“Everything we’ve been taught about shoes is wrong,” said Mike Miller, founder and CEO of NxtMile, LLC, a local custom athletic shoe and insole developer. “Cushioning [in a shoe] actually amplifies pressure on the joints, and the shock to the body is greater than if you were barefoot.” Sizing is not always standardized in the footwear industry, and where sports shoes for eight to14-year-olds are concerned, Miller suggests the industry has missed the boat completely.
Miller, 49, who owns the majority (85%) of NxtMile, and co-founders Sean Ebert, Dr. Bryan Heiderscheit, and Dr. Joseph Hamill, originally established the company to design and manufacture a custom running shoe for the 40-plus runner. It was a concept good enough to take top prize in the Advanced Manufacturing category at the 2009 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Competition. But with those original plans on a more distant horizon, the company’s current focus has turned to age-appropriate and sport-specific sport-shoe insoles.
The adolescent insole idea hit Miller like a “lightening bolt” last summer while attending his son’s soccer game in Waunakee. After noticing a number of children sitting out with heel or knee problems, he decided to investigate, and discovered a “near-epidemic.”
Miller found that, of about 25 million kids between eight and 14 involved in youth sports nationwide, 65% would likely end up with one of two painful conditions: Sever’s Disease (heel) or Osgood-Schlatter’s disease (knee). Both can be caused by extreme levels of activity (sports) in low-heeled shoes on uneven surfaces, at a time when the human body is in its most significant growth-phase.
For someone long interested in athletic shoe performance, Miller recognized a huge marketing opportunity. “Even in this recession, youth sports participation has grown,” Miller said. “Parents will cut back on other things, but usually continue to allow their kids to participate in sports.” And chances are, the young athletes will need a new pair of shoes every year.
Miller said today’s youth-sized insoles are typically designed for an adult woman, not an adolescent, and “a woman’s foot is very different from the foot of an eight- to14-year old.” In response, his company set out to design insoles that would provide more stability and prevent or alleviate pain or fatigue experienced by young athletes who, these days, are playing harder, longer, and more competitively, as well as adult athletes experiencing the same issues from mass-produced sports shoes.
Together with a shoe designer, the company targeted soccer, baseball, football, basketball, and lacrosse, and used patented engineering to design insoles that address the biomechanical and orthopedic demands of youth and adult athletes related to each sport. (Movements required for baseball, for instance, differ significantly from those required in football or basketball.) NxtMile insoles are currently produced in Korea because materials and the required manufacturing process are unavailable in the U.S., and initial shipping costs hit hard. “We’ve learned a lot,” Miller said, after paying $5,000 on an order of 5,000 units.
NxtMile soccer insoles are carried at 18 stores in seven states and online, and baseball and other sports insoles will be introduced throughout the year. Since launching in January, about 500 pairs have sold, at a cost of $26.95 each.
Miller, meanwhile, looks forward to the day the insoles become as commonplace as socks or shoes, and to finally paying himself a salary — hopefully by year’s end. The company, he said, was designed for a fast exit. “We’re structured to provide a consumer value, but the company will be acquired one day, hopefully in three to five years. That’s been our goal since day one.”
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