the luxury of somebody being willing to take me up on that offer and I've made it Quite a number of times, but anyway, if you know someone, you know pass it on so move MOVE Join the movement movement commas my email address happy to hear from you But most importantly go out have fun and live life feet first