How I'm running a SHOE BRAND at 21 y/o (NO EXPERIENCE)

If you don't know who I am, my name is Lucas. I am a 21-year-old college student and I am also the owner of the brand called Soul Form and it is a volleyball shoe brand. Uh, I launched it officially, I guess, on September 29th of 2026, but I started it like a year and a half ago.

So, it's been quite a while. Um, and I'm going to be talking a lot about how that drop went. going to be walking you through like samples that I have planned and then like give you a lot more context about what I'm doing and how I'm trying to grow this brand from the ground up.

Uh, and a lot of crazy things have happened uh that I was not expecting at all. So, I'm going to show you that in this video. Definitely though, before I go into like talking about the context and stuff for any of you guys who don't I mean, I guess haven't seen the shoe, I have it right here in this box.

I'm going to show you guys it real quick. Um, I mean, first of all, the box is really nice. is very very quad and I've gotten feedback from customers that the box is really nice.

But I'm just going to show you guys an example pair right here. So, as you can see, comes with a little tag here and this is a size 11. So, one thing that I will say a little problem while I'm kind of showing you guys this is we've gotten the sizing a little bit too small.

A lot of people have been saying it's a little bit tight while others really really like it if they, you know, prefer to wear their shoes snug. But for the vast majority of them, for the vast for the vast majority of players, a lot of them are saying it's a little bit snug. So that's definitely something to keep in mind for the next shoe or, you know, next version that we release.

But this is the shoe here. It's called the SF1. I completely designed it by hand, like everything.

Uh, and it took me around like a 10-month to 12 month process to full go from like initial development through that official bulk process. Um, and this is the shoe. This is the model.

This is what it looks like. As you can see, this is the other pair here. So, very, very nice.

A light blue was my intention there was to make it a shoe that can be worn by both boys and girls. Um, but obviously our size range is a little bit limited right now. Um, I'm going to show you guys the bulk real quick because I'm sure you guys are curious about like what that looks like.

So, I have it I mean I live in the basement of my parents house right now. I'm a college student, but I'm home right now. So, I'm going to flip around the camera.

This is the bulk order. Uh, as you can see, two of our boxes have already been depleted. As you can see down here, I have just a trash bag, the cardboard boxes that go out, and this is kind of my like shipping station.

I do have some things that I need to put out or some orders I need to ship out today. And then I have it organized by size up here, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. I have samples here just sitting on my desk.

So, I wanted to show you guys this is the first ever version that we made. This is the first prototype. That was a long, long time ago.

obviously looks nothing like the actual shoe, but you can see some of the similarities in the outsole and the midsole. And then also got the I think this is this is the second version. So huge upgrade, but still looks entirely different.

But I just have these here sitting on my desk, I guess, for like motivation or whatever. All right, let's just set this up right here. All right, so I know the question that a lot of people are asking is, I obviously started a shoe brands from scratch at 21 years old.

you know, how did the first drop go? And in this segment here, I'm just talking to the camera to be completely transparent about how it went. And it went completely unexpected in ways that I couldn't even imagine it to go.

Um, but first, I just want to say like the content I'm going to be posting on this channel is going to look different than the initial three videos I had out there. I've been doing a lot more editing content. I'm like a little bit I'm like scripting it a lot more in the first three videos.

So, I like have specific segments and it has a a good general flow to it. But I felt like the way that I was talking to the camera was just not very authentic in a way. Like it felt like I kind of had a shield up and was kind of polishing what was actually going on.

I mean, while it was showing the showing the work, uh, the real work that I do do, it was like more polished and kind of seemed like a cinematic kind of thing instead of just the raw experience that I go through. So, I'm going to be doing more videos like this where I'm going to try to show you like bringing you into like a day in my life of like what I do to launch my own shoe brand and be authentic as possible and honest with the results. So, that brings me into the segment where I'm going to talk about how the launch actually did.

So, the launch did very poorly. Uh on day one, I literally have like screenshots and I have a real video of like I launched at 6 p. m.

Uh I think it was a Wednesday or Tuesday on the 29th. Uh, that could be wrong, but I launched at 6:00 p. m.

and I think from 6 p. m. to like 10 p.

m. or when I recorded uh like with my camera, I had a single sale. So, my shoe at the time retailed for $160.

So, you can imagine like 6:00 p. m. to I don't know, it's probably 12:00 a.

m. I think I got one more, but like between that 4 hour period, I pretty much got only one single sale. Uh, and it was very, very depressing because I thought I was going to sell like 10 on launch day and like make, you know, at least 1.

