Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio. From Utah to California, ski
Speaker 2: resorts across the West to laid their opening days. This
Speaker 2: due to a lack of natural snow as well as
Speaker 2: temps that were too warm to make snow. So we're
Speaker 2: talking about Jackson Hole and Wyoming Park City and Dear
Speaker 2: Valley in Utah, Chweitzer Mountain Resort in Idaho, Heavenly and
Speaker 2: North Star in California. They all opened later than originally planned.
Speaker 3: I'm going to let you keep going because you've been
Speaker 3: so excited about this.
Speaker 2: This has serious economic implications in the towns and states
Speaker 2: where these resorts operate. According to the Bureau of Economic Research,
Speaker 2: it came out last year and it said that snow
Speaker 2: activities in the economy for the US was a seven
Speaker 2: point seven billion dollar business in twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 2: that in Colorado, Utah, and California it was the quote
Speaker 2: largest conventional activity.
Speaker 4: It's a big deal.
Speaker 2: It's a very big deal. Yeah, for more ski industry
Speaker 2: and how this season is looking. We welcome Bob sha
Speaker 2: he's founder and CEO of Surefoot. Surefoot is the biggest
Speaker 2: custom ski boot company in the world. They've got twenty
Speaker 2: nine locations in North America, Canada, and Europe. Bob joins
Speaker 2: us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Welcome, How
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 1: Thank you good? I'm really good.
Speaker 2: So for people who aren't familiar having step foot into
Speaker 2: a Surefoot, explain the process, because I think people understand
Speaker 2: ski boots, but then Surefoot takes the shell and then
Speaker 2: customizes it. What do you guys do?
Speaker 1: I mean, basically, a person comes in the door and
Speaker 1: then there's some conversation with them to find out their
Speaker 1: history of skiing and how much they've skied, what level
Speaker 1: they're at and everything, and then they're kind of evaluating.
Speaker 1: But then the technical part starts. We put your foot
Speaker 1: onto a three D imaging machine which makes an orthotic
Speaker 1: for underneath your foot the first step in there, and
Speaker 1: then we put you onto another image that takes a
Speaker 1: scan of your foot. So really what we do with
Speaker 1: that scan is we match that to the shell. So
Speaker 1: we basically have a visual of your foot exactly and
Speaker 1: we match it into we find the right shell for you.
Speaker 1: So now that shell matches your ability, your history and skiing,
Speaker 1: what you enjoy about the sport, and then we put
Speaker 1: it together with a custom liner that we make, and
Speaker 1: we have numerous different ones, about five or six one,
Speaker 1: so we you know, looking at your foot to side
Speaker 1: from there, which one's going to work best for you
Speaker 1: in the sport. And that whole process, because we've sort
Speaker 1: of packaged all together on the same roof, just takes
Speaker 1: about an hour where we can go from you walking
Speaker 1: in the door to walking out with a boot that's
Speaker 1: totally custom fit for your foot, ready to ski in.
Speaker 2: You've done this, yeah, I did this back in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one. I finally got my first pair of Surefoot boots.
Speaker 2: I mean I've lived in places where Surefoot has had
Speaker 2: locations and finally I was like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: getting to my late thirties. I don't get ski boots
Speaker 2: very much. It's time for me to have like a
Speaker 2: really comfortable pair of boots. And I've wanted a pair
Speaker 2: of surefoots.
Speaker 4: And they haven't always been comfortable, No, they haven't.
Speaker 2: And you know the thing is is and you know
Speaker 2: I had a scan done in like two thousand and
Speaker 2: let's say two thousand and seven maybe for a pair
Speaker 2: of orthotics for cycling shoes, and they were able to
Speaker 2: tell when I went to the store that my foot
Speaker 2: had actually changed. Yeah, since that so they had to
Speaker 2: make a They did rescan and and do a new
Speaker 2: pair of orthotics based on the new scan. Because I
Speaker 2: guess that's what happens when you age.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's it's most feet do that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have some flexibility mobility in.
