Million Dollar Grind

Working as a CPA Kassie Rempel was only able to express her personality through her shoes. So when it became difficult to find the designers she wanted she came up with the idea to start a designer shoe catalog.

Since she knew nothing about starting a catalog, she wrote to the co-founder of Wisteria (a home decor and accessories catalog) for advice.  Wisteria responded with a wealth of information, which Rempel used as her “blueprint” to start her own catalog.  She studied the catalog business for a year before she used her savings and home equity to launch SimplySoles in 2004.

Rempel started the business by sending out 30,000 catalogs.  Today, more than 500,000 women receive the catalog twice a year (fall and spring) in which 7,000 are repeat customers.  The success of the business is attributed to the collection of shoes that Rempel considers to be the “best of the best” for each season and the excellent customer service.

In 2006 SimplySoles made over $1 million in revenue and is expected to hit the $2 million mark this year.

If you have an idea but don’t know how to make it happen don’t be afraid to ask.  Find a pioneer in the industry and ask them how they became successful.  You never know how valuable the response will be.