Hi Matthew! What's your background, and what are you currently working on?

Iowa guy. Joined the military in 1997 and left in 2006 with a few deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. During my time overseas, I saw that armed conflict could do little to raise a nation from poverty. Coupled with my understanding of U.S. Foreign Policy at the time, I didn’t see the war slowing down. (That was in 2005)

Fast forward to 2008. I was hired by a Seattle company, Remote Medical International, for military and government sales. We focused on providing medical providers and clinics in “austere” environments. My job was to assist the government and service providers with help in “difficult” regions. On my trips to these regions, I witnessed the non-military side of war zones. In those war zones, it was entrepreneurs that were the real change makers. They set up businesses, employed citizens, and maintained their own security. Everywhere I went, I saw the same thing.

On a trip to Kabul, I was invited to visit an Afghan combat boot and uniform factory. In this factory, I witnessed hundreds of people working--this was the first positive outcome I saw from the war effort. When I found out the factory was going to shut down after the war, my elation turned to fury. Then it happened.

I looked on a table, saw a combat boot with a flip flop thong punched in it, and thought it was cool. The factory manager agreed to let me run with it and I immediately returned to my hotel room to register Combat Flip Flops domain.

Combat Flip Flops is a mission-based company that empowers American consumers to manufacture peace in war zones with economy. We work with local entrepreneurs to make fashion and lifestyle products. Each product sold funds a day of education for an Afghan girl. It’s been an amazing adventure and thankful for all of the friends, family, and coworkers that got the company to where it is today.

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How did you build Combat Flip Flops?

Painfully.

We never ran a business. Never made footwear. Never started a clothing brand. We knew where we were and where we wanted to go. The company has three founders. Donald Lee--fellow Ranger that now serves as our CMO. Andy Sewrey--my brother-in-law that serves as our president. Together we managed to scrape up enough money to get samples made, build a website, and start marketing on social media.

We presold product, built it, shipped it, then reinvested back into more inventory. We started with simple sketches and sent those to footwear manufacturers. Using their magic, they turned our drawings into footwear. After that, it was a matter of buying the tools to cut out the shapes and stamp the outsole. With that basic tooling, artisan craftsman shops turned our idea into a sexy piece of footwear.

The tech is fairly simple. To start a company, you simply need an internet connection, smartphone, and laptop. We use Shopify as our online store, Facebook ads manager, Quickbooks online, and a few other subscription apps to tie everything together.

Logistics kills most product-based companies. Until July of 2017, we managed all warehouse and shipping out of my garage. Recently we moved to a third party logistics (3PL) company to manage those services.

It’s been an iterative, and extremely painful process. We learned a lot along the way and still learning every day.

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Which are your marketing strategies to grow your business?

We started like most people, on Facebook. That’s where people spend their time, so that’s where we advertise. The company started with fun posts and videos. It’s evolved into a process involving targeting, measuring attribution, and adjusting our content to reflect the highest returning initiatives.

There’s no secret sauce here. You simply need to try out what works, measure, improve, repeat.

Be authentic. Whenever we attempt a “best practice,” the results are not as good as when we generate authentic content. Try, measure, improve. Repeat.

Public relations and media have been good for us. Find media or influencers with bigger followings that you, reach out, and see if they have interest in your product. If they talk, write, or broadcast your product--the people will come.

After five years of working, adjusting, and improving, we have a core team of three that comes up with ideas, builds creative, and produces content to support sales.



