EXPERT OPINION

Ever wonder what it would be like to start your own footwear brand? Susie Freedman Tapper, a footwear industry outsider, did. Last year she and her partner Mara Zipursky had a bright idea for an infant shoe line and began working on Sweet Pedtooties. We asked the fledgling entrepreneur to share her adventures, triumphs and missteps with us. This story continues from our March issue.

I am normally the first in line for roller coasters. The Tidal Wave, the Drop of Doom, you name it. I’ll try anything that will send me spinning and my heart a pumping. Unfortunately, this footwear coaster that I’m on with my partner Mara is not all laughs. One minute, we’re coasting along and everything is dandy, then whoosh! There's a glitch, and the ground drops out from under us. And just when we think it could all be unraveling, things turn around in some unbelievable way. I guess that's why they say entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart or stomach.

So, we were on our way to designing our shoes… or so we thought. We had chosen our manufacturer and were quite pleased with our dealings with the company. However, trouble started when we found that Jean, the manufacturer's representative, was unable to answer the majority of questions we threw her way. She recommended that we come to China to source our own materials. While going to China was definitely something that we needed to do, because of time and budget constraints it was going to have to wait until spring '09. So what were we supposed to do? Should we try to push the manufacturer to source the materials for us? And if she did, how many tries would it take just to get the materials the way we wanted them, let alone the shoes themselves? I was worried about meeting our deadlines for a fall '09 launch. But then, out of nowhere, our luck changed.

Tara Sugar, our Sugar Mama shoe designer and now Magic Shoe Fairy, was in touch with an old business colleague, JJ, now living in Shenzhen, China. She thought it couldn't hurt to ask JJ if she might be willing to source some materials for us. As luck would have it, JJ wasn’t working at the time and was more than happy to go to the Guangzhou market to source leathers for us— actually, she was excited to do it—and would not accept a penny from us. JJ also spoke fluent English and Mandarin and had agreed to go down to the factory and meet with the Jean to go over material swatches and sourcing information. The swatches would then be couriered over to us.

This was exactly what we needed. Not only was JJ someone that Sugar Mama knew and trusted to pick the right fabrics we wanted, she was someone who could give us an experienced and impartial review of the factory. Now, please imagine the clouds parting, angels singing and JJ floating down to us on a ray of light. That’s just how we felt.

But wait! It was time for our luck to shift and for the roller coaster to take its plunge.

We learned that JJ could not go to the factory to check it out for us after all, since the location was days away by bus and difficult for her to get to. Luckily, a solution was quickly found— a representative from the factory was going to meet JJ at the market instead. It was far from a horrible outcome—the angels were still singing and JJ was still floating—but it would have been nice for her to be able to go to the factory and give us her expert opinion on it.

In the meantime, we were going to have to find some other way of checking out the factory. A trip to China? Perhaps that is finally in order… if only we could get our hands on some money.

Susie Freedman Tapper is the co-owner of Sweet Pedtooties Inc. Find out more about her soft-soled infant shoes on www.sweetpedtooties.com. Read more about Susie’s adventures at www.wsatoday.com.

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