Crocs started at a boat show
Crocs, your favorite foam clogs, started out as boat shoes.
Today, over 100 million pairs of Crocs are made each year. They’re an international sensation, and a favorite among celebrities like Heidi Klum, Diplo, Paris Hilton, and Al Pacino. CROX is even listed on the NASDAQ, with a peak market cap that reached as high as $11 billion. Accessorizing Crocs has turned into a secondary revenue stream. “Jibbitz” are the personalized charms pinned around the distinctive holes on the shoes (Crocs prefers to call the holes “ventilation ports”). These little trinkets alone make up a surprising 8% of the company’s revenue.
But it wasn’t always this way. The success of Crocs wasn’t a foregone conclusion at the company’s start.
In the beginning, in 2002, three friends pitched the shoes to sailors, selling their first stock of just 200 pairs of Crocs in a weekend at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The idea for the shoe germinated whilst sailing, when it’s said that Lyndon "Duke" Hanson, George Boedecker Jr., and Scott Seamans first came up with their idea for a cross between a boat shoe, a sandal, and a clog. “Crocs meet all the needs of the most discriminating boaters,” is how the South Florida Sun Sentinel celebrated the invention of Crocs.
The story of Crocs is also a story about the success of “mature-age” entrepreneurs, and confirmation that “inland sailors” can have fun on the water even if they live far from the shore. That’s because the three Crocs co-founders were all in their 40s when they founded the company, dreaming up the perfect “boat shoe” while sailing in the Caribbean, far from their landlocked homebase. All three founders met in Colorado originally, which is where the company is now headquartered, nearly 900 miles from the nearest spot where you can dip your toes in Pacific waters. The lesson of the Crocs story: Even if you’re not a 20-something living in San Francisco, fear not, because there’s still a place in sailing and startups for you too.
