Altra Co-Founder Brian Beckstead on Brand Building and the All-New AltraFWD Experience

That's true, that's true. So tell me, for those who don't know—and I feel like most people know—tell me a little bit about Altra and your role in co-founding the company, maybe how it started, how the original vision for the brand.

Specialty, Golden's father owned a running store, so he obviously started working there when he was a kid. I started working there when I was 16 years old, and that was 25 years ago coming up now. So I've spent my whole life, my whole career in the running industry. It started at the back room of a running store. One of the things that was unique about our corner was our emphasis and focus on biomechanics. This was even in the early days; we started doing video analysis on full body biomechanics from a really early age. That passion in biomechanics after 15 years started leading to research and development at a university level. So we started putting a shoe into a toaster oven—you can still do this to this day if you put it at 275 degrees, wait for the glue to bubble, pull it out, and you can literally peel the shoe apart. That's what he did: took the shoe, basically put a flat foam Spenco piece, glued back the upper and the outsole, and just made it flat. He called me up and said, 'Dude Brian, you can never believe this idea I had.' So one thing leads to another, we start doing it to our own shoes, testing it ourselves, and then we started testing it on other people that were having issues. One of the things we found was that substantially fewer people were rolling their ankles, less on the trail. So it really started out from a zero drop standpoint. The other thing we even did previous to this for almost 10 years was we were skipping the laces on the tops of the shoe. Traditional shoes all have the laces; we would actually skip these bottom laces and go up widthwise, and that would give a bit more space. So those were the initial concepts: zero drop and foot shape. Being in our 20s and not having any money, we decided to give our ideas to the other shoe companies for free. As managers, we'd go to our sales rep and be like, 'We've been hacking off your shoes, making them flat. Would you make this?' Nobody listened to us, so we decided, 'Well, what would it take to do it ourselves?' That was the summer of 2009; we decided to start a shoe brand. So that's kind of the background there. From there, we got bought, launched the brand in 2011. If you want more details, by all means—sometimes I have to try to do this quickly.

Yeah, I mean, I think that change is always hard; change is inevitable. When we launched in 2011, we were still pretty broke. I mortgaged my dad's house to launch the shoe brand; we borrowed money from an angel investor. So we went through one acquisition through a company called Icon Health and Fitness, and that was kind of the first wake-up call: 'Oh, we've got bosses now, corporate ownership.' I think that really prepared me for a lot of that. I ended up becoming the president of the brand there, so I don't have a background in corporate finance. But being part of VF Corp, who owns brands like Vans, North Face, Timberland, Dickies, Smartwool, etc., I think that helped prepare me to understand the corporate world even though I don't have a background there. Ultimately, you have to be fiscally responsible, but at the same time, you also have to listen to the consumers. I think that's something that Altra has done pretty well: listening to feedback. That's not always easy. One of my favorite quotes is from Henry Ford: 'If I'd given people what they wanted, it would have been a faster horse.' So it's that balance of listening to consumers but also thinking ahead.

No, I mean, you're right though. We do have a very strong base, but at the same time, we also like challenging the norm. That's kind of who we've always been: a little against the grain. But we've also been very health-minded, and I think we're very conscious that our whole goal is that whole biomechanics, that alignment. When you get out of bed every day, that's what Altra means: it's a Latin word that means 'to change' or 'to fix.' It also has a tie to 'alternative.' It started with us altering shoes, so we've always had that grain. Being a little bit of a polarizing brand at times, you're going to get the haters and the people who absolutely love it. We call them 'Altra Maniacs.' Sometimes they're a little passionate—maybe that's the best word to use—quite vocal. But we always try to keep that traditional Altra product that they know and love, like a Lone Peak or an Escalante. But we also realize that as we want to grow as a brand, we need to expand who we are and what our initial principles are.

It's kind of odd to me, right? It's crazy, but it's fun. I'm glad we were able to bring something different. When you look back in 2009, when we were like, 'Hey, let's start a shoe brand,' the barefoot movement hadn't really gone crazy, definitely not the cushion movement either. Every shoe at the running store was a 12 to 14 mm drop; they all had the same toe box. It was all cushioning systems; the engineering was the exact same. So to be able to go against the grain and come out with something that needed to change—that's part of the whole process of starting a shoe that would fit you.

