Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacob Zander.
Hi Jacob, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story starts out three years ago while in college. I have always been someone who cares about fashion and design since I was a little kid. I grew up wearing Converse because I liked the aesthetic, but when I started college I started doing a lot more walking around the college campus and my part-time job at Trader Joes. When I would come home after those long days of being a full-time student, working a part-time job, and running track my favorite pair of shoes was not working for me anymore. As much as I loved how they looked, I never loved how they felt. So I looked for a solution and couldn’t find one that would work with my Converse. I have always been very entrepreneurial (lemonade stands to selling bracelets at farmer’s markets in high school) so I decided that I would try and make something to make my Converse more comfortable. So I dropped out of the University I was attending (never been fan of the University system) that I had taken out $30k of loans to attend my freshman year and I enrolled in community college so that I wouldn’t have to pay back those loans right away. At that community college, I took a class where I could build a pitch deck and came up with some sort of plan that I would start working towards. So I built the plan with how I would make things happen but ran into an issue where I couldn’t find a manufacture to make my idea.
So I decided to fly to Vietnam and learn hands on from a shoe manufacture how I could make my idea. I spent two weeks in Vietnam talking with a manufacture and learnings hands on how I could create my idea. Fast forward six months and I had prototypes of my insoles which I called “FOOTSOULS”. To my surprise, everyone who tried them loved them so I put in my first order of 5,000 Footsouls and I launched FEEL YOUR SOUL April of 2019. The first year was a slow start since I was doing this with no experience, but after that I started to have a few breakthroughs. May of 2020, just as the pandemic started, I started a Feel Your Soul TikTok account and to my surprise, my videos started going viral. After this, I knew I had something and was excited to see where it took me.
2020 was a very exciting year and showed me anything is possible if you work hard. 2019 I had 797 orders / 2020, I had 24,600 orders – 19,000 of those orders were in the last three months of the year.
2021 was a year of making every mistake in the books and dealing with the outcomes of when your company explodes.
Fast forward to today, I learned a lot from running a business and how to discover your priorities. I have a big vision outside of Footsouls for Converse + Vans so I decided to make the move and bring the business to Tampa, Florida to expand into the large vision I have for everything.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
When you go from having a couple of orders a day to the next day having thousands of orders, it defiantly can be a learning curve. This happened at the end of 2020 and things started to explode. I ended up having to hire 15 friends to come over and pack orders every day inside a 1,000 sq ft house.
All these orders were the biggest blessing ever, but I had never been in charge of that much money before so I made a lot of mistakes on how to manage that money. The beginning of 2021, I ended up in 250k worth of debt (since I invested the money in the wrong places + didn’t track my expenses well), but I ended up getting out of that towards the end of 2021. 2021 was a challenging year, but I learned the most I ever have that will put me farther in the future. I wouldn’t take any of my mistakes back because it has put me where I am now.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Feel Your Soul is a lifestyle and experience brand to inspire you to live a life you would relive. Our flagship product are Footsouls to make your Converse + Vans more comfy to help you have a better experience in life.
How do you think about luck?
I believe that you create your own luck and God gives you opportunities, but you have to go out and grab it. I think everything happens for a reason with many opportunities around us. Most opportunities pass us, but when we make the decision to go after it, good things happen.
One of the moments of an extraordinary opportunity was the manufacture in Vietnam agreeing to let a 21 years old come and tour their manufacture and have them teach you how to create your idea for no cost.
Pricing:
- Footsouls: $19.99
Contact Info:
- Email: jacob@feelyoursoul.com
- Website: feelyoursoul.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/feel.your.soul_/ + https://instagram.com/jacobzander_/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@feelyoursoul_
