The owners of an Ottawa-based barefoot shoe company are looking for investment to bring the business to the next stage of growth. Last year, Meryl Baker and her husband, co-owners of Nunorm barefoot shoes, occupied the Stackt business accelerator pop-up in the ByWard Market to increase visibility for their new brand, which features shoes with […]
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The owners of an Ottawa-based barefoot shoe company are looking for investment to bring the business to the next stage of growth.
Last year, Meryl Baker and her husband, co-owners of Nunorm barefoot shoes, occupied the Stackt business accelerator pop-up in the ByWard Market to increase visibility for their new brand, which features shoes with a wider toebox, less cushioning on the sole and a “zero drop” design, allowing feet to move as if the person were barefoot.
“It was a really great experience for us to get our shoes on people’s feet and speak in person with them. The experience was just really amazing to learn more about what people wanted in their shoes (and to see) how they moved and felt in our shoes,” Baker told OBJ this week.
At that time, the brand was taking baby steps after having raised $90,000 on Kickstarter and amassing about 1,000 customers across 15 countries. Now, a little over a year later, Baker said Nunorm is in “a completely different stage,” and is growing to include the couple’s previous foot health business Spacer Mobility.
“We’ve continued to grow Nunorm. We’ve expanded distribution internationally. We’ve continued to grow Spacer Mobility and we’re starting to really bring the brands together into a larger foot health ecosystem.”
Baker said each brand is solving a different part of the same problem, so it made sense to pitch them to investors as one entity.
Last year, the pair wanted to turn a profit by the end of 2025. This week, Baker said they’d reached their goal.
“We are at 15 per cent net profit, which is really great. We’re just continuing to grow from there. We’re in eight markets now in Asia, as well as available across the U.S. and Canada and really looking to grow our retail and distribution footprint.”
However, to reach their goals, they need additional investment. So they decided to try their luck on CBC’s Dragons’ Den.
“We’re hoping to get the right strategic investment for our business. We’re sort of at an inflection point where we’ve proven that we can build two businesses and we’ve never taken outside investment for either brand. But now it’s about retail expansion, distribution, marketing and all of that requires investment to accelerate its growth,” Baker explained.
With their appearance airing next week, Baker was mum on whether they secured investment, but said they will continue to search for investors even if the Dragons say no.
“We need to (find investors) at this point for us to be able to compete in the market and really accelerate. But we are going to continue operating like a bootstrapped business. I think it’s made us very resourceful and it taught us how to spend and where to spend,” she added.
With investment, Baker said they will continue to work on goals they set last year and focus on new benchmarks of success.
“Last year, we did about $2 million in revenue. We’re looking to do about three to four (million) this year,” she said, adding that they’re looking to grow Nunorm’s retail presence across Canada.
While the couple now lives in Vancouver, Baker said their businesses will remain Ottawa-based.
“Ottawa is still home to us. Our warehouse is there. We developed Nunorm there and the biggest part of our growth has been there. We’ve only been in Vancouver for about a year, but we often come back to visit our retailers. It will always be a big part of our story.”
