Brooke Torres is not a professional runner, but she knew she was spending far too much time and money finding comfortable running shoes.
Starting in 2016, Torres, who spent several years working for different startups, began running marathons and ultramarathons to test her physical and mental limits.
But almost as challenging as covering the distance was finding the right pair of running shoes. Torres estimated that she tried around 100 pairs of shoes as she visited running stores, while also taking recommendations from other runners and shopping online.
“Even to find something that was comfortable for a couple miles was really tricky,” Torres told BostInno. “What I started to notice … was there were different fits that worked for different people. So, a fit that might be better on me might not work on my friend who is also a size eight.”
Torres decided to create her own direct-to-consumer running shoe company to offer more personalized shoe fits for women. The last few years have been filled with product development, testing and building with support from leaders from companies like Nike and Runkeeper. This morning, Torres officially launched the shoe brand Hilma.
Finding the right fit
Torres wants to make finding women’s running shoes as customizable as a bra fitting.
“The way that we size is a lot more like bra sizing, where we have different volumes and different shapes, as well as different sizes,” Torres said.
Hilma matches runners to one of its shoes through a questionnaire about their shoe experience, including the brands they like and dislike, any insoles or inserts they wear and how often they need to size up or down. The questionnaire also dives into specifics about the runner’s foot, asking questions about their arch, toe length, bunions and foot width.
“At the end of that survey, we have been able to determine the right fit for them,” Torres said.
The company will offer three different fits for each shoe size. The shoes vary in different ways, including the size and shape of the toe box, the shape of the sidewalls and the overall “volume” of the shoe, Torres said. She said the startup has a patent pending on the fit prediction software and the shoes’ fit model.
Torres, who has completed everything from road races to trail ultramarathons, made sure Hilma’s shoes allowed wearers “to be spontaneous in terms of their adventuring.” The shoes work well on a track or road, Torres said, and also have the grip to perform on dirt or gravel.
They tested the shoes over several years with female runners, Torres said. She even wore them for a 12-hour overnight race.
“There’s a Goldilocks moment where people say, ‘Oh that’s right. And that’s really comfortable.’ And that’s been the consistent feedback across the whole testing process,” Torres said.
A pair of shoes will cost $159 and is only available on Hilma’s website.
Breaking into the shoe industry
Torres didn’t come into the shoe industry with much professional experience in consumer products. But the more people she met in the footwear world, the more she realized how willing they were to share their knowledge.
“Footwear is an interesting and unique business. It’s also an expensive business to build and you don’t see new running shoe companies popping up every day,” Torres said. “There was definitely an appetite to have conversations.”
Hilma started out with a pre-seed round of $300,000, Torres said. This largely came from angel investors like Jason Jacobs, the founder and former CEO of Runkeeper before it was acquired by Asics Corp.
In September, Hilma closed a $3 million seed round led by Brand Foundry Ventures. Other investors included Jeanne Jackson, former President at Nike and former CEO of Banana Republic; Roth Martin, co-founder and president of Rothy’s; and Paul Hedrick, founder and executive chairman of Tecovas.
Torres said she plans to continue growing and building a new brand that celebrates women in running and the outdoors. And not just women who are winning races, Torres said, but any woman who wants to push her limits, just as she did when she signed up for her first marathon in 2016.
“There’s not something that’s been a new, modern women’s running brand that I was ever able to find that was really speaking to people like me who were running for the reasons of adventure and growth,” Torres, “I’m never going to win the marathon. But that’s ok. That’s not what I’m there for, and I love it just the same.”
