Footwear designer Tom Berend spent more than 15 years working for Nike, including seven as a lead innovator. He logged another year at Adidas, before founding the Portland-based design consultancy KiK Laboratory in 2015.
Over the years, he longed to build a shoe that incorporated aesthetic design into high-performance footwear, which he said were often separate at the big companies.
The opportunity to do that arrived in the form of a young British entrepreneur who flew across the pond to make a pitch.
“When Ben … showed up at my studio that day, they made the single best startup brand presentation to me that any client had ever made,” Berend said. “It was incredibly clear to me what R.A.D. meant, and the passion that Ben had for what it could become.”
R.A.D. is the name of Berend’s new venture with entrepreneur Ben Massey. The duo have spent the last two years creating a footwear and apparel line that meshes Massey’s love of training with aesthetics he could never seem to find in athletic shoes. Massey comes from the world of Crossfit, he said, even owning a gym at one point.
“I didn't feel like there were brands in the space that spoke to me from an aesthetic perspective. I think they're all incredible at performance, but there was nothing really there that I felt like I would want to wear outside of the gym,” Massey said.
R.A.D.’s shoes mesh the two worlds by incorporating classic design with futuristic elements, all centered around athletic performance. Though Massey is still based in England, keeping R.A.D.’s operations here in Portland is vital, he said.
“Portland is everything to the brand, like when you are a sneakerhead or a shoe dog or whatever you want to call yourself, you know that Portland is where you go to make performance shoes,” Massey said. “So from the very beginning, we really wanted to emphasize that this product is designed and developed in Portland, because it signifies that mark of quality that you know what you're doing.”
Right now the brand is amping up to release its second shoe as well as an apparel line. Berend said he is focused on building community around the brand within Portland through community runs in different city neighborhoods.
Berend knows all too well how competitive Portland’s footwear startup space is, but he said what makes R.A.D. stand out is Massey’s specific vision for the brand and his tenacity.
“When I joined Nike in 1997, my assumption was I was going to be there for about five years and then I was going to start my own shoe company. But with the way career paths go, there is always another carrot dangled in front of you and it didn’t go that way,” Berend said. “I think when I met Ben it was like, ‘Oh, this is that partner that I've been looking for for 25 years to really start something significant.’”
Right now R.A.D. consists of about 6 people working in Portland, but expects to grow that team to about 12 by the end of the year. With 20 launches of its initial training shoe, the R.A.D. One, and a 95% sell-through in 30 days, the company has doubled its revenue in the first six months of the year and expects annual revenue to quadruple by the end of the year.