5 or at least over $1,000 in sales in the first day. But to see it that only a single customer bought for my brand and I was like waiting, you know, sitting actually right here in this spot with my laptop in front of me, you know, the Shopify dashboard open like waiting for orders to come in. I saw people live on the site but then like nobody would order it.

And it was very very depressing. Like I think over the next couple days I was just all in my head. It was a whole like emotional I wouldn't say emotional breakdown but like I'm not a very emotional person.

Like I I don't I I usually live my life through logic and like I'm pretty objective about things, but that one like actually like got me emotionally like that like hurt my soul because I worked so hard on it for the past year and a half and it was very very depressing. And so I I began to like film all these videos that I I took down but like film all these videos of me just talking about that experience um from the heart and it was just kind of like I got into like this lazy mode of like just posting content for the sake of it and was kind of questioning what I was doing. Um but yeah, that was the result.

So day one it was absolutely terrible. Um and you know recently over the past 2 and 1/2 weeks it has picked up a lot more. So I'm going to be talking a little bit about like the specifics of it probably in later videos.

But as of right now we have made a couple thousand dollar which is nice and it's only been like 2 weeks. So you know predicting to do the month probably around four or 5K which isn't like crazy. Like in a year like let's say we we do do that it's like around 50k a year or something like that.

That's not as high as I hoped for. Um, but I'm still going to try to push for 10K in that month. So, I have an entirely different content strategy that I have plaided out here.

Uh, that I've really planned and I wrote in my notebook, which I'll show you guys later. And I think that's going to completely, you know, change the marketing strategy that I have for the brand because what I thought was going to work obviously didn't. Uh, it was mainly influencer marketing, but it it didn't really work.

And so, I'm completely pivoting to something that I never thought I was going to do for the brand. And I'll explain uh why uh very very soon. Okay.

Okay, I can't lie. Like, I was recording and just talking that much kind of has my voice a little bit coarse. So, I'm at home.

Bro, this camera's going everywhere. So, I'm at home right now. Uh, but because I'm at home, I can just make my own coffee.

So, we're going to cook up a nice iced coffee while talking about like other stuff. I guess no one's Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This camera is going all over the place.

Okay. to use for the rest of the video. And I'll kind of talk while while doing that.

I like never do stuff like this where I'm just like straight up I have no plan. I usually structure all my videos and this is just like I'm literally putting the camera on a cutting board right now. Um, okay.

Just Oh, we are running out. We are running out of coffee, bro. We got like three left.

I have a specific I have a very specific iced coffee cup I like to use. This clear one right here. So, I'm just going to like put the coffee in.

It's just an espresso. Like, I don't really I'm not really a coffee guy. Like, I just like drinking it, but I don't really know what's good.

So, tap the button. A little here real quick. Got some sweetener.

Some alulose zerocalorie sweetener. Stay. You know what I mean?

Just get this. Sometimes when you're recording, you kind of just need a little cup of coffee because you kind of get tired constantly talking to the camera and then we're going to do ice as well. Um, okay.

Maybe I'll just put this here. Right here. This is the good stuff.

Got some black coffee. I'm doing it ice though, so I'm gonna put it in the fridge and then talk to you guys a little bit about marketing strategy that I have. All right.

So, first of all, obviously these videos that I'm making doesn't have like a specific hook, a specific like retainer like for the video, but like I'm just literally talking. And I think doing it this way without having a specific script or structure is a little bit better because I'm I'm better able to talk to you guys from the heart and you know things like that. But marketing strategy as far as that goes, our initial plan was to um my initial plan was to go really really hard on the funnel.

Uh the top of the funnel being influencer marketing. So they were going to do the viral content and really get me just raw viewership of volleyball players. And then under that I had my Instagram which was like not really focused on posting viral content but just posting more like aesthetic content things like that.

And then at the bottom of the funnel will be my website where it's just ultra ultra clean aesthetic really positions as a premium brand. And so that was originally the goal. Um but after after working with a lot of influencers I I got so far around half of them to post.

It wasn't as successful as I thought it was going to be. I thought there was going to be more viewership, more talk in the volleyball community about it, but there just wasn't as much. And honestly, a lot of my growth, I think, came from organic versus influencer, although I like set up a commission, you know, based program with them and sent them all the shoes.

So, that honestly did cost me like over $1,500 to get them into that, you know, with all the unit costs and things like that. Um, okay, wait, my dog's right here. I'm just going to like bring her while I'm talking on camera.

But yeah, as I was saying, like uh that was my original strategy uh was to do influencer marketing as the main point. I wasn't going to touch paid ads. And a main point was like I wanted to position as a business as a as a premium brand, have my price point at 160 and kind of be like, "Hey, this is a quality brand.

