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Shiekh Shoes – From Humble Beginnings to a Shoe Empire
By Zulfiqar Rashid
San Diego, CA

A young boy from Sialkot, Pakistan, comes to America and lands in South Carolina. The beginnings are humble, but the foundations laid down by the parents are strong – education, resilience, and self-sufficiency are rooted in in the character of Shiekh Elahi and his brothers.

In the army training camp in South Carolina, he is the only ‘brown’ person in the squad. Not having had enough English in Pakistan is an obstacle in simple, everyday communication. Not to mention the drill sergeant who has a thick southern accent, makes the language sound even more foreign than it is to the ears of the Pakistani newbie. The sergeant, of course, assumes that the 17-year-old boy is just not smart enough, so he promptly, and regularly reminds Shiekh of just how dumb he is. Thankfully, Shiekh’s skin is just too thick, and he laughs it all off, eventually completing the two- month long boot-camp and becoming a medic.

As part of completing his four-year commitment to the Army in return for them paying for his education, Shiekh spends time in San Antonio, Texas, the Army base in Oakland, California, and then at the Presidio in San Francisco, California, as a medic. Fortunately, his older brother is a police officer in the city, and Shiekh finds housing in the garage of his brother’s small house, where his brother lives with his new family, along with their mother.

Shiekh is dissatisfied with where he is in life, and wants to do something, anything, to move forward, and not feel like a burden on his brother. One day, walking through a mall, he sees a job sign in the large glass window of a Leads shoe store, which was owned by Edison Brothers, Inc. He walks in and asks the first person he sees how he can apply for the job. The job is for a salesperson at the front of the store, and you are not the right person to deal with customers, he is told. He insists and is instead offered a job in the stock room, stocking shoes, away from customers. Shiekh takes the job. He puts his heart and soul into his work. Six months later, he is promoted to be a salesperson in the front of the store. He deals with customers, and within a year, becomes the top-selling salesperson in the store.

His hard work, humility and focus on customers do not go unnoticed. The company is opening a new store in Reno, and he is asked if he would be interested in setting up and running the store for a few months. He immediately says yes. The manager is surprised that he does not ask for any details of the job or associated compensation. Sheikh’s rationale for not doing so – is the job better than the one I have now? Yes. Is this an opportunity to grow further with the company? Yes. Then what more do I need to ask? Of course, the salary was better, and the expenses were all paid for. So, he actually does better financially for the next few years by becoming the go-to-guy whenever the company opened a new store anywhere in the country. Shiekh gets to travel and has a taste of almost one-third of the US states. Within a couple of years, he is a rising star in the company. All through this time, he never negotiates on the salaries or perks of his new assignments. They are always better than for his last assignment, and he sees more value in the learning and growth he is experiencing.

I asked Shiekh specifically why he did not try to negotiate his raise. His answer was simple. The few thousand dollars I may have been able to negotiate the first time I was asked, would have left a bitter taste for my manager and company, and they probably would not have asked me to do the same thing over and over again. He views this decision as a pivotal one in his story, and an underpinning principle of his success – know when to negotiate, and when you do, negotiate hard.

Just like it happened many years ago, the next chapter in Shiekh’s life comes around when he is walking around a mall. He sees a ‘Store For Sale’ sign on a Doumitt Shoe Store. Shiekh walks in and talks to the owner, an older gentleman, who wants to get out since his son does not want to take over the business. Shiekh recognizes that while he had been around the shoe business for many years, he does not really know how to actually run a shoe store. But he is intrigued by the idea. He convinces the owner to take him on as a partner so he can learn the business and make it successful. At some point in the future, the old man could sell his portion to Shiekh and retire. The next problem is finding the $45,000 Shiekh needs to put into the business. He is finally able to put it together from his own savings, and loans from his family. He still vividly remembers the three hundred dollars his mother left on a chair for him.

But now what? He still has his job. He knows he will not be able to focus on a new venture and work full-time. So, he goes to his manager, and shares his plans. His manager advises him against it – after all, Shiekh is very well-positioned in the company. Why would he want to throw it all away? Shiekh asks him one question – if I try this, and it does not work, will you give me back my job in six months? The manager says yes.

For Shiekh, this was another pivotal moment in his entrepreneurial life. If his manager had said he would not give him his job back, according his Shiekh, he would most likely have stayed with the company. While there was a clear risk, financially and professionally, in attempting this new venture, he had a fail-safe.