Speaker 4: Your footwear too, right, Yeah, but go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, over time, it really you know, your foot's
Speaker 1: going to change a bit, and the scans are extremely precise,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, we can be talking to my
Speaker 1: minute difference. But that minute difference is a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal in biking shoes if you're really
Speaker 1: into it, and it's a big deal in ski boots.
Speaker 4: Bob, how did you get to this point?
Speaker 3: Because it to me, it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: And I'll be honest with you, I wear orthotics in
Speaker 3: just general and it just makes such a difference in
Speaker 3: shoes and sneakers and what have you.
Speaker 4: How did you get to this point?
Speaker 1: You know, really it starts. I grew up skiing and
Speaker 1: ski racing and boots always just killed my feet, Like really,
Speaker 1: I have very wide fore foot and boots. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're trying to jam into a ski racing boot,
Speaker 1: it's just there's a lot of pain. And I really
Speaker 1: took time off the slope. I couldn't stay out as
Speaker 1: long as I wanted to as a kid, and so
Speaker 1: over time it just started developing ways to make it
Speaker 1: a little better. And then as I got done with
Speaker 1: ski racing in college, I was like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to leave this sport. I love the sport. I can
Speaker 1: make a difference in it. So that was really the
Speaker 1: impetus for it, you know, thinking about it. And then
Speaker 1: then a lot of trial and error, I mean crazy
Speaker 1: trial and error.
Speaker 4: What was the tell us? What was some of the error?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. One of my first employees is that
Speaker 1: John Higgins was you know, he was on the US
Speaker 1: ski team and collegiate ski racer, and we were together
Speaker 1: were trying to make a pair of boots for me
Speaker 1: with a new this foam material that we had found,
Speaker 1: so we we injected into my foot and he gets
Speaker 1: it all over his hands everything, and then I'm standing
Speaker 1: there and it feels like it's going to break the
Speaker 1: bones in my foot. I'm like, John, you you got
Speaker 1: to get this off. You gotta get this off my foot.
Speaker 1: It's breaking the bones. And a guy was walking by,
Speaker 1: kind of through the back corner of the space that
Speaker 1: we were in, and he was a chemic clean's journey.
Speaker 1: He looks at John and goes, if you don't get
Speaker 1: that off your hand in the next like thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: it's never coming off. So now John takes off to
Speaker 1: get that off his hands, and I've got this on
Speaker 1: my foot. I think it's breaking the bones in my foot,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, but luckily it didn't, and he got
Speaker 1: it off his hand, and we probably took a step
Speaker 1: back for a couple of years from that, but that's
Speaker 1: really how it began.
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk more about the origin story
Speaker 2: in a few minutes, and before we get there, one
Speaker 2: of the reasons we wanted to talk to you is
Speaker 2: because you serve this higher end consumer, and we talk
Speaker 2: a lot about what the economy looks like right now,
Speaker 2: and just when you talk about skiing in general, you're
Speaker 2: already talking about a segment of the consumer that can
Speaker 2: afford to travel to a ski area, pay for expensive
Speaker 2: lift ticket, oftentimes stay in an expensive area and then
Speaker 2: do something that requires expensive equipment. Give us an idea.
Speaker 2: And you're a private company, so it's you know, we
Speaker 2: don't have access to a ton of your own data.
Speaker 2: But how how is the consumer you're dealing with right now?
Speaker 2: How are sales? What are some numbers you can give us?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think all of us are always a
Speaker 1: little you know, you're just kind of have this tendency
Speaker 1: when you're in business. You know you're a little worried.
Speaker 1: But right now things are actually going along pretty well.
Speaker 1: You know, we've business, we're up a little. But then
Speaker 1: as you were talking around about just before how we
Speaker 1: didn't have snow, we take a dip you know with
Speaker 1: that when when it's early. But in general terms, we
Speaker 1: see the consumer is fairly strong, you know, coming in
Speaker 1: and you know, you know what's really happened to him.