You pay for a lot and you get a lot of quality. " Um but I think like the price was kind of scaring a lot of people. So I decided to lower it from 160 to 139.

And it was a little bit more successful for that. I think it was more accessible to a lot of customers who weren't willing to pay as much. Um, but then like it still like wasn't driving a lot of growth and there wasn't a lot of sales.

So now I'm I'm transitioning to like I was posting stuff as a business before and not really showing my face. I unfollowed myself and it's really just looks like a typical business. But now I think like from seeing growth and hearing a lot of business entrepreneurs online talk about like the fact that people buy from people or whatever that I want to create content on the brand account itself literally positioning myself as the brand owner and I really wanted to position as the brand owner and like show like hey my name is Lucas I'm growing this brand because of X Y and Z and you should buy from us because of X Y and Z.

that was kind of the original or the the content that I didn't want to make because I thought it would pull from like the brand image and the brand equity and like I wouldn't be able to position as as highly of a price. But I was like thinking like I I want to have a premium brand. I like to reference OnCloud a lot as like the aesthetic and the premium pricing that I want to go for.

But it's like who am I to compare myself to Encloud or to position as a premium brand like a lot of other like young entrepreneurs try to do because you just don't have the backing. you don't have the cons consistent sales, the partnerships that are required to have that premium brand versus just having your aesthetic website and aesthetic page. But a lot of the times like I think as a brand owner Okay, I'm going to put her down.

She's kind of Are you okay? You want to put her down? Um, so as I was saying, like I think I was getting in my own head a lot about just wanting to position as premium so badly and and like be like on clut or be like a brand that has that premium positioning and I was just in no place to do that.

Like it was just that I think it was a big ego thing maybe. Like I don't really know what the issue was but that was a big problem I think. And so lowering that price point and making a little bit more like not in like informal but like you know content that's just like not as polished I think like helped with viewership definitely and got me more followers like my growth was a lot more compared to what it was before.

Um because I was be able I was I was posting like twice two unique posts a day on three platforms. So effectively like six times a day of posting. So obviously I was growing through that.

Um but that was the original strategy. Now I'm doing that personal. I'm working on my personal branding obviously and then also like on the brand account going to be be positioning myself as the brand owner and showing face to like say hey like there's this like guy who like plays volleyball and he's in the community he's a young guy he understands the customers because like the customer the ideal customers are literally like people he would be friends with and so I think I can hopefully build trust through doing that in ways that a typical business just can't do because I think the advantage of having a small business is your ability to build trust with the community and have to go through like corporate like looph loopholes like corporate like guard rails in terms of like what you can and can't do, how you can do your marketing campaigns and things like that.

And so all of the big businesses, a lot of their marketing campaigns look very similar because, you know, they're all corporate. But the advantages of being a small business is that you can like I literally call all the shots. There's nobody else on the team but me.

So I can do whatever like whatever the hell I want and like no one can stop me or tell me any like tell me otherwise. And so that's an advantage that I wasn't using at all. And so I'm hoping to do that.

And the last thing is that I am hoping to do paid ads as well because I think like given my my market is like young volleyball players and you know maybe target my area on the east coast as well. I think paid ads really works for my given segment and things like that. And so that's another thing that I want to look into.

Obviously I don't have a lot of funds to like do that which is kind of annoying but I'm thinking about taking that alone and just going all in and committing on this business. All right, last little topic here. I want to show you guys some sample designs that I have.

All right, but I have designs for the next shoe, which is very, very exciting. And then I have sock samples, like physical samples I want to show you. And I just brought the Soul Form box because like I just wanted to have it here in like in the frame because it's just looks so nice.

So I'm just going to put it right here. Like I'm not even talking about them. I'm just going to put them right here to just have.

All right. So, I'm going to show you guys the physical socks first. I have two different samples.

One's like an improvement of the other one, and then I'm going to show you at the end the the other shoe that we have planned for next year, and that's on my computer. Uh, but to start, okay, but to start, I would just show you guys the socks. So, this is the first version of the sock, the first sample that I got.

It is actually a grip sock. So, the reason I was making this is because I saw professional volleyball players wearing the soccer version. Uh, but the soccer grip socks, while they are very popular, a lot of them are pretty uncomfortable to wear and cleat need more traction and more grip than like a court shoe like volleyball or basketball.

But I know even in the basketball space and in the volleyball space as well. Like a lot of players will get blisters from their foot sliding around. And so that's why I created these.