For the next few years, Shiekh focuses on learning the shoe business as an owner and puts all his time and effort into growing the business with more locations. He eventually buys out the old owner once he can no longer tolerate the discrepancy between the effort he is putting in, and the return he is getting out of the now multi-location business, as compared to what his business partner is putting in and getting out. The separation negotiations are hard, with lawyers involved from both sides. Ultimately Shiekh wins, owning the entire business.

The new company is named Shiekh Shoes, with a swooping Falcon as the symbol and mascot.

With sole control over the business, Shiekh grows it to over a hundred locations in malls across the country. An empire is born.

On the personal side, Shiekh and his wife Brenda, who converted to Islam after 20 years of marriage, have been trying to have children, but God had other plans, as Shiekh told me. Brenda suffers miscarriages, and when they try conceiving through a surrogate, the result is the same. But in their heart of hearts, they want to have more children. They meet again with a surrogacy counselor. The counselor suggests that they should try to have a couple of surrogates conceive simultaneously. It seems like a reasonable suggestion. When the couple goes to select the surrogates, there are ten young women to choose from. Brenda and Shiekh select not two, but eight of them. Six of them are able to bring children to term. Within a year, Brenda and Shiekh, who had been pinning for more children, are the proud parents of ten boys – a set triplets, two sets of twins, three additional boys, and a daughter.

Around the same time, Shiekh has the opportunity of buying the Athelete’s Foot chain of 40 stores. He negotiates and takes ownership of the chain. It does not end well.

By Shiekh’s own admission, it was one of the best learning experiences in his entrepreneurial life. He attributes the demise of the chain, which he had to close out as part of the settlement with creditors, along with about 30 of his own Shiekh locations, to one critical factor – he did not do his homework on the opportunity as diligently as he normally would. He did not visit the locations or get as good an understanding of the supply chain dynamics of that business as he had of his core business. Of course, there were other factors, some outside of his control, but as is common in many successful entrepreneurs, he looked at himself first for the root cause of any setbacks. One of the good things that came out of the experience, from Shiekh’s perspective, is that if the Athelete’s Foot venture had been successful, he would simply not have been able to balance his life between his now very large family, and his work. So, he views the Athelete’s Foot experience as a blessing in disguise.

The same experience forced Shiekh to look at diversification. Over the last couple of years, Shiekh Shoes has additional brands, and he is focused on transforming his company into an omni-channel lifestyle business. He owns vnds.com – a platform for trading sneakers online, a burgeoning industry driven by millennial and gen-Z customers, which competes with online exchanges like Stockx.com and Goat.com. He also owns karmaloop.com, an online urban clothing and lifestyle retailer.

All this is while managing the controlled growth of about 80 Shiekh Shoes locations across the country. The online presence of the core business is also being expanded into an online retail presence where personal stylists will select and recommend entire outfits for men and women, which are delivered to the consumer as part of the monthly subscription fee. The transformation is necessary to stay competitive, as the entire retail landscape, both on-line and brick-and-mortar, undergoes a seismic re-invention, driven by Amazon, Walmart, Target and other big-box retailers.

Oh, and once a quarter, Shiekh runs a community center, called NEXT, in partnership with the City of Compton, a la ‘The Voice’. The program gives the youth of Compton, regardless of race, religion, or gender, an opportunity to showcase their musical talent. For the finalists, the prize is a recording contract with Shiekh’s label, and access to a professional recording studio for a shot at the next platinum album.

For the next generation of entrepreneurs, there is a lot to learn here.

Successful entrepreneurs often share key principles, traits or mental models. In Shiekh’s case, they are:

Invest in something and stick to it / Work hard on the task at hand

For Shiekh, this is the base, the foundation. Don’t wait for ‘that’ job or ‘that’ title to put forth your best effort. Do your best at whatever is in front of you. The rest will come.

Have a clear goal, and do not be shy/embarrassed of your goal

At the start, Shiekh was unabashedly open about his goal of being rich. Now, his focus in growing his business and sharing his experience and blessings with others.

Connect the dots

You must have the ability to look around and see connections others may not. To do this, you have to know your environment and space very well. That only comes from hard work, and continuous learning.

Take every opportunity in front of you, thoughtfully

We’ve all heard it – the larger the risk, the larger the reward. So, take a risk, but do your research. Be thoughtful.

Find the opportunity in the chaos

There will be failures. They are never as bad as they seem to be. The important thing is how you face them, and how you keep your resolve. There is invariably something to be gained, especially during turbulences.

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