How These Sneaker Entrepreneurs Are Solving the Problems Women Have With Shoes
Who better to solve women’s footwear problems than women?
Over the past few years, three female founders — Natalie White of Moolah Kicks, Brooke Torres of Hilma and Sarah Sukumaran of Lilith NYC — have used their entrepreneurial spirit to create sneaker options designed for women.
Although their focuses are different, they all started their journey with a “why not me” attitude.
“I never thought there was something I couldn’t do. I never felt like there was something that I couldn’t learn,” said White, who started her basketball shoe brand in 2021. At the time, White was 23 and fresh out of college.
For Sukumaran, a lifelong sneakerhead from Queens, N.Y., creating Lilith NYC was partially motivated by regret. Prior to launching her luxury women’s sneaker brand in 2020, Sukumaran was focused on improving the shopping experience.
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“In 2015, I was working at a startup in e-commerce analytics. I was always analyzing data — specifically around customer purchase behavior. As I had two screens up, I thought, ‘Why do I have 50 tabs open trying to find my size?’” Sukumaran said. “My idea was to create an aggregation site that made it easier for women to shop, but I didn’t do anything with it. For five years, I woke up every morning feeling regret.”
As for Torres — an avid runner who debuted the running shoe brand Hilma last October — she was driven by conquering the doubt that comes with the unknown.
“When I first had the idea for Hilma, I thought, ‘Why hasn’t someone done this before?’ I also thought, ‘I would be crazy to start a running shoe company’ because my background was in software and media,” Torres explained. “The more I evaluated the idea, the more I saw how the skills I had were important for this journey. I worked in data-heavy companies, and we’ve got a data-heavy fit finder. There were intersections of experiences.” Hilma, which is hyper-focused on fit, offers 45 sizes per style. It also uses a patent-pending fit model and predictor that matches consumers with the correct style and size for their foot shape.
The bets these entrepreneurs made on themselves have led to important wins.
Moolah Kicks, for instance, secured Dick’s Sporting Goods as a stockist in November 2021 and is now sold in more than 450 doors, according to White.
And last month, Lilith NYC opened a pop-up shop in the Nordstrom New York flagship in Columbus Circle. The brand also landed a retail account in Sri Lanka, where her family is from. “For the past year, we’ve been e-commerce only. I was really focused on that and attempting to fundraise. This year, I want to focus on wholesale,” Sukumaran said.
The founders said there are other moments of intense pride as well.
For White, it was seeing Moolah’s latest Neovolt Pro sneaker being worn by the girls’ basketball community. “Going to AAU tournaments, seeing full teams wearing the sneakers, there is nothing better,” she said. “Seeing highlights taped with people in our newest model, it’s been exciting and really fulfilling.”
And for Torres, it was getting into the market with a product she is proud of. “I was at a local company in Boston and I brought Hilmas over. Seeing people try them on, talking to them and hearing about what running means to them, it was powerful because running is what led me here. It gave me so much belief in myself and these resilience-building experiences,” Torres said. “Getting to see women now run in our shoes is really wild.”
But the job for these three agents of change is not done.
Torres said Hilma will debut a new product in the fall aimed at solving a prevailing industry-wide issue. “We’re considering the other conditions that [our customer] might be in. That’s our full focus, serving her in different conditions,” she said.
As for Lilith NYC, the brand will focus on creating uniqueness. “Every product is the same. I see a mountain of the same colors, I see the same silhouette,” Sukumaran said. “Right now, we’re working on a high-top. Also, we’re still finding other tooling for performance. People have sacrificed for performance, for aesthetics or for comfort. They always have to pick one. We’re trying to index a bit on each.”
And at Moolah, White is working to address societal issues. “Women’s basketball is constantly compared to men. People will say, ‘Caitlin Clark is good because she shoots like [Steph] Curry,’” White said. “This constant comparison puts women’s basketball in a secondary place because it essentially legitimizes or delegitimizes women based on how they stack up to men.”
Her goal is to use the brand to bring more attention to the sport and its stars. “Moolah is pulling away that comparison and we’re showcasing the value that women’s basketball has — the hype, the talent — as opposed to the comparative value, focusing on the intrinsic value of women’s hoops versus comparative,” said White.
