A Bespoke Walk in the Snow

Brothers Bob and Russ Shay grew up with a relentless passion for skiing, and were frustrated with ill-fitting and mass-produced ski boots designed to fit everyone, without fitting anyone. Their love for the sport led them on a years-long search for any edge in training, technique, and equipment. Using tools in their family's garage, they ground, sawed, cut, padded, and pounded away at ski boots. Their vision was to combine comfort and performance to build a ski boot that would fit like it was made for you instead of a generic foot. The result was Surefoot, the world's largest custom ski boot company

Bob Shay, who is now serving as the CEO of Surefoot, details the firm's growth into a worldwide winter sports brand, and discusses whether he's ever considered selling the company. Bob speaks with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio. From Utah to California, ski
resorts across the West to laid their opening days. This
due to a lack of natural snow as well as
temps that were too warm to make snow. So we're
talking about Jackson Hole and Wyoming Park City and Dear
Valley in Utah, Chweitzer Mountain Resort in Idaho, Heavenly and

(00:29):
North Star in California. They all opened later than originally planned.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
I'm going to let you keep going because you've been
so excited about this.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
This has serious economic implications in the towns and states
where these resorts operate. According to the Bureau of Economic Research,
it came out last year and it said that snow
activities in the economy for the US was a seven
point seven billion dollar business in twenty twenty three, and
that in Colorado, Utah, and California it was the quote
largest conventional activity.

Speaker 4 (00:57):
It's a big deal.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's a very big deal. Yeah, for more ski industry
and how this season is looking. We welcome Bob sha
he's founder and CEO of Surefoot. Surefoot is the biggest
custom ski boot company in the world. They've got twenty
nine locations in North America, Canada, and Europe. Bob joins
us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Welcome, How
are you?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Thank you good? I'm really good.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So for people who aren't familiar having step foot into
a Surefoot, explain the process, because I think people understand
ski boots, but then Surefoot takes the shell and then
customizes it. What do you guys do?

Speaker 1 (01:26):
I mean, basically, a person comes in the door and
then there's some conversation with them to find out their
history of skiing and how much they've skied, what level
they're at and everything, and then they're kind of evaluating.
But then the technical part starts. We put your foot
onto a three D imaging machine which makes an orthotic
for underneath your foot the first step in there, and
then we put you onto another image that takes a

(01:50):
scan of your foot. So really what we do with
that scan is we match that to the shell. So
we basically have a visual of your foot exactly and
we match it into we find the right shell for you.
So now that shell matches your ability, your history and skiing,
what you enjoy about the sport, and then we put
it together with a custom liner that we make, and

(02:11):
we have numerous different ones, about five or six one,
so we you know, looking at your foot to side
from there, which one's going to work best for you
in the sport. And that whole process, because we've sort
of packaged all together on the same roof, just takes
about an hour where we can go from you walking
in the door to walking out with a boot that's

(02:31):
totally custom fit for your foot, ready to ski in.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
You've done this, yeah, I did this back in twenty
twenty one. I finally got my first pair of Surefoot boots.
I mean I've lived in places where Surefoot has had
locations and finally I was like, you know what, I'm
getting to my late thirties. I don't get ski boots
very much. It's time for me to have like a
really comfortable pair of boots. And I've wanted a pair
of surefoots.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
And they haven't always been comfortable, No, they haven't.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
And you know the thing is is and you know
I had a scan done in like two thousand and
let's say two thousand and seven maybe for a pair
of orthotics for cycling shoes, and they were able to
tell when I went to the store that my foot
had actually changed. Yeah, since that so they had to
make a They did rescan and and do a new
pair of orthotics based on the new scan. Because I
guess that's what happens when you age.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, well, I think it's it's most feet do that,
you know, if you have some flexibility mobility in.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
Your footwear too, right, Yeah, but go ahead.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, yeah, over time, it really you know, your foot's
going to change a bit, and the scans are extremely precise,
so it's you know, we can be talking to my
minute difference. But that minute difference is a big deal.
It's a big deal in biking shoes if you're really
into it, and it's a big deal in ski boots.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Bob, how did you get to this point?

