Unless you’re serious that is.
A while ago, I got an interesting DM from a young guy. In his mid 20’s, he asked if I was taking any apprentices. For the sake of the story, let’s call him K.
At the time I wasn’t in the position to take on an apprentice, and let him know this.
Regardless, K continued the conversation with me. He wanted to know whether it was a good idea to become a shoemaker and what was the best way to go about it.
Currently working as an architect, K felt his job wasn’t as design driven as he expected it to be. Because of this, he wanted to move into a field that could satisfy his creativity. He told me he enjoyed working with his hands, had dabbled in smallgoods crafting, sculpture and various other fine arts.
I told K that unfortunately, there were no shoemaking schools in Malaysia, and outside of myself, only two other makers that could teach him at a professional level.
I continued to tell him that his best option was to go to Italy or Japan, where there are dedicated shoemaking schools. At a cost of USD 25k for 6 months, it would certainly be an investment.
Long story short, I offered K to join my handwelting course, where he could experience all the processes involved in shoemaking. And at a price of USD 250 for two days, it would make sense to try it first before deciding his next steps.
K completed the course, enjoyed it, and realised how labour intensive handmade footwear is.
More importantly, over the two days, he understood why I generally tell people that unless they’re fully committed, they shouldn’t become an independent maker.
And here are the details.
Don’t expect to get rich.
There. It’s out of the way.
At worst case, you’ll make just enough to cover materials. Even at best case, don’t expect to afford a big house, nice car or extravagant lifestyle.
For the sake of the thought exercise, let’s take the example of the typical shoemaker.
Working alone, the average maker can produce around 2-4 pairs of shoes per month. Some, even less. 1-2 pairs perhaps. It really depends on type of footwear that particular maker produces.
This output level also assumes that the maker lives in a market with a constant customer flow. A theoretical assumption.
Let’s now talk real life.
The harsh reality is that as an independent maker, the ability to make money is capped.
Not by market demand, but rather, by the fact that there’s only so many pairs of shoes that can be made, per month, with one pair of hands.
So no matter how hard you work, you can’t scale.
I thought about this a lot before launching Outstation. Eventually, I chose to design my product not to be the highest quality, highest price, most beautiful boot.
Rather, I chose to make a product at a high enough quality to satisfy me, with a low enough price point to attract some volume.
So this means, because of how I decided to position my brand and make my boots, I can outsource parts of my operation and at a certain point, manufacture at scale.
The initial investment is large.
Becoming an independent maker is not cheap. Equipment and material are costly.
A full range of lasts can cost in the thousands of dollars. Not to mention all the tools that are needed day to day. Cheap, low quality tools will break and injure you. High quality tools are an investment, but they’ll last for life.
As I was getting into bootmaking, I wasn’t satisfied with my progress in the craft. This was partly because I was total crap at the time, but also partly because I didn’t want to invest in the tools that I needed to work with.
Let’s take waist irons for shaping a beveled waist as an example.
Without them, I got ok-enough results, but when I finally bit the bullet and invested, my results improved dramatically. The waist of my boots became significantly sharper, with tighter, flowing curves.
As of today, I estimate that I’ve spent at least USD 50k on lasts, tools and machinery to fit out the workshop over the last 5 years.
Material cost also adds to the initial investment. Don’t forget this. Because whilst learning, plenty of mistakes are made. So, material is not just used to produce the product, but also to learn and make mistakes on.
Which brings us to the next point.
Space.
I’m not necessarily talking about the bench space needed to work on, but rather, the storage space needed for all the raw materials.
Buying pieces of leather to make smallgoods with doesn’t have the same storage requirement as a 10 sqft shoulder or 25 sqft hide. Taking said leather out from storage to use also means needing enough bench space to spread it out on.
Add in machinery and suddenly you’re out of space. Your home eventually turns into a light industrial workshop, with a bench grinder, sewing machines, finishing machine and everything else you need to make footwear with.
All in, I have my machinery, materials, tools and various workspaces scattered inside and outside my house. My bench alone is 3m long and 1.2m wide.
If I consolidated everything into one space, I’d need at least a 1,000 sqft workshop.
Expect to be shit for a few years.
Yes. Whilst you’re learning, you can’t sell your product. That’s the reality.
The old adage is that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. So assuming 8 hours of work per day and 5 days per week, this means 250 weeks, or roughly 5 years of learning is needed to become ‘an expert’.
To be fair, I found that after three years of making was the time that people started asking whether they could buy my boots. By then, it seemed I’d crossed a threshold where people considered my boots to be worth paying actual money for.
