Simply 15 years in the past On was a brand new entrant in a sports activities shoe market full of a number of well-established rivals: Nike, Adidask, and Hoka. However the firm’s novel sneakers—identifiable with their base that appears like a layer of hole pebbles—gained hearts as extra sports activities fans found them.
As we speak, the Swiss firm reached a document excessive in gross sales, value over $700 million, throughout its third quarter of 2024 and is continuous to rethink each side of how athletic sneakers are made.
Historically, sneakers are an elaborate stitchwork and a number of other hours of human labor. However, earlier this yr, On did one thing that might shake up age-old shoemaking developments. It debuted a shoe made in three minutes by spraying cloth materials onto a foot mildew with the assistance of a robotic arm. Oh, and it doesn’t have laces, both.
Take a second to course of that.
On’s cofounder, David Allemann, credit the Zurich-based firm’s success and talent to attract individuals in a market full of brand-loyal consumers to one thing comparatively easy.
“On is basically this innovation model that’s about radical innovation the place it’s important to go for loopy,” he instructed Fortune in an interview held on the sidelines of the Enterprise of Trend convention this week.
The start set the tone: Olivier Bernhard, one in all On’s co-founders, first pitched his associates on a shoe with hosepipe items on the sole for extra cushioning, which impressed its CloudTec design.
About 4 years in the past, On encountered Johannes Voelchert, a pupil presenting a Halloween-esque sizzling glue spray that made faux cobwebs to create new merchandise on the Milan Design Week.
“We stated, hey, sounds loopy. Let’s do it,” Allemann stated. And so, On introduced Voelchert on board and gave him the time and funding to develop his concept and check it at a bigger scale.
The product received a vote of confidence when Hellen Obiri, a Kenyan athlete, gained the Boston Marathon and Paris Olympics with On’s LightSpray shoe.
“We had a hunch [that] it is a very previous business by way of the way you manufacture footwear,” stated Allemann, including that sneakers had been in the end meant to ship efficiency. With a seamless exterior, On’s latest shoe can also be a lot lighter.
“Everybody can also be excited as a result of it simplifies extraordinarily all of the manufacturing course of, so that you don’t need to ship components round. You might finally additionally do near-shoring. So, there may be a number of promise.”
The spray-on sneakers at the moment are accessible at some On shops, costing simply over $300 a pop. However they’re solely accessible in restricted portions, creating a brand new hurdle for On earlier than it may possibly really declare the shoe a breakthrough.
Allemann stated that On has “a number of work to scale” its new spray expertise, primarily as a result of fewer robotic arms can be found. How runners reply to and use the brand new shoe will inform On’s capability to construct on its innovation.
Selecting On
Based on Allemann, who labored at a furnishings design model and consulted earlier than founding On, individuals gravitated to the Zurich-based model organically—with little intervention. Though headquartered in Switzerland, the corporate has had a worldwide mindset since day one, because it will get two-thirds of its enterprise from the U.S.
When the corporate received tennis legend Roger Federer to again On in 2019, it was after they observed him sporting On gear. The partnership flourished quickly as Federer invested an undisclosed quantity for a 3% stake within the firm.
Within the case of Obiri, who noticed latest success with On’s newest innovation, the corporate gave her the sneakers for coaching runs however then opted to run her races with it.
Signing On’s new model ambassador, Zendaya, was additionally serendipitous. She first chanced upon its sneakers whereas filming for “Challengers” and was hooked on them afterward.
“We’ve been a discovering model from the beginning. So we didn’t have a number of advertising and marketing cash,” stated Allemann. “It’s been very a lot a word-of-mouth motion.”
That may appear old-school, but it surely’s labored. There’s additionally been no dearth of collaborations, together with one which On launched with Loewe, an LVMH-owned high-fashion model.