Right, we band-sawed the shoes—that's right—the 4-foot band saw, and then we belt-sanded the EVA midsole down. We found a shoe cobbler across the street who would do it for $20. So we were selling people these brand new shoes and saying, 'If you want, you could always try this.' And we had people do that in 2009; it was wild. It just spiraled; people were like, 'This is amazing.' There are certain draws, certain purposes in life, and there was definitely this draw that we had to do this. If no other brand was going to do it, we were morally obligated. We felt like there was a wave of something we created. Obviously, as a brand, we've expanded. We launched 12 years ago, and we have a huge offering now. We launched with a road shoe—people think we're a trail brand, but our first shoe was a road shoe called the Instinct. We launched the Lone Peak shortly thereafter. Now, I'll tell you something about the Instinct: I'm going to jump in here real quick. On the flight to run the Arizona Marathon, Jeremy Howlett sent me the shoe because I said I didn't like the color. He said, 'You think you can do better?' I said, 'Send me the Illustrator file and let me play around with it.' He sent me the file. Back then, there weren't a lot of colors in shoes; Newton was the only one really playing around with colors. I remember sending him the Illustrator file with the colors I thought would be cool, and I never heard from him again. So I was like, 'Okay.' I have no design experience; that's not my forte. I'm so glad for the poor colorists—it's got to be a rough gig.

We've really focused on design and feel. How do we evolve that? How do we modernize it? How do we get the design language right, the colors right? We've made a lot of mistakes over the years, but we have continually gotten better. I think in recent years you've seen a really good jump in terms of both design and colors. We've got a really great team.

Okay, might as well roll into it. So let's talk about the new shoe that's coming out; it's a big deal for you and for the brand as a whole. We've seen some other brands like Topo Athletic taking a foothold in that zero drop, 4 to 5 millimeter range. This is a low drop, 4mm drop shoe. First of all, this is not something new that VF has forced us into. This is something we have talked about for 10 years. Since launching the brand, I've heard, 'Oh man, I love the toe box, I just can't do zero drop.' For whatever reason, they just aren't comfortable; they tried it and it didn't work. So we've heard this for years and years. We have prototypes from eight or nine years ago of insoles where you could take the wedge off to go from a 6mm drop to a 3mm drop to a zero drop. We have designs from years ago, even patents on drop shoes. We've taken our time, and I think we have a really cool shoe coming out. If you're an Altra loyalist, that's fine; the shoe's not for you. We still have all those same shoes; it's not taking away from anything Altra is doing historically. But it definitely adds a whole new consumer base that likes a lot of what Altra brings to the table but wants a little bit different experience. That's kind of what we're talking about with the shoe name: when you try it on, you're going to see why it's called that. It definitely has more of that rockered fit as well, where Altra historically has not had a lot of drop.

Do you feel that this shoe, and maybe some of the shoes you're going to have coming into the line with more of that rocker shape, are going to be conducive to people who don't have the strength in a zero drop shoe to really push the pace? Maybe these rocker shapes will help them roll through the stride a little more easily. Absolutely. This shoe, with such a low drop and that foot-shaped toe box, flows really nicely; it's a really smooth ride. We're excited about it. I don't think it feels like other 4mm drop shoes either; it's a really cool experience. When people try it on, they're going to realize, 'Oh wow, this is cool.' In all of our shoes, when we talk about a rocker, the midsole just gets thinner. For those who aren't fully familiar, this shoe has that rocker. It definitely feels a lot like our racing shoe, the Vanish Carbon. What we did with the Vanish Carbon was move the zero drop spot just a little bit back so it rockered a little earlier and more aggressively. We've done that with this shoe and then added 4mm. It does have a really nice wide, stable base as well, so even though it's incredibly light, it's surprisingly stable. I'm excited for it. Again, I love my Altra, so I don't know how often I'll end up using this shoe; it's not really made for me. But it's definitely made for a consumer that likes that feel, and also it's a little more fashion-forward.

Toe spring and toe vamp are two different things; they're correlated but not the exact same. Toe vamp is where the midsole gets thinner, so the toe is still going to be in the same area. Toe spring is where you rocker the forefoot up, and you do that in the last. So toe spring is on the inside, toe vamp is on the outside. This shoe has a little bit more than some, but it's not as much toe spring as a lot of brands out there. We still feel like it has more of that healthy, natural foot base, but it is more aggressive in the toe vamp, which is that midsole getting thinner. That's the subtle difference between toe spring and toe vamp. This has a little bit more of both than, say, a Torin, which is a fairly comparable model. The idea behind that is to create a faster transition off the palm of your foot. It's going to really roll you forward. That's why we called the shoe the Forward Experience; you feel that forward motion. In an Escalante, you do that with more flexibility and the low profile shoe; you're able to do that more with the foot. This shoe is going to take a new consumer that Altra currently doesn't have.

