Applied Series: How to Build a Digital Sneakers Platform with Futures Factory's Nicolas Romero

Pivoting to Digital Footwear
Ever wondered how a brand can pivot from crafting exquisite physical footwear to mastering the digital fashion? Nicolas Romero of Futures Factory tell us how he did that in the midst of the NFT and crypto boom of 2021 and 2022, which led him to securing $2.5M in VC funding. Find out in this episode if it's worked, and what's driving him and his startup forward.

Another Pivot to 3D Printing
Nicolas discusses with Peter how blockchain technology and NFTs became the bedrock for his brand's unique crowdfunding approach and how they're ensuring product transparency and authenticity. However, this wasn't enough and 3D printing is next on the cards for Futures Factory. We delve into the importance of community building across platforms and the vital role it plays in guiding product development and maintaining brand resilience. Nicolas shares candid insights on his favorite digital fashion trends, his strategic investments at Futures Factory, and offers sage advice for aspiring entrepreneurs venturing into the realm of fashion tech and footwear.

Check out Futures Factory here.
Get connected with Nicolas on LinkedIn here.

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Transcript

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 0:03

Fashion Tech Applied is published, my co-authored book taking you through six chapters and covering the technologies and innovations powering the fashion industry. I'm Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, founder and CEO of Beyond Form, and welcome to the special podcast series Applied. Each episode, I'll be sitting down with incredible fashion tech professionals that are featured inside the book. On today's episode, I'm sitting down with Nicolas Romero, founder and CEO of Futures Factory, a platform for the creation of 3D printed footwear. Nicolas and Futures Factory are featured in chapter two of the book, where the evolving design process is discussed. On the topic of evolution, Nicolas is a classic example of this, taking his learnings from launching a physical collection of first, then shifting into digital product creation, as discussed in the book, and, as you find out on today's episode, his side step into 3D printed footwear.

Nicolas Romero: 0:58

There are many things that you can do, many forms that you can do that it would be super complicated or impossible to do in traditional manufacturing. It also helps create some souls more easily than in traditional manufacturing, where molds are super expensive to do. So, yeah, it's a technology that will help designers and creators unleash their creativity much more.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 1:22

Let's get to the conversation with Nicolas on this episode of Venturing into Fashion Tech. How are you today, Nicolas?

Nicolas Romero: 1:29

I'm very good and you.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 1:30

I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for coming and joining myself on the show where we're going to be talking about digital fashion, nfts, web3. Your evolution has a startup founder and, most recently, 3d printed footwear. You're obviously featured in our book, fashion Tech applied, in Chapter 2, specifically about design and evolution of design. But for some context for our listeners, in terms of the global footwear market, it is predicted to witness a revenue of just under $400 billion by the end of 2023. And an annual growth rate of 3.47% between 2023 and 2028, according to Statista.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 2:16

Breaking that down even further where Future's Factory is working in terms of 3D printed footwear, the global 3D printed footwear market is valued at $993 million in 2022 and is projected to reach a value of $3,758 by 2030, and that's according to Vantage Market Research. From what I see in the stats, it's going to have an explosive growth. I think the advancement of the technology itself is very indicative of why that explosive growth is happening. On the market now we see a lot of 3D printed footwear, so I'm very interested to hear, nicola, how you're going to be taking that on as Future's Factory. But before we get into the now, let's rewind A little bit. You started off with the Satoshi Studio, which was a footwear brand. You've then transitioned into Futures Factory, which is working with NFTs and digital fashion and digital assets, and then you've gone into 3D printers. So how did all of that journey come about?

Nicolas Romero: 3:23

It started around 2016, 17 more precisely, with the first NFTs that went live, and we were super interested by the use of this technology to bring more transparency to users. So the initial idea was to link a physical product to NFTs to give all the information on the product to the final user. So basically, the materials, the authenticity certificates, everything else that you can give to the consumer suppliers too. And after that we wanted to have a different business model than all the brands very direct to consumers. We wanted the brand to be really driven by demand, so we wanted to have a sort of a crowdfunding model, and the transition to Futures Factory was based on the fact that we knew that brands needed more interesting crowdfunding models and platforms, new ways of having people the consumers paying for these products even before they exist, and NFTs were a good way to enhance the experience of the crowdfunding experience.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 4:42

Just for our listeners. I have been following Nicola's, so we say evolution over the last couple of years. When we first spoke, you told me a very interesting story because you don't come from the footwear industry and you were inspired by the E-Kities. That's something like a crypto-Kity or something Crypto-Kity or something like that. I just remember that evolution of the story.

