Today we’d like to introduce you to Saadia Mirza, Samer and Bassel Riche.
Saadia, Samer and Bassel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Solemates was founded by two best friends. We have known each other since college and had just started our careers after graduating. One night after having dinner, we were walking back to our cars and we noticed a group of girls leaving a bar, all walking barefoot, with their heels in their hands, visibly uncomfortable. The first impression we both had from seeing this was how unsafe it is for these girls to walk barefoot around the city streets. We thought there had to be way that women on the go or out on the town could have a convenient, yet comfortable and stylish way to slip out of their heels at the end of the night.
A few years and many sleepless nights working later, Solemates shoes was born. To date Solemates has sold over 100,000 foldable flat in over a dozen countries worldwide. Good Housekeeping Magazine awarded Solemates Purse Pals the Best Value foldable flats. The shoes were so well received by customers, they were also featured on Fox and Friends and the Hallmark channel, and if you attended the Houston Symphony Christmas Ball in the last few years, you may have soon a custom order of Solemates Flip Flops with The Houston Symphony logo on it as stocking stuffers for their guests..
Today, as a company we are striving to find new styles and designs with the same quality and price our customers have grown to love. We also have a renewed focus to work connect with more shops and boutiques in our home town of Houston and we recently launched a high end version of our flagship flats, appropriately named The Midtowns, representing Houston and the part of town that inspired the birth of our company. No matter how far we go, Solemates will always be a family company. Our family is Houston, to this day when we drive around every corner of the city, we are hit with memories of the local community going above and beyond to help us succeed. Our own families staying up at night helping us to pack orders, to shop owners that gave us advice on what they look for in products, to the community that never hesitated to support a local business. We are Houstanians and proud!
About our team: Saadia, like the rest of the Solemates team, was raised right here in Houston. She was drawing since before she could walk so; she continued to pursue her passions and went to college for film production and fine arts. Her passion for film has always been engrained in her along with a love for video games and new technologies. Her creative abilities are on full display within Solemates as she is the artistic mind behind all of the graphics, website and all promotional material and packaging are 100% designed by Saadia. Once a very quiet and shy child, she has blossomed into a very confident entrepreneur and a leader. She uses her passion and intelligence to empower other small business owners and is very active in regularly supporting various charitable causes around the city.
Samer, – Samer, currently working as the General Manager for Solemates Shoes was born and raised in Houston. “Growing up in the 90’s gave me so many choices and so many interests as a young teenager. Every day after school I loved watching TV, my favorites were Saved by The Bell and Fresh Prince. If I wasn’t watching TV, I would be shooting basketball hoops outside my house or listening to Rap/R&B/Rock music in my room. I was a huge nerd in Geography because I’d be interested in learning about different countries and its cultures. I was hooked on watching Carmen Sandiego almost every day since Geography was my huge interest. Upon entering The University of Houston, I began to take an interest in service and hospitality and studies Hotel and Restaurant Management. My favorite part in working for Solemates is traveling around the city meeting our great customers and visiting all the great boutiques to show them our award-winning flats.”
Bassel – Born and raised in Houston, I spent my youth outside more than inside. Riding my bike around town with friends, rollerblading, or playing sports. His parents would often tease him for having a knack for finding new friends very easily. If he was playing basketball in front of the house, anyone passing by would get invited to join. Bassel always had a passion for starting businesses, his first was when he was about ten years old and one summer he printed flyers and passed them around the neighborhood to promote a new lawn mowing business. More ideas came and went throughout the years in middle school and high school, but it wasn’t until attending college at The University of Houston, (GO COOGS!) that he started learning more about what it takes to start and run a business on a larger level. A few years after college, Solemates was born and it was a product of all of the experience that came with growing up in Houston. To this day, Bassel is still in love with this city and you can find him doing hot yoga at Black Swan in the Heights, or biking the trails around the city, or playing a pick-up game of soccer with people at Rice University. I am excited about the future of this city and I hope we can be part of the new wave of future Houstonian entrepreneurs and doing our part to mentor the next generation.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
When you are building a company from the ground up, there is no guide book. It is all the based on your decisions and ultimately there is no one else that will be held accountable for those decisions. That perhaps has been one of the biggest challenges is constantly juggling all the working parts of the company and finding the right balance for success. We could have read all the entrepreneurship books available but in the end, there is no substitute for doing it. We learned to be patient and to constantly adapt because things don’t always work out how we planned them and it is important to be flexible in changing something that is not working.
During the startup phase, our biggest challenge was finding the right balance to push the business forward with minimal resources. If we invest too much in our stock, we won’t have enough for marketing and promotion, but if we don’t have enough inventory to keep up with demand, we risk turning away customers. It is a very difficult balance and finding the right method varies from business to business.
Everything that goes into a Solemates product was done in house, ourselves. From the actual flats to the logo design, to packaging layouts and advertising our products, it was just the two friends with a big dream and a small budget trying to create something special. All this work and struggle came before we even sold our first pair of flats and the day we did, it felt like we sold 100. Every day since then we are still learning how to navigate the business world and loving it every step of the way. In the end it is the struggle that makes the victories all the more special and drives our desire to continue to reach new heights.
Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
Solemates is an online company that specializes in foldable, travel friendly ballet flats perfect for any woman on the go. We offer these flats in a variety of styles and colors, fit for every taste. Our flagship flat, The Purse Pals come complete with a travel friendly pouch, which smartly turns into a tote bag, perfect for storing your heels after switching into your cozy and stylish flats.
The accompanying pouch/tote bag is one of many things that sets us apart. From our many customers all around the world we have received thousands of compliments about the tremendous comfort that all our flats provide. We never tire of hearing this positive feedback and it motivates us to do everything we can to reach as many new customers as possible. Our latest positive review came from a customer right here in Houston that was seven months pregnant with her 3rd child and was becoming very frustrated that her shoes/flats no longer fit due to swelling and the ones that did fit, dig into her ankles causing even more pain. We set her up with a pair of our Midtowns, complete with flexible ankle linking and memory foam insole and she could not have been happier and her spirits were lifted. Her only complaint was that she didn’t discover our flats during her first pregnancy. 🙂
As a company, these stories are what make us most proud – knowing that we can touch people’s lives, even if it is in a small way. From the bride that gifts her bridal party a pair of Solemates, to the ladies looking for something comfortable to wear in the final months of pregnancy, to the business woman on the go that is looking for a break from those heels, we are always so happy that so many people remember our company when shopping for their flats.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We believe luck in many ways can be a positive side effect of hard work. Looking back at our journey, we certainly can call ourselves lucky that we found ourselves always meeting small business owners that were willing to take a chance on a new company and feature our products in their stores or gave us advice on how to grow our company and connecting us with other interesting parties. We were always committed to growing this company and we had a very resilient attitude, so even when hurdles came our way, rather than dwelling on the unfortunate luck, we would work to find solutions. Definitely if we look at the current retail market and the effects of covid-19, the only realistic take away is that this is just bad luck for us and for many other businesses that have been severely affected by this pandemic. With that, we hope that other doors will open in the future to help us continue the amazing run we have had in running this business.
Pricing:
- Purse Pals – $16.99
- Midtowns – $24.99
Contact Info:
- Website: Yoursolemates.com
- Phone: (832)-408-1428
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yoursolemates/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YourSolemates
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/yoursolemates
Image Credit:
Saadia Mirza
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