So, it has a bunch of silicone grips here on the bottom. But this was not actually the original design. The pattern itself is just spread out, but I have a different one in the next sample that I want to show you.

And then I have some embroidery, a very very small logo here on the lateral or I guess like outside of the sock. Uh compression band along the midfoot. And then we have compression of the ankle as well to keep you guys nice and secure.

And if you're wondering what these four dots are here in the back of both of the socks, if you can see here, bring this a little closer. As you can see, we have these four like arrows on both of the back of the socks like where the Achilles heel is. And like people have been asking like what is this for?

And the intention for this is like if you're wearing a grip sock, I want like people to know that it's a soul form grip sock. And so there needs to be some design element besides the logo that is rec mochi. There has to be some element uh on the sock that is recognizable from the from the external.

also like from people who are behind you or watching a game of their friends play of like you know they're at a tournament and they see everybody wearing these like four dots on the back of their socks and be like hey what is that they ask them about it and then they're like oh these are soul form grip socks and so this was the first version but I mean it was like I would say it's like a B minusish in terms of like quality and stuff like that and like how it was laid out. So I wanted to improve it in the next sample and that is this one in this bag right here. So, I'm going to go ahead and open it.

And this is like always a surreal feeling when your when your sample comes in. Uh, this one we changed up the material composition entirely. Uh, this is a is a different material.

I would say like this one feels more like a typical sock. This one feels more like a athletic like slightly more elastic or a lot more elastic, I guess. It's a little bit thinner on the top and the pattern is correct.

So, as you can see, I also changed the color of the back arrows to make them more recognizable. And you can clearly see like the difference between these. Like this one just feels more quality and looks more quality, I think, like the color and everything.

And so you can clearly see the difference between the two. Uh just in that regard, uh the embroidery is a lot bigger and clearer. It actually shows the arrows this time.

This one was just like literally looked like lines just straight up. But this one is obviously huge improvement from the last one. It looks a lot more crisp and clean.

And then the pattern on the bottom is the most substantial change. So, I wanted to just have the grips in the high wear critical areas of the foot because the more grips there are, the, you know, less comfort you have in the sock. So, as you can see, we have some at the top and then it comes in two lines down here to the heel where it's also increased amounts of, you know, grips on that surface area near the heel area.

And so, these were a lot better in that regard. It was a lot more breathable. I had my dad my dad try them on actually because he's really into that type of performance, you know, gear, just like shoes, apparel, everything like that.

Um, so this is not going to be the final. I thought it was going to be and I thought I was be able to get it in two samples, which is just like absolutely spectacular, but no. Uh, we are past this kind of panel right here.

Everywhere down here, we're going to increase probably the we either might change the material composition, so like what different types of materials are in the sock to make it less elastic and more rigid. uh because it is very comfortable, but there was a little bit of sliding around when we were testing it. Um we are going to increase the cushion amount.

So like it's just going to be a little bit thicker here in in the foot. It's it's thicker up here near the ankle, but not in the foot. And this feels really really quality and premium.

So at a certain point, you are sacrificing breathability for comfort and things like that. So there are trade-offs, but I think like in the long run, this is a performance shoe like and performance sock. It's not really intended to just be the most comfortable sock in the world.

It's just supposed to be more comfortable than what's already on the market, but still very high performance. And so I think like that is something definitely something very important. And the final thing is that the sizing for this was this was supposed to be like an eight, but even my dad put it on and he's a 10 and he was like this is kind of big.

So a lot of the typical socks, these size ranges are by four. So it's like 8 to 12 or something like that or like six to 10, like four sizes in the US. Uh but I'm going to make it two.

And my reasoning for that is like I know it's going to hurt my like margins because the unit cost for each size is different if you have a lot of sizes. Um but my intention for that is like if a player is a size 8 9 or 10 they can literally squish it in with that singular size versus if it's like 8 through 12 the eights are going to suffer and the twelves might suffer because it's too small or too big. And so that's my intention there to make sure that we have offerings and that we are a very performance forward brand.

So these are the socks. These are the sock samples here. Now, I'm going to go ahead and quickly review um the next volleyball shoe design that I have planned.

All right, final thing that we're covering in this video is the next shoe. So, it's a grass volleyball shoe. It's an outdoor shoe.

It's never been done before. And the reason that we're creating it is because volleyball is growing and so as that category is growing, uh the niche of that category is also growing. So, it's like if if basketball is growing, outdoor street ball is probably growing too.

And so that's the same intention or the same I guess line of thought. And so this is the or this was the CAD blueprint design that we had for it, but we are kind of switching it up entirely to a different design to make it easier for my factory and I think just decrease the lead time process overall. But this is a CAD blueprint.