Nicolas Romero: 5:05

Yeah. So there were many, many projects, but crypto-Kities were one of the biggest projects at the time. They completely congestioned I don't know if we can say that, but the Ethereum network was completely overloaded and it was interesting to see gaming entering into tech and I knew when I was learning about this technology that it would go beyond the financial sphere and gaming was already something super interesting to see. But I was quite sure that the fashion industry, with all the problematics that we have, the use of this technology, the usage, would be super interesting. So we wanted to start really simply with this use case of linking a physical product and giving it a digital identity, but we knew that with years, a lot of new usage could emerge. I wanted to be one of the first to dive into it. It was just a simple experiment with friends. We just invested, I think, 3,000 euros at the time to create the brand and launch the Kickstarter and everything. So it was really just do it. We see what will come of it and it was super interesting since then.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 6:27

Then Satoshi Studio and then gone into Futures Factory. Is there a link between the two or is it not completely Futures Factory that you're working on?

Nicolas Romero: 6:35

There is no real link. There are two different entities. It was also easier, I guess, for my partners, my investors. But it's really an extension of Satoshi Studio because we found out that there was a better way to do pre-sale campaigns and when we started to discuss with brands and designers, we realized that there was such an opportunity that we couldn't do it just for our brands. So we decided to create another name, Just it was the name at the beginning Futures Factory. The Futures was coming from the final software factory, meaning for the manufacturing part, and it just started as a mood board. We wanted just to repost all the cool footwear projects that we had that we found and we were using it to connect with designers and brands and interrogate them about the potential use of this technology to pre-sale products. But it was really focused on crowdfunding. Then we realized that we could create much more than just a crowdfunding platform using NFTs.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 7:49

And for our listeners, that's all similar with Futures Factory. How do you describe it?

Nicolas Romero: 7:54

Yeah, so it restarted as a sneaker NFT platform. What's goal is to help designers and brands to create their projects, whether it's digital only, sneakers or with a physical component. And, of course, the pre-sale crowdfunding part was really important at the beginning, but it became more large after a mood board. So, yeah, it started like this. The purpose was really to empower the creators to design the future of the wear, so the future of footwear. For us, it's more collaborative, more sustainable, more affordable too for designers less lower entry buyers, let's say and we wanted to give them the tools and the resources to enter the markets and to connect more easily with consumers and with their community.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 8:49

And then now is it really focused on the 3D printing side of things?

Nicolas Romero: 8:54

So the the purpose is still the same. We still have like a good community of creators. It's just that a long time ago when we started for the future factory, we already got in touch with Cornelius, who is the founder of zealofeld, which is now the leading 3d printing company in footwear, working with Louis Vuitton, aaron Preston really great bands and when we met him there were just like a few guys in in a in a lab building some custom printers, and we realized that it was a super opportunity for designers to get from like just an idea to a physical product really really fast, way more fast than in traditional footwear making, and we felt it was a support opportunity to to help those designers to get into it and to promote this technology that is quite old but still a really new and recent in in footwear and fashion. And yeah, I think there is you. You mentioned the numbers. I didn't know them, but it seems like a really Important new markets and we're just at the beginning of something big and there will be much more innovation that will come.

Nicolas Romero: 10:15

So, yeah, we want to be a part of it. We want for now we are not. We don't Print them directly. We have some printers, but it's just like to get like a few samples and still super complex to handle. But for now we do. We had brands or designers brands to to Design the products. There is still a lot of guidelines to follow, a lot of errors. You Easy, easy mistakes that you can do. So we are here to help them create those designs and we connect them with a printer company like Zell offeld or Elepacard or other companies that are focusing on this.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 10:58

Yeah, I think it's super interesting. I did mention the numbers at the start. So Just under four thousand million US dollars by 20 30, so it's a huge potential market and obviously, for you guys, you're tapping into that super, super early. We see the applications of 3d printed footwear. I did that was exploring this back in 2017 with their 4d printed souls and with carbon. We were speaking to a 3d printing company over the summer EOS for our listeners, our regular nurses, will know this, and they were talking about Fine resolution details.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 11:34