Speaker 1: I think that people recreation is just a bigger part
Speaker 1: of our lives. We all have, you know, we want
Speaker 1: to do that. We want to be out there and
Speaker 1: luckily we're in the sport that people really love.
Speaker 3: Bob, have you seen that coming off the pandemic of
Speaker 3: people even like kind of that. Obviously after the pandemic,
Speaker 3: it was like I got to get out in the
Speaker 3: world because I couldn't for so long.
Speaker 4: But do you see it kind of lasting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I see it my own company.
Speaker 1: How many people aren't in there. I think it became
Speaker 1: more important for everybody. You know, it's like you're out
Speaker 1: of the office a bit, you got outside and it
Speaker 1: just it seems healthy and that's good to me. It
Speaker 1: seems like half in to the mountains. We look at
Speaker 1: it like it's a healthy place to be to exercise
Speaker 1: and stuff, and so I think it's good for the
Speaker 1: it's good for my business, good for the sport, my life.
Speaker 2: Well, people in New York City know that you have
Speaker 2: a store in New York City. But it's kind of
Speaker 2: a unique store because it's it's not near a ski mountain.
Speaker 2: Every I think every other store that you have, maybe
Speaker 2: save for Vancouver or more London. Yeah, you know is
Speaker 2: right at the base of a ski mountain is New York.
Speaker 2: You're you're like the biggest location in terms of what
Speaker 2: it does in sales.
Speaker 1: It was the first it was the first city store.
Speaker 1: It's not our biggest volume store. You know, we have
Speaker 1: that in the mountains, but many of our stores are
Speaker 1: very similar in size. But really why we put them
Speaker 1: here is because you know, there's just people who want
Speaker 1: to there's different percenalities. They want to get it done
Speaker 1: before they go to you know, on their trip, and
Speaker 1: those there and now you can get the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: So really early season, our city stores flourish.
Speaker 4: I mean, how busy are you right now? Is it crazy?
Speaker 1: Really? Yeah? You know, honestly, it's the most fun part
Speaker 1: of my job. I was in the New York store
Speaker 1: this morning, for you know, and it's just I love
Speaker 1: when it's just busy in there and everyone's talking about
Speaker 1: sport and skiing and enjoying it.
Speaker 2: Very briefly, you bought a company back in twenty twelve
Speaker 2: that is not a winter company. Yeah, and now that's
Speaker 2: attached to the store in New York City. In terms
Speaker 2: of running, how big of a growth area is running
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 1: You know that that's I mean the reason we got
Speaker 1: into running was because we were runners to stay in
Speaker 1: shape for skiing. I mean, you know, we all run,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's part part of it. And then
Speaker 1: because of the orthotics that we make the custom you know,
Speaker 1: the basis of the ski boot is used by so
Speaker 1: many athletes and runners like Boston Marathon winners and so
Speaker 1: many people. That's where came from, is that we knew
Speaker 1: a lot about feet and running and what we could
Speaker 1: do with that. It's great for us.
Speaker 2: So we talked about your story of you starting this
Speaker 2: company with your brother. I mean, you've been doing this
Speaker 2: for more than forty years at this point, completely bootstrapped,
Speaker 2: no investors. You also don't franchise at all. I'm sure
Speaker 2: this has come up when people have come, hey, you
Speaker 2: should franchise this. Why not?
Speaker 1: You know, we get asked once a week about the
Speaker 1: franchising thing at least. But you know, it's just that
Speaker 1: we wanted to have better quality control over it, and
Speaker 1: we want to give our employees opportunity. And that's what
Speaker 1: really comes down to is that we in order to
Speaker 1: open more stores, we train people and when they're ready
Speaker 1: to go to store. Like our most recent story, we
Speaker 1: opened in Big Sky. Crisciardo, the manager there worked for
Speaker 1: us a long long time and he wanted to move there.
