{"id":341223,"date":"2013-10-18T15:32:59","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T20:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/?p=341223"},"modified":"2018-05-15T09:08:46","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T13:08:46","slug":"industry-interview-justin-kittredge-taks-reebok-starting-islide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/industry-interview-justin-kittredge-taks-reebok-starting-islide\/","title":{"rendered":"Industry Interview: Justin Kittredge Talks Reebok & Starting ISlide"},"content":{"rendered":"

The email signature for Justin Kittredge<\/strong> reads \u201cPresident, CEO and Janitor\u201d for his new company, ISlide<\/a>. Those three titles speak volumes on his leadership style, entrepreneurial spirit and humble work ethic. After starting at Reebok as an intern in a storybook manner, Justin recently made the move from employed executive at a sportswear titan to building his own brand in Boston. We caught up with Justin to discuss his time working for Reebok basketball and his transition to becoming his own boss in this installment of Industry Interview<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: How did you get your start in the footwear industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> I was lucky. I did an internship at Reebok out of college. Honestly, the main reason why I wanted to get the internship was because I read that you played ball at lunch time (Laughs<\/em>). That was the most intriguing piece of the internship that I knew of. But it was good. I worked at an internship in the marketing department, graduated, and then I got a job and worked at Reebok for over ten years, mostly in product marketing and retail marketing as well. The experience I got from working at a major company for so long was invaluable.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: How did the internship at Reebok come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> I definitely was not qualified for the job. I was actually a hotel\/restaurant management major looking for a marketing job. The guy that I interviewed with asked me to play in a 6 AM intramural game the day after the interview. I had the game of my life and he offered me the position right afterwards. It was very serendipitous. When I had that opportunity, I realized it was the opportunity of a lifetime to be able to work for a large footwear\/apparel brand right in my backyard of Boston. I spent every minute at Reebok learning as much as I possibly could and trying to do the best at the business we had. I ended my time there as Director of Basketball Product. I was doing something that I was very passionate about. I’ve always been a big basketball guy. Going to work every day wasn’t really going to work, it was just enjoying what we were doing. You deal with the bureaucracy of a large company, and I understood that, but at the end of the day I always tried to tell myself that I was working on basketball and that there were some people that would probably kill for the job I had.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: Looking back at your time at Reebok, what projects stand out as your favorite?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> Number one was probably EuroCamp. To spend a week in Italy with NBA GMs, presidents and players in a laid back atmosphere is something I could definitely do 365 days a year. Aside from that, I think the process of sitting down with professional athletes and talking about what the inspiration could be from their shoe to seeing it come to fruition over the course of 18 months when it actually hits retail with marketing behind it. Just to see a guy like John Wall tweet about it and talk about it on his own and to see how proud he was to have his own shoe – to have a team make that dream a reality for him. Not even just John, even guys like Jason Terry or Jameer Nelson who still have things that are very close to them. To add those elements to the shoe and see how proud they were to wear the shoe was great. That took so much hard work from the design and development team, the marketing team, and even the team overseas in China.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: What basketball insights did you pick up from your time in China?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong>\u00a0With basketball, they say that China is the fastest growing country in the world. There’s no question. I’d go back every six months for factory trips and go out and play ball. I’d see the infusion of the sport all the way down to the kids. We’d talk to the kids and they were extremely knowledgeable about the NBA and the sneaker game. When it came to limited edition releases or player exclusives, that normal Chinese basketball player was very knowledgeable and it gave us a lot of insight. They really mirrored exactly what the US was all about and I think their goal is to have more and more players come over from China to play in the US. As time evolves and they start to get better coaching down at the youth level, I think we’ll start seeing a lot more players from China making it overseas.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: During your time at Reebok, Yao Ming and Allen Iverson were two of the biggest basketball players in China. What was it like seeing their presence in China?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> They were polar opposites on how they were perceived over in China. Yao is someone that was very admired. He was looked up to as more of a mentor in the country – a very upstanding individual who had great morals. A guy like AI was who the kids emulated and who they wanted to be. Those were the shoes that they wanted. When it came to buying kicks, it was all about AI. There were knockoff AI stores in China that I was flabbergasted to see.<\/p>\n

