Roger Adams came up with the idea of a shoe that had a wheel in the heel, so that you could just raise your toe and ride them like skates. He enlisted Mike Staffaroni, who had experience selling both shoes and skates, to market them. Staffaroni knew Heelys were a good idea, but had some conservative estimates of the company’s first year sales. They launched the product at the Action Sports Retailer Trade Show in San Diego in 2000.
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Sitting at a booth made from card tables and a couple signs, Staffaroni and sales rep Gary Golden armed themselves with printed out Excel sheets and credit forms, anything to make it “at least look like we were in business and ready to go.” They hoped by the end of the convention they’d leave with a few sales scribbled down.
But when the pair enlisted a couple skaters to demonstrate the Heelys prototypes, the entire convention took notice. Similar to Staffaroni himself, actually seeing Heelys in motion got people to buy in. “It has a stealth nature to it that grabs people’s attention: It looks like a normal shoe, but you can lift your toe and roll. So there was the wow factor that comes with it.”
Heelys succeeded beyond their wildest dreams -but the company fell just as fast as it rose. Read how that happened at Mel magazine.
Source: neatorama