So I think the technology has just come along so drastically over the last previous years. It's just now possible to literally print anything when it comes to footwear. I think, at the core of it, though, it is about Still getting the industry to move from traditional design and this is what we talk about in chapter 2 in the book to the digital design elements. Whether that is creating a digital asset using a browser, where I close 3d and the regular 3d design, or Taking that even further into rapid prototyping, like you are doing with futures factory, I think it's shifting the process and the culture and the approach that designers are bringing towards the notion of footwear design. For you, then, specifically, nicola, how do you think this paradigm is shifting in terms of the design process and where do you think this is going to take? Actually, the offering is going to present to the consumer.

Nicolas Romero: 12:31

There are many different aspects we could talk about. On the consumer side, let's say that now people can see like really crazy things on Instagram and so realistic that you feel that you could wear it, and it's developing the taste of people. People want to see more futuristic things. I can mention, for example, safa Sahin at Balmain, who really like a few years ago you would say that it will stay a concept forever, but with just like the new technologies, but also like designers that are more confident and don't want to sacrifice the design for like a functionality or whatever. So we see that it's developing.

Nicolas Romero: 13:18

Well, in footwear, there are more and more crazy designs and it's thanks to new softwares like Gravity Sketch or you mentioned the cloth reading or closing. So I think there is this aspect and it's much more easy to get also a physical product from an idea. I already said it, but it's really true. It's easier for product makers, like the manufacturers, to get from just an idea to a physical product, because it's easier to see, to understand, to visualize the products when it's in 3D rather than just a 2D sketch. So it has many impacts.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 14:02

For the footwear designer what the design knows, shall we say. Do you think the notion of 3D printing and digital asset creation, do you think this is going to be something that all footwear designers will need to eventually adopt in order to keep ahead in the industry?

Nicolas Romero: 14:18

Not necessarily. It all depends on what you do. If you're an independent designer, it's sure it's a good way to easily create products with not a lot of resources. You don't need a lot of money to create 3D printed sneakers. No, if you're already working in a good brand and they don't want it, 3d printed sneakers is not aligned with the branding, for example, it doesn't worth it. It's cool to experiment it, but it's not a requirement to go into this. I still believe that in design, for now it's so specific, so niche, that I'm wondering if it will really become mainstream, at least for full sneakers. Of course, for slippers it will be easier, but for full sneakers it's really different than a traditional footwear. So yeah, for me it might be like a new market in footwear.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 15:20

Through the rounds of audio. If I'm thinking of 3D printed shoes I just have crocs in my head, but I might hear not talking about crocs right now in terms of shape and form and design. So if you are 3D printing a shoe, what are the possibilities?

Nicolas Romero: 15:38

Pretty much endless. There are many things that you can do, many forms that you can do that it would be super complicated or impossible to do in traditional manufacturing. It also helps create some souls more easily than in traditional manufacturing, where molds are super expensive to do. So, yeah, it's a technology that will help designers and creators unleash their creativity much more.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 16:19

I just go back to the idea of you transitioning from digital assets through to 3D printing, the whole idea of pivoting as a startup. We've talked about this many times on the podcast show. Pivoting is very natural in the startups journey For you, nicola. Did you just wake up one day and was like okay, I think we need to pivot Futures factory or what was that process and what was some of the strategic decisions you did to them pivot?

Nicolas Romero: 16:49

Yeah, you know you, you you feel it like you. It's always important to analyze everything you do, to track everything you do, and and and Stop to really think about what you're doing. So for us, it was very natural. We just knew that our model wasn't Efficient enough. We had some good things, positive things, and some negatives, and we stopped, like for a one week, everything we did with the team and we thought about or proposed where we want to go, where we want to be in in five years, ten years, and that's that's how we we processed and we want to to this pivot. And yeah, like you said, it's very natural. We did at least two pivot and and for now, I think we're in a good way because we're nuts, like we did before at the beginning when we created this NFT platform.

