A Maryland shoe company has a mission to make footwear “domestically and closer” to consumers.
Made Plus is located at an Annapolis business park. On one side of the company’s suite sits the office, where sales happen and designs and sketches are spread out on tables.
On the other side of a window sits the factory, where a small team of workers actually makes the shoes you just ordered. Nothing gets made until someone orders them.
“Our mission is to make footwear domestically and closer to our consumers,” said Alan Guyan, Made Plus’ founder and CEO whose previous work included a stint in the shoe division at Under Armor. “It’s important to me for several reasons.”
For one, it automatically becomes a “planet positive” product, Guyan said. Secondly, it enables the company to share the product with the community and provide jobs. And thirdly, “We get to control every aspect of manufacturing, which is controlling the design and engineering and operations of what we actually put out to the market,” Guyan said.
The first line of shoe to hit the market is called, as is appropriate in Annapolis, The Skiff. The casual sneaker is made from material that is made up of recycled water bottles — about 6.5 per each pair of shoes.
Scattered around the factory are a few small trash cans, about the size of the waste bucket that you might have next to your desk. Very little gets thrown out as the shoe gets made.
The goal is to grow from about 10 employees to close to 20 by the end of the year, with a new line of running shoes and sport-specific shoes hitting the market by early next year.
“It’s amazing that we found some great craftsmen,” said Guyan about his staff members, which he said weren’t easy to get.
“Because we’re in a market here where the manufacturing is limited, versus if I was in the Midwest, it’s a lot more saturated. So finding good, talented people to help us craft our shoes has been challenging,” Guyan said.
When you order a pair, it’s all online — there are no brick-and-mortar sales yet. The company said there will be some for sale at the Annapolis Boat Shows in October.
Made Plus said it could take a month before customers get them, but lately it’s been about two weeks. That’s because making the shoes does not start until they have been ordered. And for a few more dollars, you can also customize the color of every aspect of the shoe.
“That is a little bit of a culture shock for some folks because they’re used to the Amazon model, where if they order something, and then [ask] ‘Where’s my package?'” Guyan said. “But we have seen that once we educate the consumer about it, [it] is made to order, it’s less waste, and how we’re making it and where we’re making it at, they end up being very accepting of that.”
Ultimately, Guyan sees Made Plus catching the attention of customers for two reasons: being able to buy something locally and having an ethically responsible product. That’s where he said the company is going to shine.
“And then they’re going to put it on and be like, ‘Wow, that’s actually a pretty good shoe,'” Guyan added. “And that’s what’s kind of fun, too.”
