From ski bum to founder: How Jake Anderson turned a semester off into Forsake, an ‘adventure-worthy’ shoe company

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Ideometry

8 min readApr 26, 2017

Jake Anderson’s path to being the cofounder and CEO of a fast-growing footwear company was certainly not as straight as the ski trails he sped down during his semester off from college. Jake and cofounder Sam Barstow returned from their semester-long ski trip feeling down and out, missing the lifestyle they left behind. Their solution? Start a company that let them stay connected to ski-town culture.

Starting the company while finishing up their degrees, Jake and his team skipped the traditional career path to invent a brand new footwear category through their company, Forsake: the sneakerboot. We caught up with Jake to learn how he started Forsake, how Kickstarter got his company off the ground, and the unique obstacles that footwear startups face.

This is part 5 of our Future-Forward Fashion Founders series. Don’t forget to check out part 1 (Nineteenth Amendment), part 2 (Ministry of Supply), part 3 (Tyme Wear), part 4 (Pixi), part 6 (Sebo Designs), and part 7 (Bow and Drape).

Why did you decide to start your own footwear company?

When I was an undergrad, I realized that I was ahead on credits. I was big into skiing and snowboarding, so I took a semester off and did the ski bum thing. I moved to Big Sky, Montana, and my cofounder Sam did the same thing but in Utah. When we got back from the Rockies, we were really bummed out — we didn’t want to be back in the classroom after spending a few months doing what we loved most.

Soon after I got back, I saw a poster for a school-wide business plan competition, and saw it as a means to reconnect with skiing and mountain town culture. If I couldn’t be out there, I could be a part of it in a school project. One thing that people in ski towns are missing is a good sneaker they can wear casually but in snowy/wet climates. I pitched the idea to Sam, so we made a business plan for sneaker/boots for the skier community.

I was an economics major and Sam was a mechanical engineer. We made a business plan, but we didn’t know what to write that would constitute an actual business plan. It turned out, though, that we were the only ones who entered the competition, so they cancelled it. I showed the plan to one of my economics professors who showed it to someone he knew from Nike. The Nike employee called me up unexpectedly, and said he had no money, but we could send him our designs and he could show them around.

Sam and I turned the project into our senior theses, so it was great that we could blend it into our academics. Toward graduation, we were able to scrounge up money to get a shoe designer. Later on, we developed some samples in Asia and started a Kickstarter.

Why did you decide to go the Kickstarter route as opposed to a more traditional way of getting funding?

It was really a necessity. It’s hard to raise money pre-revenue in consumer products as it is, and the fact that we were two fresh college grads with no experience made it even harder. We needed the money and Kickstarter helped us sell pre-orders to get the money to put in a factory order. This was a great success — we could go into production, have proof of concept, and gather data to help us prove to potential retail partners that they could sell our product.

How did you put together such a successful Kickstarter campaign?

We actually did two Kickstarters. The first was not successful: Our manufacturer had a minimum order quantity of like 10,000 pairs, so we set our goal to $250,000. This was in 2012, before the big multi-million dollar Kickstarter campaigns started happening. We raised about $100,000 from very passionate customers, kept in touch with them, and used the money to find a smaller factory that could do a smaller order. The second campaign hit our goal of $100,000 — we actually got $120,000.

A big part of our success was a viral video we made that got passed around and got a lot of attention. We also just have a very passionate target market and were very aligned with what they were looking for.

What was the process of going from idea to prototype to product like?

It’s interesting with shoes. The way the footwear industry is set up, you give the factory the designs and they build the prototype for you for free. From there, they expect to recover their investment once you get to mass production. That’s hard to get up and running because they have to put in development orders and expect you to place a big order. But they really do all the work.

The hardest part is finding the partner in the first place. We were lucky to have that Nike connection who had some political capital in China and who was willing to give his word that we would be worth working with.

What are your biggest influences on your design/tastes?

We knew we wanted to sell to outdoor stores such as EMS. Most outdoor stores have similar looking shoes — rugged with big logos and limited color schemes — brown, black, green. They look hiking/outdoorsy.

