Moving from home-based to our first ”store”. Part 1 – Shoe Mo Uptown, taking that leap of faith.
Back in 2016 when we were still home-based, we quickly realized that we couldn’t do that forever. Firstly, we needed help (employees) and it was fine to get some family members or friends to help clean shoes occasionally from the bathroom of your home temporarily but you definitely can’t employ someone to work in such an informal setting. Secondly, from a customer’s perspective sometimes they wanted to send their shoes directly to us (instead of us picking it up via Delivery) and it definitely did not give anyone a professional feel when they are sending it to a residential address instead of a proper business venue (amateur hour).
So out of necessity, we sourced and moved into our first ”store” which was located on the 2nd floor of a shoplot in Uptown Damansara, Malaysia. It was cheap for sure and that was the only criteria we had, see pic – it was FAR from glamorous but till this date, it is still operating as our first store. Funfact, our then sales from being home based was about $1,200 while our rent was $170 per month so we took that leap of faith by an making an educated decision – minimizing our risk; sales would definitely cover the rent so we we’re using our precious little capital. There weren’t any fancy signboards out in the front infact took us almost another full year to install a proper signboard.
At the very beginning, it was only meant to be a workshop where we would bring all the shoes here, clean them then send them back to the customers, we literally only open the store after 7pm (both myself and my partner had dayjobs) where we would rush in from our workplaces to start cleaning shoes there till late at night. So the first operating hours of Shoe Mo Uptown was 7pm – 11pm and we had two part timers helping us to clean the shoes too alongside ourselves.
Sooner or later some of the customers we’re asking if they could pick up the cleaned shoes directly at the store instead of getting them sent back (by your’s truly). And it was always something to marvel at the customer’s faces when they first entered into the so call ”shoe cleaning store” to see rows and rows of shoes everywhere being cleaned. Even for the furniture (ie Ikea racks that doubled as shoe racks) we cash-flowed the purchases when there was spare cash from our sales. So from this, we started to get customers who were dropping by the store directly albeit at the opening hours determined by us (7pm – 11pm) and almost exclusively by appointment basis.
There was another story that was part of the Shoe Mo evolution from a part time, fly-by-night outfit to a full-fledged walk in store. At that time, with a small part timers which we paid on a hourly basis (definitely couldn’t afford a full time staff then) one of our part timers, Ammar was evicted from his then accommodation and he tried to juggle his then internship salary and the cost of living in the city. Shoe Mo was his part time work and more importantly it was his passion (Sneakers and learning to care of them). So without a place to stay, he asked us if he could stay and sleep in the shop instead. We said, as long as you don’t mind sleeping next to piles of shoes we’re fine with it – naturally we agreed as since he would also be there most of the time cleaning the shoes during his free time anyway. Eventually some customers were in a hurry to pick up their shoes and would ask if its possible to collect it outside of out then operating hours and we would literally just say yes – since there was Ammar in the store (who is literally living there at that time). And suddenly we were not operating at 7pm – 11pm only!
Hope this was useful to some readers as always. Stay tune to more updates on Shoe Mo’s history re-telling.
Jack W
Shoe Mo Academy 