My point here is that having no income for three years is like being a student again.
Because being shit is a full time job, until you’re not.
You’ll likely need a side gig.
I work on average 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. On Sunday, I do another 4 hours or so. So, a 64 hour week, 52 weeks a year.
Most independent makers will be similar in their work hours. But even with this amount of work, the money still may not be enough to survive.
So, many makers have side gigs.
Whether it’s doing uppers or outsole work for others, lecturing, uber driving or the like, the shoemaking work often needs to be cut back in order to make time to do the side gigs.
It can be a vicious cycle. You need time to make your product, but you also need time to do the side gig.
And depending on how much you need to support yourself and your family, your side gig may become your main gig, and your main gig your side gig.
The work is physically demanding.
Being an independent maker is punishing on the body. It can be dirty work, even dangerous if you’re not careful.
Punching through a 4mm welt, 5mm leather midsole and an 8mm outsole by hand makes my body ache like a heavy lift at the gym. If I do outsole stitching for a few days in a row, my shoulder genuinely hurts too much to continue working.
Putting a boot on the belt sander can flick grit into your eyes. Or even better, grind the shit out of your fingers.
Just two days ago I managed to injure my foot because the grinding wheel came loose from the spindle. It spun off, shredded my right ankle, then slammed into my door at 2600rpm.
It doesn’t get easier with age either.
Over time, technique improves with expertise, but at the end of the day, hand lasting 3mm boot leather is still hand lasting 3mm boot leather. It’s back breaking work.
And the difference this makes on the body at age 25 compared to age 45, is massive.
I combat this by staggering my work, similar to how people stagger their gym sessions. Some days I do lasting, other days I do bottoming, and I do finishing as and when needed. Taking this approach avoids putting too much stress on the same muscles each day.
That’s just the morning though. After lunch, my work changes entirely. I spend the afternoons purely on business topics at the computer.
Always explaining price gets old, quickly.
From time to time, people are shocked at how high priced the product is. Potential customers, acquaintances, people that you meet.
And after some time, it begins to eat into your brain. You start to question yourself. Is your product really worth that much?
The imposter syndrome kicks in.
It’s easy to get jaded. But when you find the gems out there who truly appreciate what you make for them, it’s all worth it.
Mental health is real.
Being an independent maker is a solitary job. There’s nobody around to chat with, to challenge your ideas, or to directly learn from. No water cooler gossip, no break time camaraderie. Just silence.
A lot of talking takes place in the mind, or with AI. Both can deteriorate mental health greatly. This is one of the reasons that I started the Journal. An outlet.
The ups and the downs of handling everything alone can really take a toll.
So, a great way to combat this is through reddit or social media. Other makers and enthusiasts are out there, friendly enough, and usually happy to chat.
And by reaching out to others, they’re not just helping your state of mind; you’re likely also helping theirs.
A good bootmaker isn’t always a good at business.
Just because a maker can craft a great product, doesn’t mean they’re capable of selling it. These are two very separate skills that I’ve touched on in other Journal entries.
So for the individual maker that’s passionate about making but procrastinates on running the business, their endeavor will likely fail.
Or their journey quickly returns to hobby status.
To make money as a successful craftsperson means there must be a certain focus on running a business. Marketing, branding, dealing with customers, managing outsourced service providers. All the jobs that having nothing to do with making the product.
These are the realities of becoming an independent maker.
Many people over the years have asked me the question:
‘What’s it like to be a bootmaker?’
And of course, I naturally don’t want to moan and complain – especially if I’ve just met them or they’re an acquaintance.
But there are also those out there who are genuinely interested in knowing, either to satisfy their curiosity or because they’d like to enter the craft professionally.
To summarize it, if people really want to become a shoemaker or bootmaker, they need to commit. It’s not something that can be done part-time with the intention to ‘one day’ go full time.
It shouldn’t be romanticised. It’s difficult to learn the craft, demands long hours and involves back breaking work.
And at the end of it all, there isn’t much financial reward.
Because of this, I generally tell people that if money is their main driver in life, don’t become an independent maker. The likelihood that it negatively impacts family wellbeing and lifestyle flexibility is extremely high.
No negative Nancy-ing here.
Don’t get me wrong , this isn’t a Journal entry to dissuade people from entering the craft. Rather, I simply aim to give a true reflection on what it’s like, based on my own experience.
So now that you know, if you enter, survive, accept the sacrifices and are happy with the life outcome, I can’t think of a better job to have.
Just don’t expect it to happen overnight.
