LOVELAND, Ohio — A Marine veteran from Loveland is using his military experience and newfound love of running to complete his next mission: changing the athletic shoe industry.
"Right now, the shoes that are out there are road shoes, trail shoes, or they're hybrid shoes, right? There's nothing that's delivering that great road performance with the durability to go off-road," he said.
Alan Parvis launched GoFaster with a nod to the military and a branding style to train to be ready to run toward whatever obstacle is in front of you. "We Run In" is part of that messaging that continues throughout his first design, featuring a familiar military message on the shoe’s toe.
"It says 'Front Toward Enemy.' As many people know, that's on the front of the Claymore mine. But for us, when you lace up your shoe, that's about facing whatever is in front of you," Parvis said. "That could be a new race distance, a challenge you have in your life — or maybe you're trying to get active again when you haven't been active, and so every day you're lacing up front toward enemy and you're gonna face that."
Getting the branding and messaging is one thing. Taking on a $50 billion athletic shoe industry is something else entirely. But Parvis said he doesn’t think twice about it.
"A big market is not necessarily something to be scared of, but when I look at the market, I see a massive opportunity to speak to a different audience," Parvis said.
His shoe has come a long way over the past year when he first applied to participate in the Disabled American Veteran (DAV) Patriot Boot Camp at their national headquarters in Erlanger, Kentucky. The multiple-day event is essentially an entrepreneurship workshop for veterans and their spouses.
"When I went to DAV Boot Camp, I had a concept and an initial prototype that initial prototype didn't have the right materials, it didn't have the final form, fit and function," Parvis said. "We didn't have any marketing built out, we didn't have some of the connections that we needed, no website."
Parvis said through the DAV Patriot Boot Camp, he had full access to business mentors and experts in a wide range of fields to help with marketing and branding to get him to the next level.
"If you have some blind spots or some areas where you're not sure how to progress, there's someone that's got that experience that can help you get there," he said.
Tweaking designs this past year also took him to the testing phase of the shoe, which he took on personally.
"We took this prototype, and we ran it through the Marine Corps 50K, which is an all-road 50K. So I did that myself, made sure that it had the comfort to do all-road," Parvis said.
Parvis said while there are many nods to the military within the branding, the overall function was an essential part of what he was building.
"We have a lug pattern that's not super aggressive, which makes it more comfortable on the road. And then the big thing here is we have this plate in the middle ... it's a propulsion plate. So, it's got a little bit of spring action to help you for that for propulsion, but it's also protecting your foot against rocking in debris,” Parvis explained. "So when you're running, and you're hitting gravel, and you're hitting over and over again on rocks a lot of times that can actually bruise the bottom of the foot ... this plate is protecting against that."
While GoFaster is an American company founded by a veteran, Parvis admits the current manufacturing is offshore. He said it will take time and volume to bring the manufacturing home to the United States. His goal is to have the product both American-owned and American-made.
"We are going to do a few thousand pairs to start. And what we'll do is we'll open that up to pre-orders on the website in the next month or two. And then we'll monitor traction of that pre-order. And then we'll start looking at our long-term plan for quantities," Parvis said.
To learn more about GoFaster, visit their website. You can find out more about the DAV Patriot Boot Camp by clicking here.
If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.
