Laser Scanning News - Reverse Engineering News - Digital Modeling News from Direct Dimensions, Inc.: News/Events SmartCEO May 2006 Happy Feet The Short, Strange Trip of Waldies Comfy Clogs A tale of 21st century manufacturing By David Callahan Photos by Bryan Burris

The speed and structure of business today is mind-boggling. Take, for example, a locally-owned shoe brand named Waldies. Waldies introduced the world to a new single-mold foam shoe category that grew to annual sales of well over $100 million in just four years. This year, as big retailers like Wal-Mart enter the fray, it's reasonable to expect the category could double, triple, or maybe even quadruple from there. If you haven't seen the shoes yet, it's doubtful you'll make it through the summer without doing so. They are hard shoes to miss - bright, fun and ugly as sin. • It's also doubtful that any of the shoes you see will be Waldies, even though Waldies appears to be (in this writer's judgement) the highest quality shoe in the new market segment. Waldies, you see, is undergoing a kind of rapid resurrection, a back-from-the-dead miracle play that is partly due to the efforts of a local Owings Mills company named Direct Dimensions.

read full article (saved as draft) to get actual answer on development of three brands. producing company offered to Walden to sell for kayaking. then a year later Crocs asked to sell for boating. a sort of gentlemans agreement to respect each other's market share or sth. and soon after that Holey Soles asked to sell ~ as fashion or sth.
yup, here's what we get:

.Waldies were invented in 2001 by a small Canadian manufacturing company called Foam Creations. That company decided the shoes might work well in the kayaking world, because, among other things, the shoes float. They contacted Walden Kayaks and asked if Walden would be willing to carry and market the shoes. Walden Kayaks agreed and decided to brand the shoes “Waldies.” To the surprise of almost everyone, the shoes sold quite well.
More than a year later, another startup named “Crocs” approached Foam Creations and asked to sell the shoes also. “They put a little plug in the shoe so that instead of saying ‘Waldies,’ it said ‘Crocs,’” explains Abramson. “Same mold, same factory, same exact product, just a different name. And the gentlemen’s agreement was that Crocs would sell to the boating industry.” Crocs took the shoes to the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in November of 2002 and quickly realized the product had high potential.
Shortly thereafter, another seller named Holey Soles also approached Foam Creations, looking to focus on a broader fashion segment. very little about them in this article, what's their current situation?. Crocs began to sense both the opportunity and the pressure to expand. In any unsettled market with potential for high “buzz,” pressure to act fast can be quite strong. And the rewards for gaining first mover advantage can be huge, as they have been for Crocs. “Crocs saw where it could go,” says Abramson, “and they decided to go fast, far and no-holds-barred.”
Meanwhile, Foam Creations in Canada could not keep up with the demand generated by its three selling partners. “They had shoddy quality control,” says Raphael. “Nothing ever came out the way it was supposed to. You ordered green, but got pink. You ordered XL, but got XS.”
Crocs became so frustrated with demand not being met, that they decided to buy the manufacturer in 2004, Abramson says, freezing the other brands out.
Holey Soles secured another manufacturer and Waldies joined in, but the formulation of the foam was all wrong – the friction bumps on the soles were too tough on your feet. ...
...was that "the more later"? on this earlier bit of reporter's personal expereince: I checked online ~2003~ and found that Waldies was said to be defunct, but that a place in Virginia had bought up much of the “last remaining” Waldies inventory. A quick phone call and soon two pair (one dark blue, one teal) were headed my way for a half-priced bargain of only $15 each.The shoes that arrived were the same design as the original pair, but they were much stiffer and took a lot of time to break-in. Turns out they were really “Holey Soles” brand shoes with a Waldies logo glued in. They were from a small batch made when the production side of the industry was in turmoil (more on that later).
...

Waldies was the first foam shoe -– the originator – brand of the snobby ugly shoe purists.Waldies may be the first mover, but it didn’t secure first-mover advantage. That title clearly went to Crocs. Waldies may have developed the category, but Crocs, without a doubt, popularized it. and Holeys, where do they fit in now? To grow as fast as possible, Crocs apparently allowed quality control levels to slip. Crocs grabbed ownership of factories in Canada and Mexico that may wind up proving to be albatrosses compared to the partners Waldies has found in Asia. Crocs has been in the top ten the last two years and this year they ranked number one for most difficult supplier to work with. They burned a bridge with the outdoor retail market,” says Raphael [of Direct Dimensions, partner in Waldies]. “It left us a wide open opportunity. Our sales reps came to us with their jaws dropped saying they’d never seen a customer revolt ever – let alone one like this. I’ve never seen a whole industry say, ‘We hate you.’ [The buyers] think our material’s better. They like the design. They think it’s a better product.”

The material Waldies are made out of is a trade secret – a foam called “Comfotek.” The Comfotek brand is merchandised just as prominently as the Waldies brand, similar to the way Gore-Tex is marketed on windbreaker jackets. The development of Comfotek is the real story behind Waldies. If you compare it to the many knockoff brands now popping up in the market in places like Wal-Mart and Payless, its superiority is obvious (the material used in the shoes at Wal-Mart feels more like Styrofoam). Besides being stronger, springier and more comfortable, the Comfotek material is anti-microbial, which keeps the shoes from smelling funkified by bare feet.
The uses for a soft, strong, durable, lightweight and comfortable anti-microbial waterproof material covers everything from the mundane (toilet seats and trash cans) to the specialty (bicycle seats and child safety seats) to the industrial (automobile and airplane interiors).

..my little corner of the world..
The Waldies story is significant not because the product innovation is so profound, but because it is the perfect example of what a 21st century American manufacturing startup looks like.
As Domino Sugar rusts away out in Baltimore's harbor Domino brand of sugar is a Baltimore company? and locals fret about the loss of GM, the new face of consumer product innovation and speed to market is on display in a small company splitting its brain-trust operations between a tech company [Direct Dimension, who do 'scanning'] in Owings Mills, MD and a warehousing headquarters facility in Fitchburg, MA.
Waldies began life under the ownership of a 20th century kayaking company, but had to shed that old world structure to have any chance of survival. well... the kayaking company folded right, and the new buyer Bill Hearn who was bankrupt kept only the Waldies brand. Today, it is owned and run like a 21st century technology company and those survival chances have much improved. Structurally, the company carries little risk - it can profit from sales right away. From a synergistic standpoint, it has the right kind of partners to quickly broaden its technology. laser scanners? tech company Direct Dimensions. And from a manufacturing standpoint, it has finally established a quality beachhead on the right continent - Asia. This is the story of how a new brand finally found its way to the support structure it needed to survive.
Bill Hearn, the president of Effervescent Inc. (maker of the resurrected Waldies) comes from a modestly famous Maryland family of canoe and kayak enthusiasts. His brother competed in three Olympics and his sister competed in two, most recently coaching the Italian Olympic team in Athens. Bill himself competed in World Cups and World Championships events and spent a lot of his younger years training on an artificial kayaking course near the Pepco plant in Dickerson, as well as making runs near Great Falls and, more often, Little Falls, which is a section of the Potomac along the feeder canal near the DC line. Hearn grew up in Garrett Park, a stone’s throw from Kensington hey my world where another sportsman-turned-entrepreneur named Kevin Plank also can claim to run a company that originated a new breakout category of technical clothing. [which was what? "Under Armour" form-fitting, moisture-wicking performance apparel]