Hello Rodinhooders!!
Have you ever wondered why Lord Ganesha doesn’t wear any footwear? I mean, seriously, have you ever seen him wearing any footwear in any of the pictures? That’s probably because he didn’t get his size! Or his choice of footwear.:)
My name is Manish Bhagwani and I am building a Startup on custom made footwear. I left my job at Wipro couple of years back where I worked in manufacturing domain. During my studies at IIT Kharagpur all my internships were in manufacturing domain, because that’s where I want to make change.
My core passion is Lean Manufacturing, one piece Manufacturing and supply chain optimization. I love this Rodinhood community and generally I come down from Agra to Delhi for Rodinhood events. Simply put I feel blessed to be in.
So, let me give you a little background. I have been working on this idea for last 2.5 years. Although, I had some knowledge of the footwear and leather industry when I began, I was still missing out on the practical, on the job know how of the business. In last two years, I have grown my brand Walker Styleways from scratch to a level where I can safely say, that the consumers like my product.
But, currently I am doing handmade leather footwear in standard sizes. I am not doing Custom Fit range, neither am I making in different sizes. I am just making shoes of the standard sizes and am selling them on various platforms. The objective was to understand how does one sell online? And what are the various steps I will have to keep in mind while manufacturing footwear and what could be the various challenges. Now that I have completed my homework, I need help from all my fellow rodinhooders.
Please take out 2 minutes of your time and fill this survey. This survey will help us gauge the consumer point of view. We might make a best product, but if a consumer doesn’t like it, it’s useless. So please help me with this survey and you might win a pair of custom fit, handmade leather shoe for yourself! 
Idea: To make handmade, custom fit shoes on order using one piece manufacturing and lean manufacturing techniques.
Art / Technology: Today, almost all the big manufacturing companies are adopting this one piece manufacturing techniques so as to reduce Supply Chain and inventory cost. We will use the same technique to make custom fit leather shoes for consumers.
Science / Research: Research indicates, that 60% * of the population doesn’t have standard feet sizes. There could be much kind of uniqueness to ones feet, like Wide feet, high arc and different feet sizes for both feet. Shoe companies save their costs by making standard sizes and we adjust our feet somehow in standard sizes.
USP: Pure leather, handmade shoe, which is just made to order for you. Plus it gives us an opportunity to play around with design a bit on basis customer inputs. In fact, we can even make different sizes for different feet. i.e. size 7 for Left foot and 8 for right foot.
Competition: There’s no specific company doing made to order shoes 
Ask: Kindly fill this survey form and help us reach out to as many people as we can. This will help us take this idea forward. Also, below are the links for measuring guide and the current website. If you have any feedback on that as well, please feel free to share.
For any feedback / discussions, I can be reached at manish@walkerstyleways.com or 9972921908