It's a good question. I think a lot of it is just going to come out organically. You kind of alluded to it earlier: 'Wow, this is a big deal.' So I think there's going to be a lot of word that spreads organically. I'm hoping that our Altra loyalists don't get too upset; I don't know why they would. But maybe that word is going to spread. I think retailers are really excited about it. We've sold this in really aggressively to our retailer partners, and they are very excited about it. So I don't think we're going to have to do a ton of communication. Another thing we're doing that is unique, and we're not really marketing it a ton, but we are talking about it internally and you'll see that as we go externally in the near future: we're talking about shoes now in terms of what the customer is looking for. Instead of light cushion, max cushion, pronation, neutral, road, and trail, we're going away from a lot of those in the way we build our shoe lines. We're building it in terms of what the customer is looking for. We have a 'float' category, which is your Olympus, your Torin, your Rivera—a little higher cushion but still zero drop, foot shape. Then we have our 'forward' category, which of course is going to be the Forward Experience, and we're also putting the Via Olympus in that category even though it's still zero drop, because it does have a more aggressive rockered forefoot; you feel that forward experience in the Via Olympus, which is behind your left shoulder there. That's going to be in our forward category. And then, holding to the alliteration, 'fast' is your M Blancs and your Vanish Carbons. So we're trying to express the way we talk about our shoes in terms of a more emotional base. It's not quite like that; we've changed the way the outsole works, we've changed the rocker, the drop, but it still has foot-shaped fit, so it's going to fit like a Torin would. That's how we're communicating it. Obviously, we're going to market accordingly, but we're going to rely on word of mouth and just allowing people to try it on for themselves and feel the difference.

I don't think we have limits on it, but I do think we want to stay focused. I don't think this is going to replace or distract us. I think we're still very committed to our foot-shaped toe box and our zero drop. Adding a few shoes with 4mm drop is kind of where we're heading right now. I don't see it expanding totally crazy; I think it's going to be a small line of shoes that meets a consumer demand and interest that frankly Altra has had for 10 years. It's like, 'About time we responded to those requests.' So I don't think it's going to get crazy; I don't think we're making a whole ton of shoes there. We don't have plans for that, but I do think there will be some nice additions to this line in the coming years. I think it's just going to be complimentary to what we're already doing, and I'm really excited about it.

Well, it's the shoe that not a lot of people have tried, but we have a shoe called the Vanish Tempo, our non-carbon racer. It feels like a training version of that, which is very much going to be the closest shoe we have. It might feel like a Rivera, which is kind of the lighter, faster version of the Torin. So it kind of fits in that window. It's definitely going to be a little bit of a faster shoe.

Yeah, I think obviously our athletes are very much integrated into our prototyping and testing. They worked really hard with us on both our M Blanc trail shoes and the Vanish shoes. This shoe was not built for the athletes; obviously, we had a few requests for that. There are also athletes that have said, 'Oh, I would love Altra, I just can't do zero drop.' We've had those discussions. We feel really confident that our purpose statement—which was kind of cool after VF bought us, almost exactly four years ago—we all sat down, the old Altra and the new people coming in, for two days and wrote a mission statement. After two days of arguing every single word, our mission statement came out, and I'm really proud of that. It fits our initial concept, meets who we are, and I think it will match who we are in the future. It's 'unleashing human potential.' 'Unleashing' is like something's almost holding you back; it's new, it's fresh. We're unleashing human potential, and we're doing that by inspiring the world to move naturally. We feel like this shoe is a much more natural way of helping people move more naturally than almost any other brand out there. We still have shoes that might do it more naturally, but we already have those shoes. So I feel like this still is within our purpose statement; it still matches who we are. It still has that traditional Altra foot-shaped toe box with that extra splay. We've had all those discussions, and it's just the right time. Our consumers are interested in it. It branches us out, and it looks good; it's definitely a little more fashion-forward too, so I think that's going to be nice.

Yeah, I absolutely do. I think you see it in everything from our employees to our fans, our little fans to our athletes. There is this sense of, 'Hey, we're this because we believe in natural alignment and natural motion.' I think that's really part of our DNA. It starts obviously with the founders, and I believe it has trickled down to employees, athletes, consumers—almost annoyingly so sometimes. But at the same time, it is who we are. I always say, 'Let's unashamedly be Altra.'