I worked more so with Yao as he came over. He was very patriotic, he loved his country and we always tried to infuse some sort of country relevance into all of his shoes. I think that at Reebok, people assumed that Yao’s shoes would just blow out but it really wasn’t like that. They emulated him and respected him as a person, but wanting to buy his shoes was really non-existent. They wanted AI, they wanted Kobe. Now they want LeBron, KDs and Kobes. It was very interesting to see the perception of a guy like Yao that is such a country icon, related to selling shoes, because it wasn’t what anybody thought it would be. But it just shows the similarities of the China and of the US. They still want the guys that are edgy and have a little bit of attitude and swag to them.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: What was your biggest takeaway from your time at Reebok?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> The relationships that I was able to make at Reebok and all across the basketball community. When I started at ISlide, I was able to get pairs to guys like Avery Bradley, Michael Carter-Williams and even entertainers like Jeremih, Clinton Sparks and Motley Crue. The relationships that I was able to bring over to the start up world got the key influencers asking us about getting their designs onto slides. This is just the beginning. We’ve had players from the Bruins and the Patriots asking for slides. If I didn’t have those relationships from the beginning it would’ve been much tougher to get the word out. Even so, we’re still just two months in. Once the world really knows that we’re around I think you could see this company really start to create some buzz in the market.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: What made the timing right to move on to start ISlide?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> I’ve always had the dream and the passion to start my own business. I saw Reebok heading much more to the fitness and lifestyle realm as opposed to team sports, which I’ve always been passionate about, so it was the right time to move on. I was thinking about what type of company to start for a long time. After I left, it really hit me that the slide market was right.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: Why slides?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> I saw that the slide market was booming. It had double-digit growth for three straight years. I’ve also always been a big fan of customization, personalization and what that means to the consumer. Not just throwing a logo onto something but really giving people the opportunity to express themselves in a way they’ve never been able to do. We want to do a very quality, customized, premium slide that people want to wear every today that really understands the blood, sweat and tears that they have put in for their own individuality. It could be your team, it could be your fraternity or sorority, or it could be individual. One person can go and put their own saying or personal logo on a pair of slides.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: What’s the process been like getting the business up and running?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> It took about seven months to get up and running. We’ve been live for two months and it’s been going great. We had about 16 interns this summer from 11 different colleges. It was an unbelievable opportunity that was twofold. One, I got the opportunity to get young, creative minds in this business. Secondly, I was able to share all of my experience to be a part of something that’s more than just getting coffee everyday.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: Do your interns also get to hoop at lunch?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> We don’t have the full court just yet, but it’s definitely in the works. We did put up a hoop in the office and we do certainly have free throw competitions on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: Was it an easy transition making the move from Reebok to running your own business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> No, (Laughs<\/em>) not in the least bit. I went from having a green corporate credit card that made things very easy, very fun, to living the mac and cheese lifestyle as they say. We’re very frugal with how we’re starting this business because cash flow is extremely important in a start up. That’s probably the biggest difference right now. Trying to hold on to as much cash flow as possible and manage the inventory, the marketing, the sales, the travel, and the hiring of employees with everything we’re doing. My goal is to always hire from within. There are a lot of people that give their time and their effort to ISlide and we’ve already had the opportunity to hire three people that worked as unpaid interns for this company. We’ve been able to reward the people that have given their heart and their soul to the company over time. The goal is that we can continue to hire more people and continue to grow.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: How has your approached to work changed since you started your own business?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> It is the greatest decision I have ever made in my entire life. I’ve never been happier in my life about starting my own business. I’ve always wanted to, but I think people get very comfortable with their way of life and working for a bigger company. There is a lot of perks, but for someone like me that has huge aspirations of growing this into a multimillion dollar company, I come in everyday and I’m very happy. You don’t find a lot of people who come in to work everyday that are truly very happy with what they do. I’ve been very lucky because I’m doing something that I love, I’m around people that have very similar passions, and we’re all on the same team. I’m able to pick my own team which is great. The one piece of advice I always got was “hire slowly, fire quickly.” I’ve had to get rid of one person and it was the worst thing I ever did. The people that we actually do allow to come on board mean a lot to us. It means that we trust them enough to come in and make a difference. That’s what we love. I give a lot of people a lot of work and responsibility with this company. I think people embrace that and come in a very positive way. It’s much more about the company than it is about themselves and I think that everybody kind of goes off that mentality. Seeing the growth and seeing the positive results every single day has us approach things in a very positive way. We see we can do anything as a team.<\/p>\n

Snkrs Day: In your opinion, would a college student looking for an internship benefit more from working at a big brand or a start up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Justin Kittredge:<\/strong> At the end of the day it all depends on who you work for. To me, the people that I have learned from the most and respect the most are the great bosses that have taught me so much, given me advice and really wanted me to succeed. I’ve tried to take that philosophy of having anyone that I have working for me succeed as much as possible. I think when you do that they give just as much back to you.<\/p>\n

There really are pros to both. Working for a big company, you’re not going to be doing as much buy you’re going to understand how big, corporate business works. There are definitely pros to that. With a start up, if you work for me you’ll have major responsibility and you’ll automatically grow up way faster than you probably would at a big company. I think the experience that you’d get at a small business like that is invaluable. If you’re gonna go [work for a] small business, you have to make sure and understand that you’ll get a lot out of it so that you learn to reach your goal. I tell every intern I have that ISlide may not be the end goal for them, but if they work their ass off and give me everything they have, I will do everything in my power with all the relationships I have across the industry to get them interviews and get them in front of the right people to help further their careers as best I can.<\/p>\n