We wanted to go in a different direction, so we went with different color schemes that are more eye catching. We were also influenced by sneakers and casual footwear: That means simpler, more diverse patterns. The first line of shoes we made had a very skateboard shoe-meets-hiking boot look. Our products don’t look like that anymore, but we always try to blend other styles with traditional outdoors looks.

Sum up the Forsake brand in a few words.

We make performance footwear for travel and adventure. We’re about versatility. We make a shoe that performs in a variety of settings and environments and evokes a sense of exploration and wonder.

If you weren’t running your company, what would you be doing?

I would probably be in a gray office somewhere, working in finance. I don’t know. I’ve done this for so long. I graduated in 2011 and I’ve been working on this since senior year. I’ve never had another job.

What has been the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome so far?

The nature of the footwear industry is that it requires a fairly large upfront investment for molds, inventory, and the ability to carry different sizes. It takes a lot to get involved in and it’s very hard to bootstrap. One of the most difficult things we’ve had to overcome is just having to confront the traditional hurdles the industry presents. That said, we’re growing and managing with a bootstrapping philosophy.

Why did you choose to base your company in Boston? What are some of the advantages of being in Boston? What are some of the challenges?

Sam is from Boston, and I’m from upstate NY. We had part-time jobs while we got Forsake off the ground. We knew we wanted to stay on the East Coast. When it was time to take the next step, I wanted to live in a big city, and Sam was already here, so once we had enough money I came here.

Boston is a great place for footwear — there’s a lot of design talent, and a great startup community.

I’d say the biggest challenges is that with the outdoor industry, we’re kind of removed from that community. Our largest sales territories are out west. It’s harder to be nimble when responding to customers out there. For the most part, though, Boston adds a lot without taking much away.

Fashion is heavily based on image, outdoors is judged by performance. Our customers want value, not a trendy name. We’re not much of a fashion company, so not being in one of the fashion centers of the country like New York or Los Angeles isn’t really a big deal.

What’s the most important thing you’re working on right now, and how are you making it happen?

The retail space in general is hitting some turning points. There are a lot of bankruptcies happening, so we’re constantly looking at who’s thriving and who’s falling down. For example, Gander Mountain, a fairly large outdoor retailer, recently declared bankruptcy. That makes us think about what our retail strategy could be. How do we allocate our resources based on where the industry is going?

People aren’t buying fewer shoes, but the way they’re buying is changing rapidly. How do we stay connected to our consumer? Those are the things we’re constantly thinking about, though there are no simple answers to those questions.

Who are your biggest mentors and what’s the most important advice they’ve given you?

I have a handful of mentors. One is local: Chris Schiavo. Chris is one of our advisors and investors. I look to him often for advice navigating the general retail startup environment.

For footwear specifically, Sean Beers, who used to run Columbia’s footwear, is a regular advisor as well. What we learned from Sean is that managing inventory can be the downfall of any retail company. Sean warned us that inventory rarely makes you, and can always break you.

Where do you see yourself next year?

I see us growing twice as big as we were this year. We feel like we’ve only scratched the surface in terms of products and our customer base.

We’ll bring some fresh, exciting products to market and continue to build the product line. We’ll also be making deep investments in a handful of sales channels. In retail, whoever’s left after this string of bankruptcies will likely merge and be very strong. Power will likely be very concentrated for retailers. We want to have strong relationships established by that time.

We also want to keep building our community, with the hope that it will yield continual growth.

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Read the rest of our Future-Forward Fashion Founders series here:

If you liked this interview, check out our Boston’s Booziest Businesses series, featuring interviews with founders from Boston’s alcohol industry. Also, don’t forget to read our wrap up of the top three marketing lessons we learned from business and marketing leaders at CIC Boston.

This interview was conducted and written by Camden Gaspar, Content Strategist & Copywriter at Ideometry. You can follow him on Twitter @camden_gaspar.

Ideometry is a full-service marketing agency located in Boston helping awesome companies and organizations amplify their growth strategies.