SmartLemon presents

Flux Footwear

in “Funded in Two Hours”

Painted cartoon lemon bending a soft teal sneaker between his gloved hands to show how flexible the sole is, an open shoebox at his feet, in front of a warm sunburst.

A barefoot shoe brand, from idea to seven figuresCo-founder · 2019 to 2023 · Route to market, data, and supply chain

Painted cartoon frame of a sweating lemon shrugging with empty hands beside a desk holding one sample sneaker, facing a huge factory crate with a giant blank price tag, while a dim lightbulb character looks worried. — **SC.1**Int. workroom, day one

Act one · The problem

A first production run costs more than a new brand has.

I co-founded Flux in 2019 with two partners. The shoe sat where good looks, real performance, and barefoot mechanics overlap, and almost nobody was building for the people in the middle. Proving they existed meant paying a factory first.

Hand-inked, watercolor Venn diagram of three circles labeled looks good, real performance, and barefoot mechanics, with Flux in the center where all three overlap and a red note reading nobody was here. — Still · The Venn diagram

the diagram the brand started from

Painted cartoon frame of the lemon cheering behind a striped fairground stall with one sneaker on display, coins raining into a bucket, the lightbulb character glowing, and a strength-tester ringing its bell. — **SC.2**The campaign

Act two · The build

Prove the demand first, then build the store.

I proposed crowdfunding the first run so the orders came before the invoice. The Indiegogo campaign opened on November 3, 2020, hit its $15,000 goal in two hours, and passed $30,000 inside a day. The Shopify store followed in July 2021.

Painted cartoon frame of the lemon plugging a new cable from a moustached brass cash register into a large brass meter, while three ink-blot gremlins run away from a frayed, knotted old cable. — **SC.3**The back room

Act two, continued

When the ad numbers lied, I moved tracking to the server.

iOS 14 broke browser-side tracking, and the Meta pixel started double-counting orders. Every ad decision was running on inflated numbers. I moved tracking server-side with Littledata, so Google Analytics and the Meta Conversions API read from Shopify order records. That was the year monthly revenue grew 500%.

Act three · The result

Seven-figure revenue with a team of three.

Painted cartoon frame of the lemon ticking off a clipboard in a tidy stockroom of shoeboxes, one box open to show a pair of teal sneakers, while the brass cash register cheers with its drawer full of coins. — **SC.4**The stockroom

Flux reached seven-figure annual revenue selling direct. I ran demand planning and reorders with the manufacturer in South Korea, where a wrong bet on sizes ties up the cash for the next run. I sold my stake in early 2023. The store, ad, and inventory data I worked with at Flux is what lmn.bar now puts in one view.

From the storyboard

Pencil storyboard rough of the lemon shrugging in front of the giant crate, with a red pencil arrow pointing at the price tag. — SC.1 rough

Pencil storyboard rough of the lemon cheering at the fairground stall as the strength-tester rings its bell, the first sketch of scene two. — SC.2 rough

Cleaner pencil drawing of the lemon plugging the new cable from the cash register into the meter while three ink-blot gremlins run off. — SC.3 tie-down

End credits · The stack

Launch: Indiegogo
Store: Shopify
Tracking: Littledata, server-side
Analytics: Google Analytics, Meta Conversions API
Acquisition: Paid media and email
Supply chain: Demand planning and reorders

The End?

Not if you want something like this.

How I work: Growth operations