The mother who designed her son's shoes and today bills six million euros

The first steps of her son arrived and Laura García, with vast experience as a designer in the industry, could not find footwear for him that would convince her.

"I suppose that since an airplane pilot is afraid not to be at the controls, I was afraid to put those shoes on him," she recalls.

So she decided to create them herself.

Today, her little one is already in primary school and Zapato Feroz, the company that emerged from that first design, has billed six million so far this year.

In 2016, García, who had been working in the sector for well-known brands for almost two decades, made the first designs as an alternative to what he found on the market: “I saw that they were not good for this, they were not good for the other… And no I really found what I wanted."

He began to produce through his contacts and to share them with other mothers who, in turn, did the same with other mothers, and so on.

"It began to grow exponentially, organically," says the founder and product designer.

The first two years of Zapato Feroz passed as a project that García, 43, and her husband, Héctor Nebot, co-founder and director of technology, combined with their respective jobs.

"At first I didn't want to leave my job, I said: 'How am I going to leave this, put all my eggs in the same basket?'" she recalls.

In 2019, however, given the growth of the company, they opted to dedicate themselves exclusively to it.

"Perhaps our success has been that this company has been born little by little and without haste," says García about that stage.

"At first it was a local product, I made them here near my house, I bought the raw materials... By dedicating ourselves 100%, we decided to invest and professionalize it, make the best shoe I had in mind," recalls this settled Canary Islander. in Valencia for more than 20 years.

That shoe, he says, simulates the experience of walking barefoot, it has thin and light soles, its construction is very flexible, it does not limit any type of movement and it promotes autonomy.

"We put together what I knew about footwear, production, materials, to get a shoe that would accompany, that would not alter the foot in shape or sensation."

All these characteristics and the need to know the product well required Garcia to work with a single supplier, so one of the main challenges was finding the ideal partner.

“In 2020 we found the perfect factory and made a collaboration contract.

And that's where our exponential growth began,” he relates.

The factory, which is in Portugal, was left in the hands of the workers, who, seeing the potential of García's proposal, decided to buy it when the multinational to which it belonged wanted to sell it.

“The great advantage of the current market is that it is increasingly difficult to work in Asia, and right now the footwear factories, both in Portugal and Spain, are full of big brands that have had to return.

And we have ensured the production and we have found a partner to be able to grow”.

90% of its sales correspond to the

channel and 10% to shoe stores and breeding stores.

The company has always sought to grow organically and, Garcia says, is profitable from day one.

In recent months, after joining the Lanzadera accelerator, he says, they have strengthened the business side of their project.

“We knew a lot about shoes, about the values ​​that we wanted to instill in the brand, but we knew little about the company,” he says.

The Zapato Feroz team is made up of seven people and so far this year they have already exceeded the total turnover of the previous year.

Regarding what is to come, García talks about the construction of a conceptual physical store that they are working on and that will house the company's offices on a 1,600-square-meter plot in the forest.

"It's a very cool project, designed as a town for children," he says.

"In the end, all our products, like our customer service, like our values, are focused on children and creating a healthy childhood."

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