Speaker 1: We opened the store there.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm also assuming that folks have reached out
Speaker 3: to either invest in you buy you.
Speaker 4: Up like, and you just you're you want to continue
Speaker 4: to go it alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think it's it's we've had you know,
Speaker 1: we have my have had minority investors and stuff in there.
Speaker 1: But we've also had some hard knocks with those. And
Speaker 1: so as long as we control the business and we
Speaker 1: enjoy what we're doing, and you know, we have my
Speaker 1: daughter is in the business, my you know, we have
Speaker 1: family in the business. I want to do it for
Speaker 1: a long time. Please go ahead.
Speaker 4: And what's your supply chain?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 4: Is everything done in the you and I in the US?
Speaker 1: You have to I wish it was all done in
Speaker 1: the US. That's you know, it's I really wish that
Speaker 1: it was done here, but we're not able to. There's
Speaker 1: just things that or not. So, yeah, we've had challenges
Speaker 1: with the supply chain right now, we try to mitigate them.
Speaker 1: And the costs and and the.
Speaker 4: Territory costs have gone up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a tough It's been a
Speaker 1: tough thing too. And I really think I look back
Speaker 1: and say, wow, I was I'm glad this didn't happen
Speaker 1: when we're in business five years or something. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know how a small business gets through it.
Speaker 1: You know, we're a little able to manage it a
Speaker 1: little better.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there the biggest story in the ski industry
Speaker 2: obviously is snow and making sure that people can actually
Speaker 2: get on mountains. The second biggest story in pretty much
Speaker 2: any ski town that you go to is the cost
Speaker 2: of living. Yeah, and I'm wondering. You are known for
Speaker 2: having these long tenured employees who live in the communities
Speaker 2: where you have stores, and these are very transient communities
Speaker 2: because they're ski areas where people come for the season
Speaker 2: and then leave. How do you make sure that you
Speaker 2: can have employees that can actually live somewhere like attracting
Speaker 2: and retaining a long term employee in a place where
Speaker 2: truly nobody can afford to live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really has. I mean, you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about it being so hard right now, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's been many points where it has been. But are
Speaker 1: What we've always tried to do is make our employees
Speaker 1: really productive the whole system that they do, and then
Speaker 1: pay them the best that we can in there. But
Speaker 1: it is a challenge, you know, in there, and you
Speaker 1: have to Yeah, we have to deal with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at some of these markets are crazy, crazy expensive now,
Speaker 1: so we have some employee housing, but the real thing
Speaker 1: is how we keep people. Employee housing, yeah, yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: We have employee housing all the big markets, but that's
Speaker 1: more for new new employees that are you know, coming
Speaker 1: into the company, to help them get settled and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, their first second year. But all of our
Speaker 1: you know, management and everything, we've always wanted the company,
Speaker 1: you know, I always say, if we're not going up,
Speaker 1: we're going out. We have to go up to give
Speaker 1: employees opportunity to keep growing, keep growing there. And that
Speaker 1: gives employees opportunity their stores keep growing bigger. They can
Speaker 1: be rewarded more for that and compensated. But no doubt,
Speaker 1: it's it's a big challenge.
Speaker 4: Where's the growth in your industry?
Speaker 3: Like how do you think, I mean, forty years you've
Speaker 3: been doing this, Like it sounds like you still look
Speaker 3: for new opportunities constantly.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, what it comes down to is we're
Speaker 1: still a small percentage. You know, we're probably somewhere around
Speaker 1: three or four percent of the dollar volume of ski
Speaker 1: boots sold in the world, and so we have a
Speaker 1: lot of room to grow in that.
Speaker 2: Would you ever consider making your own skiboot? Just to
Speaker 2: remind everybody, the shell, you buy the shell from a
Speaker 2: company that makes the ski boot, and then you do
Speaker 2: the liner and kind of everything else. But would you
Speaker 2: ever make an actual surefoot ski boot?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean we have right now. We have three
Speaker 1: D technology that we're working on and with boots and everything.