Yeah, I think one thing is more carbon. We're really excited; we have a carbon trail shoe coming out early in 2024. We have some updated road shoes with carbon plates. You're also seeing us continue the quest for more colors; I think you're going to see more color options from Altra. You're going to see us continue to push out some vibrancy but also just having more options. The foam story is in a galaxy different than it was 10 years ago. Basic EVA just won't cut it anymore. There are some really cool super foam stories that we're going to be able to tell next year that you'll learn more about. We're really excited about some updates there.

It is very difficult. You have to evolve that compound, and it's very competitive out there. Luckily, there are a lot of options. A lot of it is trying to see, 'Oh, let's get all these new foams.' Then you see all these price increases because of that. One thing with Altra that we're really proud about is that you get caught up in having to get these new technologies, and you don't have time to negotiate prices because you couldn't go over to China to the factories. So what we've done is we've said, 'Hey, let's get the best quality foam and let's do it for a better price.' You're going to see across the board a $10 price drop in almost every single Altra shoe in the next year. So where the Lone Peak was $150, we're bringing it down to $140. We'll still have those high-price shoes, but we're seeing that get almost out of control. We're actually taking a personal stand and saying, 'Hey, we don't need the shoes to be that much. We can still get a really great shoe for $130; we don't need to charge $150 for it.' So that's where the foam story comes into play. We're going to have $250 shoes with foam stories that are out of this world amazing, but we also want to make sure you can get a really great quality shoe at a $140 price point. That's also exciting about the foam stories: the quality of foam across the board is just better now.

Yep, so the carbon—we've experimented on all sorts of carbon plates. Our initial carbon did have flex grooves in it, so we felt it was more flexible on those toes, took a little bit of pressure off the metatarsals. We also now have a testing lab; we have a full-time biomechanist who does testing for us. We're really excited that we are taking our testing to a level that only Gold and I dreamed about 10 years ago. Some of the stuff we're doing with carbon is really exciting. What a lot of people don't realize with carbon is it's not just the carbon plate that works; it's the carbon plate combined with foam. We have a trail carbon shoe coming out in March 2024, and they have been tested. We are stoked. You'll see that in Austin, Texas at The Running Event. It's really cool stuff we have coming out there. It's always hard trying to find that balance, and I'm really proud of what we have coming out in the near future.

Yeah, for sure. I'll be there. Cool. All right, we'll set up an appointment, and I'll run the shoes to you personally.

Yeah, some of it is purposeful. I will tell you the through-hikers—that was a complete accident, the happiest accident we ever had. We did not plan for that; we did not advertise. That was just something that happened organically. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose on those. We're really excited about the hiking community. We've expanded those offerings now to include some more casual and lifestyle offerings without losing focus on our health-based performance brand. We now offer Gore-Tex hiking shoes with leather uppers in the hiking models. But a lot of it is accidental. The consumer, as much as we like to think we can dictate to them what they want, people get to choose, and so often it just happens organically.

You know, we mentioned it earlier: acquisitions are really hard. You change warehouses, complete operating systems, and then you're trying to fulfill orders on time, and there are mistakes. Then you have to get the invoice and the legal teams in sync. It is very, very difficult. We got acquired in 2011 by Icon, and then in late 2018 by VF Corp. Those acquisitions are just so hard.

Yeah, we had a bad batch where the soles were coming unglued a little bit. It was so frustrating. Anything that shipped after that first batch, we fixed the problem, but there was still that early batch out there causing problems. Even when you fix an issue on a shoe, it lives with you for a long time. Especially if it's your company that you founded, you feel like it's personal. It's hard too because now I work remote; I'm not even at the head offices anymore. I do primarily PR and some strategic projects for the brand. I'm still on the senior leadership team, but I'm not involved day-to-day. So I get hate mail and stuff, and you have to kind of just... seriously, I do. I've also been able to separate because we have gotten through these acquisitions. I am far less involved; I still have a lot of influence being on the senior leadership team, but it's not everything. But man, people blame me for everything. I just laugh at it now. We're not the only brand over the years that has had factory shifts and quality issues. I will say that this last 12 months, it's been a massive emphasis for us. I think our new shoes that we've launched this year—shoes like the Torin 7, the Paradigm 7, the Superior 6—we have not had any major quality issues there. I think the stuff we have coming out early next year—Lone Peak 8, Timp 5—we've addressed a lot of those challenges. I am so confident that our quality is going to go substantially up and will be at an all-time high next year. It's been a huge focus for us as a brand.

