Oofos President Steve Gallo spoke recently with SGB Executive about drivers of the company’s robust growth, the active recovery opportunity, plans for the current year, and the recovery brand’s dedicated fans.
Oofos, founded in 2011, recently raised $7.7 million in a growth investment round of funding led by Derek Carr, the New Orleans Saints quarterback, former NFL quarterback Alex Smith, and Dawn Staley, head coach of the South Carolina women’s basketball team.
Oofos plans to use the funding to build on its momentum after seeing revenues vault 82 percent in 2023 and forming partnerships with Exos, DUPR, the Las Vegas Raiders, USA Gymnastics, and the US Ski & Snowboard team. Oofos noted that according to POS data, the recovery footwear category overall grew 19 percent last year with Oofos controlling 73 percent of the market share.
Gallo has been president of Oofos since 2018. His previous roles include general manager of the sports license division at Adidas, SVP of sales for Adidas North America and senior product marketing director at Reebok.
Where is the Oofos growth coming from? Is it mainly run specialty or newer accounts? It’s a combination of both now. When we started the brand, we pioneered this category called active recovery. It’s been running specialty and also outdoor specialty, where we still have some runway for growth. We started with accounts like REI, Fleet Feet and a lot of the other run specialty stores. As we’ve added new products, we’ve continued to grow there. But the solution we provide is so ubiquitous for athletes from all different walks of sport who understand recovery and the importance of it, including people who have pain and plantar fasciitis. So, we’re now in Scheels and we have a good test going on with Nordstrom. And we’re driving a lot of business through oofos.com. We’re just looking for the right partners that understand recovery where those consumers shop.
What other sports are you reaching now? When we started, we were anchored with runners, triathletes, outdoor enthusiasts, etc. But we’ve seen so many athletes from different sports gravitate to us. These elite athletes take a holistic approach to training and wellness and recovery’s a big part of that.They might find out about us through their trainer or strength coach. And when they put the product on, they go, ‘Oh man, this is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.’ In football, Derek Carr found the brand through his trainer. We’ve got an Olympic aerialist skier, Ashley Caldwell, as an ambassador. Imagine the pressure she puts on her body doing all those flips in ski jumping. We’re about to sign our first professional baseball player. We have a lot of golfers telling us Oofos feel fantastic after wearing their golf spikes. We reach those who play basketball, tennis, softball, pickleball and even rugby from an international perspective. The opportunities are incredible. What’s nice about it is most of these folks are coming to us.
Does Oofos skew young or old? Our target consumer is 25 to 35. We call them a workout warrior because they are the ones that understand the science. They’ve got the Apple Watch. They’re always looking at metrics. They’re into nutrition, organic food. They’re about mindfulness. They combine their fitness activities, whether it’s running or lifting weights, with yoga, etc. And they’re the ones that really understand the technology, features and benefits we provide. But we sell to a wide swath of customers and it again shows you the breadth and the potential reach for our brand.
Is the OOriginal sandal still the bread & butter of the business or are the new categories driving the growth? The open-toed product is definitely our bread and butter, particularly our slide and thong styles we started with. Those are the most popular, but we’ve had so many requests for closed-toe footwear, especially from a seasonality perspective. We’ve got a product called eeZee, which is a canvas, closed-toe product that is performing very well and gaining traction. We’ve got the OOcoozie, which is a more winterized model people can wear while lounging in their homes, but also wear year-round. If I’m in Michigan, it’s hard to wear sandals and slides year-round. My kids wear Oofos with socks, but I can’t do that and others won’t as well. So, we’re gaining traction in the enclosed-toe piece.
What’s new for the current year? We unveiled the OOmg Sport at our pop-up store at the Boston Marathon and launched it on oofos.com and at Marathon Sports in downtown Boston. It features a new four-way stretch upper on the exact same proven platform as our existing OOmg model but has a lower profile. It’s also much more athletically inspired whereas our other enclosed product has much more of a lifestyle flavor to it. We’ve had athletes saying they don’t want a sandal slide but want a product that feels like that and the response has been phenomenal. We sold out at the pop-up store and it will reach more retailers over the next couple of months. We’ve also had a ton of requests for a lace shoe so we’re going to come out with the OOmg Sport LS later this summer.
