“Surround yourself with other entrepreneurs” with Laina Gossman — Fem Founder™

Laina Gossman is a young, female inventor and entrepreneur. She is the Founder and CEO of Soul Insole. Soul Insole designs unique, high quality, affordable solutions for foot health. Foot pain can be debilitating & can impede our ability to work & to do the things that we love. The feet support the entire body & Soul Insole helps to provide the most innovative, effective solutions to support the feet and help people get back their quality of life.

Can you tell our readers about your background?

I’ve worked for over 14 years in orthotic design, studied kinesiology & biomechanics. I got my start in a small comfort shoe store in Carmel Valley, apprenticing in orthotic design under a brilliant biomechanist named Michael Kendall. Through my time there and after, people always came to me with their serious foot ailments, oftentimes after exhausting every other resource including doctors, $500 custom orthotics, and surgeries. My designs really worked to get people back on their feet without pain.

What inspired you to start your business?

I wanted to help more people than I could by individually hand-carving orthotics. Getting my designs manufactured would allow me to help people all over the world to tackle their foot problems and improve their quality of life.

Where is your business based?

Soul Insole is based in San Diego, California

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?

After getting a few designs patented, Soul Insole was born. I successfully launched on Kickstarter and Soul Insole now sells tens of thousands of shoe inserts each year. They are available in local Shoe Stores and doctors’ offices as well as amazon and shipped worldwide on our website.

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

Word of mouth and positive reviews have been a huge part of raising awareness about the difference our insoles can make in people’s lives.

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?