We try to minimize inline changes unless it's an actual defective issue. Those are very minimal. Sometimes, you know, our Via Olympus came out a little firmer than we expected. The new one comes out November 1st, Via Olympus 2, and guess what? It's going to be softer. We've focused so much on that. A lot of that came out of COVID too; we weren't able to do as much QC as we wanted. We have new factories, a new ownership group, a ton of new employees, and we couldn't work the factory. It was unfortunately a perfect storm for that. I think we did pretty solid, and we're coming out of it stronger and better, refocused. I can't emphasize it enough: this is a huge focus for us.

It is a cost thing for a lot of things. Some of it is taxes, particularly in Europe; the taxes are much lower coming out of Vietnam. Obviously, the factories are a little political, a little taxation, all costing. Most of the factories in Vietnam are Taiwanese or Chinese owned, so it's the same factory group we were building with. It's the same ownership group. A lot of these started in Taiwan; Taiwan used to be the shoe headquarters. Then the Taiwanese went and bought land and factories cheaply in China. But then China modernized and grew, and now it's gone to Vietnam. So a lot of the factories are actually Taiwanese owned, but built in China, now built in Vietnam, always Taiwanese owned. It's really interesting, the footwear world.

Cool. So have you gone over and been to Vietnam? Have you fly fished in Vietnam? I've not, no. I would love to go fishing. I want to go to Thailand; there's some really cool fly fishing over in Thailand. But right now, I've been focusing my fly fishing in South America; that's been my latest thing.

It's like running: you have to have eight pairs of running shorts because you don't do laundry enough, then you need a rain jacket. It's cheaper than cycling. Running theoretically should be cheap. You could do fly fishing cheap; it's just hobbies that have an addictive quality. Fly fishing and running are positive addictions, but unfortunately, addictions kind of spiral. So it's very difficult to do fly fishing cheaply. You can do it, but it's very difficult. It just seems like one of those hobbies that is endless. The amount of gear—tying the hatches—there's no end.

Well, you can always—this is how dorky I am—I always have a little entrepreneurial spirit. You can check it out at payara.com. I've become obsessed with a species called payara. They are really awesome. They're a good fish to eat as well; they're delicious, a little bony, but smoke them. My biggest is 33 pounds, almost 4 feet long. They get massive, and they're really cool. It's just a fun hobby I have.

Oh yeah, they eat things. They demolish fish. It's kind of like a piranha feeding frenzy, but these things go after much bigger species. They are gnarly. Very functional; they're like a saber-toothed tiger. They just nail stuff. It's fun.

Very different. The Orinoco River is the third largest river in the world by volume, and no one goes there. They all go to the Amazon. It's still similar; it's all part of the Amazon basin, Amazon jungle. But the payara live in a different type of water and in a different river system. They are found almost exclusively in the Orinoco River Basin and its tributaries. It's become a passion of mine these last several years. It's fun. I find myself running less 100-milers at this point; I just don't want to run any more 100-milers. I'm in my 40s now, so I think fly fishing has replaced a lot of that. I still run a lot, just five and 10 mile trail runs instead of 100 mile trail runs.

They have that. Look it up; it's called the Flyathlon. They actually—and again, I do that too. I don't do the race, but when I was starting Altra and growing, I was training for ultramarathons. I have three young kids that were babies at the time, and I love fishing. So I would actually take an eight-piece little fly rod and run up 10 or 15 miles into the mountains, fish for 4 hours, catch all these amazing fish, and run out. I call it 'run fishing.' There is one in Colorado; I haven't done one of their events. They've been trying to get me to sponsor it, and I probably should. But I live in Utah, and it's like driving 10 hours to do a race where I can just drive an hour and get a similar experience. I haven't done it. They have one in Idaho as well, I believe, and several events in Colorado primarily. I can't remember all of them; they have a little different rules. I think one of them you have to chug a beer to be an official finisher. It's based on the size of fish versus how many species you catch versus how fast you are. It looks cool. I want to go out and do one of those Flyathlon races one of these days.

Yeah, you can go up in three hours and catch 50 fish. They're mostly small, high alpine little brook trout or cutthroat trout or some tiger trout, but man, it's so much fun.

Well, come join me if you're ever out in Salt Lake. I'll take you, show you the ropes, show you how to do it. It's fun.

Yeah, we'll see you in December for sure at The Running Event. And hey, thanks.