Speaker 1: But I think as long as we can get the
Speaker 1: shell that we think is really great for a customer
Speaker 1: in the market, then we'll keep doing that. So what
Speaker 1: we really do is we buy the shell without the liner,
Speaker 1: so it saves the consumer money and then we have
Speaker 1: a great shell in the outside and the interior we've made.
Speaker 1: But we are always working on so if I come
Speaker 1: up with a great idea about a shell, you'll see it.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 3: But in terms of growth, like, okay, no offense, but
Speaker 3: I'm like thinking, we I got our thoughtics, but these sound.
Speaker 4: Better, like can you?
Speaker 3: In terms of the medical market, are people who go
Speaker 3: to foot doctors? What's the percentage like through your machine
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: You have, It's a percentage even in that it's small. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're small, even we're one of the largest makers of
Speaker 1: ourthotics in the United States, like, actually kind of a
Speaker 1: long shot, we are, but we make so many in
Speaker 1: our stores. If you combine what we do in our
Speaker 1: stores and what we do in our factory, we're by
Speaker 1: far the largest. But there's lots of room because a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't really know how beneficial they are
Speaker 1: to you. So if something happens to you, if all
Speaker 1: Sydney have planner fasciitis, your foot's hurting, you're aching from running,
Speaker 1: that's when you start seeking us out.
Speaker 4: So, Bob, if.
Speaker 3: Somebody comes in and gets an orthotic through you, I mean,
Speaker 3: is it covered by insurance?
Speaker 1: It is if a doctor, you know, if they have
Speaker 1: a prescription for it. Majority of what we sell are not.
Speaker 1: That's not really true. In our medical division, it's mostly prescription,
Speaker 1: and then in our consumer it's not. But you know,
Speaker 1: they are covered and they're the same scan, so we
Speaker 1: can make we can do anything with that.
Speaker 4: You know this it just seems like a mass market,
Speaker 4: like it's major.
Speaker 1: It is a big market.
Speaker 2: Well, the reason you have that market is because you
Speaker 2: bought this company and fit the Orthotics Company based in Vancouver, Washington,
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty three. You bought super Runner shops
Speaker 2: back in twenty twelve. Any more acquisitions on the horizon.
Speaker 1: You know, right now we're doing something really big that
Speaker 1: we're about to introduce our own line of footwear. And
Speaker 1: the footwear is made specifically for orthotics to fit your
Speaker 1: orthotics in it, so you have a perfect platform. Like
Speaker 1: right now in ski boots, you have a perfect platform
Speaker 1: when we make the boot whole thing so you're standing
Speaker 1: totally aligned.
Speaker 2: But a pair of shoes you pull out the insul,
Speaker 2: the athotic's going to be bigger than the insula.
Speaker 1: It doesn't doesn't fit quite right, and you can't get it,
Speaker 1: you know, in there. So we are late in a
Speaker 1: few weeks, we're about to introduce a line of shoes
Speaker 1: that is just for that. So when you get a
Speaker 1: line scan your body's put into alignment. You put it
Speaker 1: to our shoes, You're going to stand in a very balanced,
Speaker 1: comfortable position.
Speaker 4: You guys are doing this on your own or is
Speaker 4: it a collaboration?
Speaker 1: We're doing on our own.
Speaker 2: I think we're breaking some news here, you know.
Speaker 1: I've debated whether I should even say say the sun here.
Speaker 1: But it's a big deal. We've been working on it
Speaker 1: for years and it's really cool. I have some. I
Speaker 1: was just at the World Cup and Veil and I
Speaker 1: had on a pair of the winter boots and I
Speaker 1: had like four or five people asked me about them.
Speaker 1: What are those? Where are they? Like? Oh? Nice. We
Speaker 1: have a little little luck here with the product men
Speaker 1: and women. Yeah, we have men and women. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course we have men and women's tea, run everything,