Passionate runner Andrea Součková is the founder of the largest Czech barefoot footwear company with branches in Prague, Zlín and Beroun. It started from scratch with only two people, now it has sixty employees and its naBOSo has a turnover of 65 million this year alone.
And from 2020, it grows by fifty percent year-on-year. At the beginning of her business, there was an ordinary pain in her knee that started to bother her. At that time, she was on a study placement in Canada, where she came across barefoot – special shoes with a thin sole, which are supposed to imitate walking barefoot. And she totally fell for it.
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At least one shoe a day
Her knee problems are said to have disappeared thanks to barefoot, and thirty-four-year-old Andrea was so excited by these shoes that she decided to start a business with them. In what way does she think they are “healthier”? “Our body naturally wants to feel what it’s after. There are about two hundred thousand nerve endings on the feet, and they send signals to the brain about how the body should adjust. This is called proprioception.
Ordinary shoes do not allow us to do this, but with bare shoes we give the body the opportunity to perceive these signals. It’s natural for us,” sums up the advantages of this footwear. According to her, the right barefoot shoe must be wide enough in the front, completely flexible and light. Its sole should be no more than half a centimeter thick.
She opened the first Naboso store with her ex-husband in 2015. “The beginnings were rough. We rented a space in Prague’s Dejvice, and in order to save money, we moved out of the apartment ourselves. We even slept in the shop. The first year I worked every day until two or three in the morning,” recalls Andrea, who invested everything she had in the company. She even sold her bike. The initial capital was less than half a million crowns.
In the beginning, Andrea calculated that she had to sell at least one pair of shoes a day to cover the costs. But on the very first day, she allegedly gave twenty of them. “I remember it, I even know what I was wearing that first day, and I was taking pictures with the customers,” she recalls. Although the business prospered quickly, the entrepreneur was still studying for it, and the frantic pace of work and the absence of free time took their toll in the form of the breakup of her first marriage. “I paid off my ex-husband and continued alone,” adds the woman, who then involved her current husband, with whom she has a two-year-old daughter, Victoria, in the business.
Czechia – the land of bare shoes
It was thanks to her daughter that she became interested in the children’s footwear segment and this further accelerated her business.
“These shoes are ideal for children. In bare shoes, they have more space, space for the foot to develop healthily. Barefoot is suitable from the very first steps, there are also special shoes for beginning walkers,” he explains, adding that Czechs buy children’s shoes in bulk, and thanks to this, the company gains new customers among adults as well. And the Czech Republic is said to be unique in that the most barefoot lovers from all over Europe live here. By far the most of these shoes are sold here per population. The owner of naBOSo has her own explanation for this, which is related to children. “We have a long maternity leave in the Czech Republic, mothers here have a lot of time to devote to their offspring and are more interested in their proper and healthy footwear. And when they start with children’s shoes, then they move on to the adult collection.”
Barefoot shoes can be found in all variants: from summer sandals to work shoes, ballerinas, tennis shoes and winter shoes. They are said to be sought out by clients across the entire company – from children to pensioners. The structure of customers has evolved a lot during the coronavirus pandemic.
Business has been kicked by the pandemic
“Previously, these shoes were more sought after by people with an alternative background, now it has changed and managers and wealthy clients come to us a lot,” describes the entrepreneur. It was during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020 that their turnover climbed to thirty million crowns, a year later it was already double. During the covid, according to Andrea, people became more interested in health and thus came to the point that they wanted to try barefoot. This year naBOSo aims for a turnover of 120 million crowns.
Many people are put off by the idea that such a wide shoe cannot look good. However, according to Andrea, who likes fashion, this is just an old prejudice. “There are so many options on the market today that meet all aesthetic criteria. It hasn’t been the case for a long time that these are shoes for ‘hippies,'” summarizes the woman who represents about fifty brands from all over Europe. And the company’s portfolio also includes her own “Angles” shoes, which she designs herself.
After an initially embarrassing experience with production in the Czech Republic, they finally moved it to Porto, Portugal, and they are delighted with the result. “The shoes have flair and lightness, our Portuguese partner has more modern production technologies and machines. We want to continue to invest in our own brand and develop it, I see great potential in it,” adds the woman, who still does not deny her scientific background.
That’s why the research she did preceded the production of her shoes. “We measured the feet of Czech customers in order to create an ideal hoof, i.e. a model of how the construction of the shoe should look, so that our shoes fit people as best as possible,” he explains.
In addition to selling, Andrea Součková deals comprehensively with the topic of barefoot and has many other activities: she organizes various trainings, publishes educational videos, organizes workshops in cooperation with physiotherapists, where she teaches people how to run or walk.
However, she still has energy for other plans for the future: she would like to open a bistro in Prague with good wine, coffee and delicacies. In addition to running, which was the beginning of her successful business, she also loves good food and wine.
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