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Because it to me, it makes a lot of sense.
And I'll be honest with you, I wear orthotics in
just general and it just makes such a difference in
shoes and sneakers and what have you.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
How did you get to this point?

Speaker 1 (03:50):
You know, really it starts. I grew up skiing and
ski racing and boots always just killed my feet, Like really,
I have very wide fore foot and boots. You know,
when you're trying to jam into a ski racing boot,
it's just there's a lot of pain. And I really
took time off the slope. I couldn't stay out as
long as I wanted to as a kid, and so
over time it just started developing ways to make it

(04:14):
a little better. And then as I got done with
ski racing in college, I was like, I don't want
to leave this sport. I love the sport. I can
make a difference in it. So that was really the
impetus for it, you know, thinking about it. And then
then a lot of trial and error, I mean crazy
trial and error.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
What was the tell us? What was some of the error?

Speaker 1 (04:33):
I don't remember. One of my first employees is that
John Higgins was you know, he was on the US
ski team and collegiate ski racer, and we were together
were trying to make a pair of boots for me
with a new this foam material that we had found,
so we we injected into my foot and he gets
it all over his hands everything, and then I'm standing

(04:54):
there and it feels like it's going to break the
bones in my foot. I'm like, John, you you got
to get this off. You gotta get this off my foot.
It's breaking the bones. And a guy was walking by,
kind of through the back corner of the space that
we were in, and he was a chemic clean's journey.
He looks at John and goes, if you don't get
that off your hand in the next like thirty seconds,

(05:14):
it's never coming off. So now John takes off to
get that off his hands, and I've got this on
my foot. I think it's breaking the bones in my foot,
and I'm like, but luckily it didn't, and he got
it off his hand, and we probably took a step
back for a couple of years from that, but that's
really how it began.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
So we're going to talk more about the origin story
in a few minutes, and before we get there, one
of the reasons we wanted to talk to you is
because you serve this higher end consumer, and we talk
a lot about what the economy looks like right now,
and just when you talk about skiing in general, you're
already talking about a segment of the consumer that can
afford to travel to a ski area, pay for expensive
lift ticket, oftentimes stay in an expensive area and then

(05:56):
do something that requires expensive equipment. Give us an idea.
And you're a private company, so it's you know, we
don't have access to a ton of your own data.
But how how is the consumer you're dealing with right now?
How are sales? What are some numbers you can give us?

Speaker 1 (06:10):
I mean, I think all of us are always a
little you know, you're just kind of have this tendency
when you're in business. You know you're a little worried.
But right now things are actually going along pretty well.
You know, we've business, we're up a little. But then
as you were talking around about just before how we
didn't have snow, we take a dip you know with
that when when it's early. But in general terms, we

(06:33):
see the consumer is fairly strong, you know, coming in
and you know, you know what's really happened to him.
I think that people recreation is just a bigger part
of our lives. We all have, you know, we want
to do that. We want to be out there and
luckily we're in the sport that people really love.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Bob, have you seen that coming off the pandemic of
people even like kind of that. Obviously after the pandemic,
it was like I got to get out in the
world because I couldn't for so long.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
But do you see it kind of lasting.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I see it my own company.
How many people aren't in there. I think it became
more important for everybody. You know, it's like you're out
of the office a bit, you got outside and it
just it seems healthy and that's good to me. It
seems like half in to the mountains. We look at
it like it's a healthy place to be to exercise

(07:22):
and stuff, and so I think it's good for the
it's good for my business, good for the sport, my life.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Well, people in New York City know that you have
a store in New York City. But it's kind of
a unique store because it's it's not near a ski mountain.
Every I think every other store that you have, maybe
save for Vancouver or more London. Yeah, you know is
right at the base of a ski mountain is New York.
You're you're like the biggest location in terms of what
it does in sales.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
It was the first it was the first city store.
It's not our biggest volume store. You know, we have
that in the mountains, but many of our stores are
very similar in size. But really why we put them
here is because you know, there's just people who want
to there's different percenalities. They want to get it done
before they go to you know, on their trip, and
those there and now you can get the exact same thing.