Can you tell us about your entry into apparel? We just launched the collection. It’s very tight – a t-shirt, hoodie, some headwear, a quarter zip. It’s loungewear, not necessarily a product you want to work out in. We see it post-or-pre workout or for casual occasions or lounging. We’re testing it. Obviously, apparel can be a big business, but we’ll see how it goes. Right now, we’re primarily engaged in footwear.
Do you see big growth ahead for recovery footwear? No doubt. Health and wellness – whether nutrition, mindfulness, fitness – is a global trend. Those things are going to continue to be very prominent in our society. People not only want to live longer, they want to live longer in a healthier lifestyle. They want to be able to move. They want to be able to do all the things that they love for a longer period of time and what active recovery does, particularly Oofos, is take a little pressure off the joints and help them feel better after their workout or after a long day on their feet. So, we think the sky’s the limit and there’s a lot of opportunity because it can help so many different people.
How has Oofos been able to fend off competitors? In the simplest term, it’s our technology. It’s that foam technology which we have a 100-year license on. It’s unreal. I’ve been in the footwear industry for 30-plus years and I’ve never seen anything like it – the reaction to it. Our founders included two of the top designers in the industry with experience at Reebok, Adidas and Nike and they understand technology very, very well. The OOfoam technology was brought to them by a highly-regarded chemist in Korea, who’s a partner of ours, and when they put it on, it was magic. They originally thought about licensing it out, but then they thought, ‘This could be its own brand’ and they saw an opportunity to pioneer active recovery within the trend of health & wellness and recovery trend. So, others have come close to matching OOfoam with soft molds, but the foams they use for midsoles are all energy return that propels you forward with a fast rebound. Ours is about impact absorption with a really slow rebound. It’s like walking on wet sand or grass. So, we want to keep talking about the features and benefits and the magic that makes people feel better when they wear Oofos.
Do you see an opportunity eventually for Oofos in the mass channel, such as Target or Walmart? We want to stay premium. We need key partners that can explain recovery. Run specialty and sports specialty overall love us because we’re an incremental sale, like socks and foam rolls. If you go to a running store like Fleet Feet and you’re buying a pair of running shoes, that sales associate can say, ‘There’s this new concept called Oofos active recovery. Try it on while I go get your running shoes.’ And that’s when people go ‘Wow, that’s great. I can wear this post or pre-run.” So, we think it’s important that people continue to try us on and we’re at places where we can educate the consumer on who we are.
Can you talk about the new funding found? How did you wind up seeing some of your ambassadors become investors? Derek Carr, Alex Smith and Dawn Staley have been part of our OOcrew as ambassadors. They’ve done television commercials and social media posts for us. They found the brand in different ways but they’ve all asked, ‘We love this product. How do get even more involved? How can put my own money into it?’ That’s how much they believe in it and we were able to accommodate them. They’re all part of our family, but now they’ve got more skin in the game. It was just a great opportunity for them and for us.
What will the funding be used for? Just really continuing to grow. Last year we grew 80 percent and we’ve got to have fuel to keep that growth going.
Are you considering opening stores? It’s something we’re taking a hard look at. We’ve been doing pop-ups for a while now and we see pop-ups as a way for us to see how consumers experience the brand. Stores have the ability to showcase the brand in a way that people better understand us, active recovery, and our technology. Our Project Pink program, where we donate a portion of our proceeds to Dana-Farber Cancer-Institute, is near and dear to us because we lost one of our first employees, Duncan Finigan, to breast cancer. With your own store, you can talk about the breadth of the brand so people understand it. So, we’ve taken a hard look at that but we want to balance it out with our retail partners and oofos.com.
You must meet some of your most devoted fans at those pop-ups at marathons. What are you learning from them? I love the stories because they’ll say, ‘Hey, I own three to five pair. I got one pair of the trunk of my car when I’m traveling, playing golf or I’m out for a run. I got one pair in my office under my desk. I got one pair I stick in my mudroom in my home and when I come in, those are my house shoes or sandals.’ That’s when you really have something special because they want to wear Oofos year-round because it makes them feel better and helps recovery. They’re our best marketing vehicle because they tell their friends about us and post about us. They’re our advocates.
Photos courtesy Oofos
