Designing shoes for women's feet with Wes and Allyson Felix of Saysh (2023)

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Allyson Felix is the most decorated American track and field athlete of all time. She’s also a mother. Those two identities came into conflict in 2018 when negotiating a contract renewal with her shoe sponsor, Nike.

Ultimately, Allyson broke ties with Nike because the new contract presented a significant pay cut and lacked adequate maternal protections. After struggling to find a new shoe sponsor, Allyson and her brother/agent, Wes, decided to take matters into their own hands and start their own shoe company, Saysh.

This week on How I Built This Lab, Allyson and Wes talk with Guy about their journey to the top of the track and field world, the decision to leave Nike, and how they built the iconic shoe that Allyson wore during her gold medal performance at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Plus, why most name brand shoes aren’t designed for women’s feet, and how Saysh is working to change that.

This episode was produced by Chris Maccini, with music by Ramtin Arablouei.

Edited by John Isabella, with research help from Lauren Landau Einhorn.

Our audio engineer was Alex Drewenskus.

You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram, and email us at [email protected].

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to how I built this early and ad free right now.
0:05.0	Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery App or on Apple Podcasts.
0:10.0	If you need to hire, you need Indeed.
0:13.0	Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors,
0:20.0	according to Indeed Data, and matching technology that helps you find quality candidates fast.
0:25.1	Ditch, the busy work, use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging
0:30.0	so you can connect with candidates faster.
0:33.3	And indeed doesn't just help you hire faster, 75% of employers claim indeed delivers the highest
0:40.0	quality matches compared to other online job sites.
0:44.2	And listeners of this show will get a 100 pound sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility
0:51.5	at indeed.com slash how I built.
0:55.0	Indeed.com slash how I built.
0:58.0	Terms and conditions apply.
1:00.0	Need to hire? You need, indeed.
1:03.0	This episode is brought to you by Pipe Drive, the easy and effective CRM for closing more deals
1:09.6	and driving small business growth. New Year, new targets. Pipe drive allows you to
1:14.9	automate your sales process so you can focus on your other business priorities
1:20.0	in 2024. With Pipe Drive you can stay on top of your sales activities so you never miss a follow-up.
1:27.0	So sign up today and get a special 60-day free trial now at Pipe Drive.com with the code built. Terms and conditions apply.
1:36.0	Hey it's Guy here so our team is taking some well-deserved time off during the holidays
1:41.0	we'll be back in the new year with a bunch of
1:43.3	brand new episodes of how I built this and how I built this lab and let me just say we
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Guy Raz | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Raz | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.