(08:07):
So really early season, our city stores flourish.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
I mean, how busy are you right now? Is it crazy?

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Really? Yeah? You know, honestly, it's the most fun part
of my job. I was in the New York store
this morning, for you know, and it's just I love
when it's just busy in there and everyone's talking about
sport and skiing and enjoying it.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Very briefly, you bought a company back in twenty twelve
that is not a winter company. Yeah, and now that's
attached to the store in New York City. In terms
of running, how big of a growth area is running
for you?

Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know that that's I mean the reason we got
into running was because we were runners to stay in
shape for skiing. I mean, you know, we all run,
and you know, it's part part of it. And then
because of the orthotics that we make the custom you know,
the basis of the ski boot is used by so
many athletes and runners like Boston Marathon winners and so
many people. That's where came from, is that we knew

(09:01):
a lot about feet and running and what we could
do with that. It's great for us.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
So we talked about your story of you starting this
company with your brother. I mean, you've been doing this
for more than forty years at this point, completely bootstrapped,
no investors. You also don't franchise at all. I'm sure
this has come up when people have come, hey, you
should franchise this. Why not?

Speaker 1 (09:23):
You know, we get asked once a week about the
franchising thing at least. But you know, it's just that
we wanted to have better quality control over it, and
we want to give our employees opportunity. And that's what
really comes down to is that we in order to
open more stores, we train people and when they're ready
to go to store. Like our most recent story, we
opened in Big Sky. Crisciardo, the manager there worked for

(09:46):
us a long long time and he wanted to move there.
We opened the store there.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
That's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
I think that's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
I mean, I'm also assuming that folks have reached out
to either invest in you buy you.

Speaker 4 (09:59):
Up like, and you just you're you want to continue
to go it alone.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, you know, I think it's it's we've had you know,
we have my have had minority investors and stuff in there.
But we've also had some hard knocks with those. And
so as long as we control the business and we
enjoy what we're doing, and you know, we have my
daughter is in the business, my you know, we have
family in the business. I want to do it for
a long time. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4 (10:24):
And what's your supply chain?

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Like?

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Is everything done in the you and I in the US?

Speaker 1 (10:27):
You have to I wish it was all done in
the US. That's you know, it's I really wish that
it was done here, but we're not able to. There's
just things that or not. So, yeah, we've had challenges
with the supply chain right now, we try to mitigate them.
And the costs and and the.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
Territory costs have gone up.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a tough It's been a
tough thing too. And I really think I look back
and say, wow, I was I'm glad this didn't happen
when we're in business five years or something. I don't
I don't know how a small business gets through it.
You know, we're a little able to manage it a
little better.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
But yeah, there the biggest story in the ski industry
obviously is snow and making sure that people can actually
get on mountains. The second biggest story in pretty much
any ski town that you go to is the cost
of living. Yeah, and I'm wondering. You are known for
having these long tenured employees who live in the communities
where you have stores, and these are very transient communities

(11:21):
because they're ski areas where people come for the season
and then leave. How do you make sure that you
can have employees that can actually live somewhere like attracting
and retaining a long term employee in a place where
truly nobody can afford to live.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, it really has. I mean, you know, we talk
about it being so hard right now, but you know,
there's been many points where it has been. But are
What we've always tried to do is make our employees
really productive the whole system that they do, and then
pay them the best that we can in there. But
it is a challenge, you know, in there, and you
have to Yeah, we have to deal with that. I mean,

(11:56):
look at some of these markets are crazy, crazy expensive now,
so we have some employee housing, but the real thing
is how we keep people. Employee housing, yeah, yeah, we do.
We have employee housing all the big markets, but that's
more for new new employees that are you know, coming
into the company, to help them get settled and yeah, yeah,

(12:17):
you know, their first second year. But all of our
you know, management and everything, we've always wanted the company,
you know, I always say, if we're not going up,
we're going out. We have to go up to give
employees opportunity to keep growing, keep growing there. And that
gives employees opportunity their stores keep growing bigger. They can
be rewarded more for that and compensated. But no doubt,

(12:37):
it's it's a big challenge.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
Where's the growth in your industry?