This is what we typically look at in the final stage of molding to confirm samples. um because we do have to do this and kind of review it and confirm it with our factories to ensure that um we have the design finalized for the molds because they're metal and they cost a lot of money. So, we don't want to go in and invest on it if it's not perfect.

So, it needs to be perfect. And this is like the fifth reversion uh that we did. I mean, my my first model it was like I think it was like close to 10 or something like that.

So, we do do this quite quite often. I don't know how to make this myself, but I do know how to read it and interpret it and figure out what's working and what I need to change and things like that. Um, so obviously for you viewers, if you don't know what this is, you're looking at, like, it's kind of hard to picture a shoe.

So, I do have some digital mock-ups of our new version that I just got off the factory call yesterday and I was talking about her with uh she's great. Her name is Dan and she's from I I manufacture in China. So, I got on call with her yesterday and this is like this is just an AI rendering.

Uh, the color is going to be different, but the midsole and outsole is pretty similar to what it's going to be in the final version. And so, that is what this looks like here. Sorry, there's a little bit of glare.

I'm going to hold it like this. Um, so the color is going to be different, but the midsole and outsole shape is going to be quite similar. This is just an AI rendering, so I will like, you know, let you guys know of that.

But this is kind of what the shoe is going to look like or look similar to. And from a performance perspective, why do you need grass volleyball shoes? Well, uh, there's a lot of injuries that actually come from playing the sport because some people wear cleats, it's on grass, some people wear turf shoes, some people wear hiking shoes, uh, trail shoes.

So, it's just a plethora of different types of footwear, but there's not one specifically made for the sport. And so, what you you kind of need is like an outsole that can grip on the grass. So, like a trail running shoe outsole, something similar to that.

Uh, but you need support like a basketball shoe, like lateral support. And then you don't want the cushion to be too soft because the grass is already softer. So, you're like dipping too far into the midsole, which like takes away from like the energy return for you to jump up.

And so like trail running shoes I think is probably the best or the closest one to what we're making. Uh but it doesn't have as much lateral support and the and the the midsole foam itself is a lot softer so you can like roll your ankle a little bit easier and things like that. So providing something like this to the community and I think I'm probably going to run either a Kickstarter campaign or do a competition like a business entrepreneur competition at my school at University of Maryland and I'm I'm going to win it.

So, I'm going to do that to either get 15K there or run a Kickstarter campaign to see if people are interested in this. Um, but that is my that is my intention with creating this model. Um, so I talked about a lot of things in this video.

Um, these are the the next designs that I have planned and that I'm working on behind the scenes while also pushing a bunch of content uh for growing the initial brand and selling, you know, more of these bad boys right here. like I need to sell them out um as quickly as possible so I can use that money to invest in future models, different colorways and all these different things. I talked about content growth and like using organic to push through the brand and my personal brand to grow overall viewership, but I want to talk about what that actually looks like.

I plan to post 56 pieces of content every single week, not counting long form. Uh so it's like I guess for personal brand then I have for soul form uh across I think four different channels for each and then twice a day for each which equivalates to around 86 or not 86 56 posts a week which is a lot. Uh honestly I've been working like almost every hour I'm awake and then like in the evenings I'll have some time to like family or like leisure like you know do typical college stuff.

Um but doing also school at the same time is obviously very very difficult and trying to stay you know quite fit. Uh it's it's a lot. Um, so I'm I'm honestly quite tired, but I love this stuff.

Like, I love it, and I cannot imagine myself doing anything else. The initial drop obviously didn't go as well as I expected, but I am honestly happy that it didn't because I really needed that lesson. And I always use the frame of like this is the story um that I'm I'm one day going to tell people about.

Like I have the screenshots, I have the proof that it was literally one sale on drop day and how it affected me so much and yet be all through that like people telling me to switch trying to make different shoes or like stop the business, I decided to push through and hopefully, you know, in 5 10 years because I'm doing this for the long run, uh it's going to all pay off. So, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I'm going to try to make more stuff like this where I'm kind of just talking to the camera with no real plan.

uh because I think it's a lot more like freeing for me to talk about it to the camera instead of like going by some some script or structure for each video. Um but then also editing wise it's a lot calmer for me to do this instead of like having to constantly like do music edits and like light grading and all that stuff. So I honestly enjoy making these videos a lot more and so I hope you guys do too.

I'm going to keep growing. I appreciate the words of encouragement in the last video. I'll keep pushing through.

I won't quit. Um, and we'll see what happens in the next couple weeks.