Nicolas Romero: 17:49

For now, we are just discussing with brands. They have like clear needs and we're just learning While doing things with them, and I think this is the right way. Perhaps next year will launch a marketplace Helping brands or just consumers to purchase some 3d printers, thinkers, but for now we don't want to launch it because it would be to it's. It's just too early we in first to really understand the markets, have a good portfolio, and then, when we feel confident enough, we we launched this, this platform, but we won't go as fast as as we did in 2021, where everyone was super excited about 3d3, who were there for for a long time. We raised money, but I think a lot of startups crashed because they they were too, they went too fast and they thought that, yeah, this is the new revolution, we need to be the first, and a lot of mistakes were made by my team, by by me and by other startups, like I know plenty of crazy stories that are Like quite some of those crazy stories, nick like are you?

Nicolas Romero: 18:56

sure you're crazy stories for that.

Nicolas Romero: 19:00

But it's it's. It's really common when you're in this, in this world and you have to be, you have to be very, very resilient, and right now we spent three, six months. It was super hard, and there is the beer market but also, like, in terms of funding revenue, there is a lot of it's. The market is really retracting. So we we really stopped everything and right now we are doing things slowly, step by step, and we'll see Next year how it goes and you mentioned that you did fundraise in 2021.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 19:35

How much was the fundraising? Can?

Nicolas Romero: 19:37

it was almost a bit more than 22 million.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 19:40

So it was like a nice seed round for France, shall we say, this part of the world. How did your LPs, your investors, take it where? You said to them okay, we're gonna pivot Futures factory into 3d printing?

Nicolas Romero: 19:56

they, they re understood because they some of them invested also in what three companies and they say that's there, for now there is no market, or it's a market that is really too early and most of the companies were just Playing like the speculative game. So no real use case for now. And, yes, it's a very immature markets. And they completely understood and we're playing here on our strength. We have been always well connected with brands, designers and we. We already learned the disbask months on this technology. So when we did, when we told them that we already had Brands and that we wanted to focus more on this, they totally understood which makes sense and I'm glad to hear that your investors has have some sense as well.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 20:53

It comes to NFTs and web 3.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 20:56

In our tech review at the end of 2023, we were discussing actually how there was a crypto crash and how that affected the fashion industry, especially with the big players like added ass and Nike investing so much resources into the specific category and added us specifically.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 21:15

So you know the value of the entities that they launched in 2023 by more than 75%, which is a huge decline. Sales overall was down by more than 50% and the price of NFTs Downing as well by more than 50%. So it just went down and obviously this isn't just for fashion industry, but in general across the crypto space, and it only makes sense that you are pivoting for something that you know it's going to work and, of course, ultimately the company is going to survive. I We've had conversations previously, nicola, that for Futures Factory, there was a huge element of the community as well. You talked about in our book interview, for example, how you use Discord as part of the test and learn cycle. Is that still a necessary step for your current evolution of Futures Factory and do you think that notion of using Discord to tap into knowledge is going to be still there.

Nicolas Romero: 22:11

It is perhaps a bit less but, for example, when we started to work on our 3D printed shoe for our community, we organized some workshops every week for like during summer I think it was during mid-August to mid-September and yes, they were helpful, just guiding us. Do they like, do they prefer to work on mule or slippers or mid-top high-top? So they helped us get in the right direction. Then it was more like to engage and show them the progress over the week and it was cool to have like a real short feedback loop and they were super excited Then. I'm not sure that on the design side it really helped. We were still like controlling a bit everything, but there were some cool ideas and we hope that for the packaging, for example, we keep some of the good ideas from the community.

Nicolas Romero: 23:11

And, yes, I think it's very important to stay in touch with your community, whether it's on Discord or Instagram or TikTok. A lot of designers are just creating some concept kicks and just seeing like the enthusiasm of their community. They know that there is something to develop there. And I would love to talk about Pet Liger. I don't know if you know about him.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 23:36

Tell us more in lightness.

