Meet Kelsie Loy | Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelsie Loy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelsie, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Initially we started making homemade baby shoes for our own children after not being able to find what we wanted in the stored. We struggled to find high quality shoes that were not too heavy or constricting to natural foot growth and better for their foot development and were soft sole. The soft sole shoes we did find had limited styles and sizing and were still not ideal for a busy walking toddler. We were stopped countless times by people asking where we had purchased the boots or shoes our children were wearing because they had never seen anything like them. This led to us seeing the need in our community for an unmet demand. We started making them for friends and family and expanded from there with that publicity after word of mouth had really grown our small hobby. We loved the idea of being able to do something we loved while still being able to work from home and raise our children. We spent a lot of time educating ourselves on why soft sole shoes are so important for new walkers and young children and decided to grow our business with the idea of upcycling leathers, and repurposing materials to create functional shoes with less waste that were better for baby’s feet. We focused on building a strong community on social media where we were able to really connect with parents while sharing our products and educating them on the importance of the proper footwear while building strong friendships with trust with our customers.

What should our readers know about your business?
We are one of very few small shops in the US that make baby shoes all by hand. We cut each pair out by hand and sew them all ourselves. Nothing we sell is manufactured or mass produced, and everything is done in small batches, making them all very unique and customizable. By doing this we have been able to help so many kids find shoes that wouldn’t have been able to without them having to spend a fortune. We can create custom fits for kids with ankle braces or supports, kids with sensory sensitivities, and extra wide. We launched our business a year before covid happened and although it could have been a really hard time to start a business, we were still able to grow 600% the first year of covid. We focused on community and working with local shops in Michigan and offering wholesale while trying to grow our e-commerce retail website. We really focused on creating a strong base of customers that were loyal and built friendships that have lasted for years. We started a private Facebook page for our customers where we did several fundraisers to give back to the community and collaborated with other shops to launch collections together and connect with our customers in a more meaningful way rather than just selling them a product. To us, this has become like a family, and we love having a company that is more than just its products it sells. We have had to face some hardships such as managing growth while still making everything by hand and not turning to manufacturing. We have been lucky enough to keep everything within the family and there are now three of us sisters all working together to run the shop and still making everything by hand.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We love our little town of Rockford! We always love starting the day in downtown Rockford at the tea shop or one of two great coffee shops and just taking a walk along the dam and the river. There are so many great restaurants to check out but one of our favorite lunch or dinner spots is third nature brewery. We also love Bostwick Lake inn, blue water grill and the toasted pickle. Some of our favorite places to visit are of course lake Michigan, the beaches aren’t to be missed! We love the public and art museum, and, in the summer, Meijer gardens has concert’s most nights and is a great place to spend the day and grab lunch. There are some fun local farms that offer fruit picking and summer fun that we love to take the kids to and catching a baseball game at the ball park!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We want to thank our friends and families for supporting our dreams and always sharing our products with others to help us grow. We also want to thank all the small businesses in the area that have carried our product at one point or another that helped with our brand awareness and gave us a chance!

Website: www.gwendols.com

Instagram: gwendols.shop

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=gwendols