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Like how do you think, I mean, forty years you've
been doing this, Like it sounds like you still look
for new opportunities constantly.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
I mean, really, what it comes down to is we're
still a small percentage. You know, we're probably somewhere around
three or four percent of the dollar volume of ski
boots sold in the world, and so we have a
lot of room to grow in that.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Would you ever consider making your own skiboot? Just to
remind everybody, the shell, you buy the shell from a
company that makes the ski boot, and then you do
the liner and kind of everything else. But would you
ever make an actual surefoot ski boot?

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah? I mean we have right now. We have three
D technology that we're working on and with boots and everything.
But I think as long as we can get the
shell that we think is really great for a customer
in the market, then we'll keep doing that. So what
we really do is we buy the shell without the liner,
so it saves the consumer money and then we have
a great shell in the outside and the interior we've made.

(13:31):
But we are always working on so if I come
up with a great idea about a shell, you'll see it.
I like that.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
But in terms of growth, like, okay, no offense, but
I'm like thinking, we I got our thoughtics, but these sound.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
Better, like can you?

Speaker 3 (13:45):
In terms of the medical market, are people who go
to foot doctors? What's the percentage like through your machine
like that.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
You have, It's a percentage even in that it's small. Yeah,
we're small, even we're one of the largest makers of
ourthotics in the United States, like, actually kind of a
long shot, we are, but we make so many in
our stores. If you combine what we do in our
stores and what we do in our factory, we're by
far the largest. But there's lots of room because a
lot of people don't really know how beneficial they are

(14:13):
to you. So if something happens to you, if all
Sydney have planner fasciitis, your foot's hurting, you're aching from running,
that's when you start seeking us out.

Speaker 4 (14:22):
So, Bob, if.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Somebody comes in and gets an orthotic through you, I mean,
is it covered by insurance?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
It is if a doctor, you know, if they have
a prescription for it. Majority of what we sell are not.
That's not really true. In our medical division, it's mostly prescription,
and then in our consumer it's not. But you know,
they are covered and they're the same scan, so we
can make we can do anything with that.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
You know this it just seems like a mass market,
like it's major.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
It is a big market.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Well, the reason you have that market is because you
bought this company and fit the Orthotics Company based in Vancouver, Washington,
back in twenty twenty three. You bought super Runner shops
back in twenty twelve. Any more acquisitions on the horizon.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
You know, right now we're doing something really big that
we're about to introduce our own line of footwear. And
the footwear is made specifically for orthotics to fit your
orthotics in it, so you have a perfect platform. Like
right now in ski boots, you have a perfect platform
when we make the boot whole thing so you're standing
totally aligned.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
But a pair of shoes you pull out the insul,
the athotic's going to be bigger than the insula.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
It doesn't doesn't fit quite right, and you can't get it,
you know, in there. So we are late in a
few weeks, we're about to introduce a line of shoes
that is just for that. So when you get a
line scan your body's put into alignment. You put it
to our shoes, You're going to stand in a very balanced,
comfortable position.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
You guys are doing this on your own or is
it a collaboration?

Speaker 1 (15:47):
We're doing on our own.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
I think we're breaking some news here, you know.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
I've debated whether I should even say say the sun here.
But it's a big deal. We've been working on it
for years and it's really cool. I have some. I
was just at the World Cup and Veil and I
had on a pair of the winter boots and I
had like four or five people asked me about them.
What are those? Where are they? Like? Oh? Nice. We
have a little little luck here with the product men

(16:12):
and women. Yeah, we have men and women. Yeah, of
course we have men and women's tea, run everything,