Nicolas Romero: 23:38

Yeah, so Konstantinos, I forgot where he came from. I think it's cheaper, but I'm not sure. He really started as a designer, concept maker, like he was just creating some cool concepts on Instagram. He's about to launch his own physical brands and with now 129k, so it's a lot. And he created this community from nothing. He just like he was putting just concept kicks on Instagram and this is how we grew his community and get people excited for a future release. But he never said anything. So people are expecting and hoping that one day he will create some physical shows, but he never did. And now he's preparing a big launch for next year, and perhaps I'm seeing too much, I don't know.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 24:31

I'm always thinking is this a real shoe or is it a fake shoe, because I really want to wear it. And you talk there about tapping into the community and creating a feedback loop. You make it sound so simple, though, nicola, because not every fashion designer or fashion brand knows how to do that effectively. So, for any of our lessons that are trying to tap in into any kind of community, what kind of challenges are there with effectively engaging and communicating to them and how to overcome them?

Nicolas Romero: 25:01

I think it's really hard to start from from nothing. You, you have to grow a community first by putting a lot of work. So, from what I see, the easiest way to do is to create as much as possible, as simple as that. So, like for a brand that wants to directly put some resources and create a brand, then create the community. It's harder if you start with directly, like digital fashion and putting your design and progressively growing your community. I think it's it's the best way to do it and it's a bit like like a startup. You don't directly invest too much money in one thing If you don't know if there is demand, if there is a market. It's better to start slowly with with concepts, clothes or shoes, build your community. Then you don't necessarily need to interact directly with them, but you can just track what are the the most liked pictures, as simple as that, and you will find your niche. If you, if you have one viral post, for example, you will know that OK, there is something here, let's dive more into it.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 26:15

You did a collaboration with Dress X in November 2023. The Whale Sharks was the theme of the entire collection. Is that correct?

Nicolas Romero: 26:26

Yes, exactly. Actually, it was more a partnership with the Food Chargers, which is a renowned UK foodware agency that we met in London I think it was 2021. And they had these three cool physical sneakers that they created with with known partners like Vibram Gortex, and they wanted to do something with this sneaker. That was just, it was not supposed to be commercialized. We discussed and brainstormed and we said, OK, perhaps it could be cool to create some sort of a tumbola, a raffle and something for the community Really a low entry barrier and we felt that it was the moment to create this sort of one dollar raffle. We came up with this idea to allow as much people to participate and have the chance to get, like, a super rare shoe just for one dollar.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 27:26

And why Whale Sharks.

Nicolas Romero: 27:28

The design is really inspired by the Whale Shark texture. There is still sense coming out from the shoe because we did the photo shoot in Barcelona, but, as you can see, the texture is really inspired by the shark skin.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 27:42

So for our listeners obviously you can't see now through the rounds of audio it is a shoe or a sneaker with shark skin, like texture and patterns all around the sneaker. They look pretty cool. I'm guessing those are yours, right?

Nicolas Romero: 27:59

No, I have to return them and for them to see.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 28:02

OK, I just want to finish off this talk with a quick fire round of questions. So the first answer that comes to your head Are you ready, Nicolas?

Nicolas Romero: 28:12

I'm ready.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 28:13

Favorite fashion brand or footwear brand that is using 3D printed in some way?

Nicolas Romero: 28:19

So I would say Joy Camus, who is a really great designer, Melon Melon Shrews, so it's an association of Joy Camus and Finner Steglore. They also launched a cool NFT project, so it was linked with NFTs. And the third one, I would say a live form from the designer known as Conception.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 28:45

What has been your favorite digital fashion campaign activation today?

Nicolas Romero: 28:49

I would say the OG from the OGs, the fabricants, back in the day with the I forgot the name of the digital fashion dress, but they were one of the OGs in the space.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 29:02

What are the next key investments specifically for you at Futures Factory?

Nicolas Romero: 29:07

So it will be more 3D printers and learning, always these tools, getting more familiar with this technology and, in time, investment in time. More design, more VR design with Gravity Sketch, especially for me, at least one hour a day.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 29:31

A favorite footwear that you have.

Nicolas Romero: 29:34

I would be the sentimental guy, I would say the Bred Jordan one on 2006.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 29:40

One piece of advice for any entrepreneurs who want to get into the footwear space.

Nicolas Romero: 29:45

Like I said, start small without putting a lot of resources, without spending a lot. Do as much as possible with the tools you have. It would be the best advice, not even just for entrepreneurs, also for creators.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 30:01

Thank you so much for your time, Nicolas.

Nicolas Romero: 30:02

Thank you, peter.