You’ve been on your feet all day. Maybe you just finished a long run or a long workout. You come home and you kick off your shoes. You look at your toes. Do you feel better? Probably not, if you’ve chosen to wear the wrong shoes. For the last 50 years, performance footwear has thrived with a design philosophy that guarantees discomfort. To address this problem, Xero Shoes makes addictively comfortable footwear designed based on your foot, a quarter of the bones and joints of your entire body or in your feet and ankles. Steven Sashen, CEO of Xero Shoes, explains that a person has more nerve endings in the soles of their feet than anywhere else in the body, except their fingertips and their lips. And so you’re supposed to use these things. They’re supposed to bend, flex to move to feel the world.
If you don’t let them do their job, that function tries to move up into your ankles, your knees, your hips and your back and can cause pain – so Xero designs shoes based solely on your feet for guaranteed comfort. Pretty much all of Steven’s time is spent building the barefoot sandal business that he and his wife Lena started. It all began, almost as a joke, in a corner of a spare bedroom. But now it’s a thriving business with an office, employees, and a LOT of late nights. Xero Shoes (originally Invisible Shoes) are a modern take on the tire sandals made by the Tarahumara in Mexico. They give you all the fun and benefits of being barefoot, but with a layer of protection, style… and FUN.
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I’m with Steve Sashen. He is the CEO of Xero Shoes. Welcome to the show, Steven. I appreciate you taking the time.
Thank you. My pleasure.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Xero Shoes is a footwear brand based on a simple idea. Think of it this way. You’ve been on your feet all day, maybe you just finished a long run or a long workout. You come home and you kick off your shoes and you wiggle your toes. Do you feel better? If so, you’ve been wearing the wrong shoes. If you haven’t accidentally gotten into bed still wearing your shoes because you forgot you were wearing them, you’ve been wearing the wrong shoes. It’s not your fault because footwear, for the last 45, 50 years, especially performance footwear has been made with a designed philosophy that guarantees discomfort and there’s literally nothing you can do to fix it.
We make addictively comfortable footwear designed based on your foot. A quarter of the bones and joints of your entire body are in your feet and ankles. You have more nerve endings in the soles of your feet than anywhere but your fingertips and your lips. You’re supposed to use these things. They’re supposed to bend, flex, to move to feel the world. If you don’t let them do their job, that function tries to move up into your ankles, your knees, your hips, and your back and can cause pain. We make shoes designed for feet. They’ve got a nice wide toe box so your toes can spread and relax. We don’t elevate your heel because that messes with your posture. They’re super flexible, so that your feet can bend and move. They’re low to the ground for balance and agility and the soles are thin. They give you the right combination of protection, but they also let you get that feedback that your brain needs to know how to use your feet and everything in between.
There’s now research coming out from Harvard and from BYU and from researchers in Brazil showing how true minimalist footwear, like ours, and I say it that way because there are some products sold as minimalist but they aren’t. True minimalist footwear can improve foot muscle strength, can be helpful with plantar fasciitis or knee
