Northern Kentucky University’s Isaiah Kelly wasn’t always obsessed with shoes.
In the days just before he headed off to his freshman year of college in Highland Heights – and long before he was tapped as one of the country’s top 30 student entrepreneurs – he didn’t give much mind to fashion. It really didn’t interest him at all.
But a summer job working at a shoe store changed all that, and it eventually became the basis for his startup, Smoove Creations. Today, Smoove, a custom sneaker outfit, is considered one of the most successful companies to emerge from NKU. And Kelly, now a graduate student, said it’s his goal to continue to grow it into a full-fledged business.
Smoove is still small by all accounts – sales were edging around $30,000 at the end of November – but, overall, the custom sneaker business is “booming.” Several individuals – and a few companies – are more established, but Kelly feels like he offers something different, something unique, especially in the Cincinnati market.
“To me, sneakers make an outfit. The first thing I notice is (a person’s) shoes,” he told me. “The thing about custom shoes (is) a lot of people don’t like wearing something everybody else has. They like standing out and being different. There’s a real big market in that.”
All projects by Smoove are made to order. Most people pick Nike Air Force 1’s as the base, and from there, Kelly and team can build out a design based on the customer’s request. He has customized shoes for birthdays and special occasions, and for businesses, too. A finished project can cost anywhere from $275 to $400.
Kelly stumbled into design also somewhat my accident. He used to scour YouTube trying to find the best deals on shoes, in his earliest days as a “sneakerhead,” and that’s when he came across a 12-year-old selling his own custom projects for $400 and $500 a pair. Kelly starting painting his own shoes in the garage and at the kitchen table.
“To me, I didn’t think they looked that good, and it didn’t look that hard, so I thought let’s try it,” he said. “It wasn’t for a business. It was a hobby, and it was cool because these shoes were my own. I made them.”
When Zach Strobl, head of NKU’s Inkubator, a 12-week business accelerator, came to Kelly’s class one day to give a talk, it “immediately peaked my interest,” he said. “I wanted to see how far I could take it,” Kelly said. He applied, and Smoove was off to the races.
So far, the business has earned a host of recognition, and Kelly has created shoes for St. Elizabeth Healthcare, WWE superstar Brian Cage and Raiders linebacker Preston Brown, who commissioned a pair of custom cleats from Smoove last year as part of the NFL’s “My Cause, My Cleats” campaign. The cleats, Kelly’s favorite project to date, plugged 1N5, a Greater Cincinnati nonprofit that aims to increase mental health awareness.
Kelly is also a two-time winner of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Cincinnati regional competition, which sent him to Silicon Valley to compete against his peers this February. In October, Smoove took second place at KY Pitch, an annual competition for students from colleges and universities in Kentucky.
Kelly, who graduated in May with his bachelor’s in media informatics, is slowly devoting more time to the business. Smoove just rolled out an updated website, complete with fully customizable, 3D shoe modeling software, which allows Smoove to be much more efficient in handling orders. He wants to company to expand beyond shoes into other forms of apparel, like hats, T-shirts – and a nod to Covid – masks and more.
The company maintains office space in Newport that serves as an HQ for its six team members, some of which are other designers. The goal, Kelly said, is for Smoove to be a full-time, full-paying gig, not just for him, but for those around him. His biggest advice is to have patience.
“That’s not saying I’ve arrived or made it by any stretch, but I was doing this when nobody was interested or when nobody was even paying me,” he said. “I truly loved it, and I didn’t care if other people liked it or not. Things take time, but if you keep grinding, it will work out.”
