How a Utah startup is changing the shoe industry

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah entrepreneur Mike Pratt was putting on his shoes one day — using his finger as a shoe horn — when he decided there had to be a better way.

"That's kind of Mike's motto," said Craig Cheney, chief innovation officer for Kizik shoes.

"He's like, 'We have to solve this. We have to figure out a way to get shoes on without touching them,'" Cheney said.

After "hundreds and hundreds of prototypes," Cheney said, the better way turned out to be a shoe with a collapsible heel, allowing the wearer to step into the shoe hands-free. After trying mechanical solutions, including springs and gears, the innovators settled on a nanomaterial that allowed the heel to twist and bend without deforming. The first patents were filed in 2014, and Kizik's initial product line was launched in 2017.

The hands-free tech quickly attracted the attention of well-known brands.

"Our first licensee was Nike in 2019," said Eric Nielsen, head of intellectual property and general counsel for Kizik. "You can imagine early in our life as a company how validating that was for us."

HandsFree Labs, Kizik's parent company, now has licensing agreements with several partners and is working on more.

"We came in as five or six guys in a basement trying to figure out something new, and we've been able to totally change the industry and the perspective of what a footwear business should look like," Cheney said.

The innovation continues. Kizik step-in shoes are now made with polymers, rubbers and plastics that HandsFree Labs developed, helping reduce costs while still performing well.

"One of the things about Kizik that a lot of people don't recognize is that every single shoe we make is hands-free, whether it's a boot, a sandal, a regular running shoe or a performance running shoe," Cheney said. "Everything."

Since launching its first line of casual shoes, Kizik has expanded to 40 different styles. You can find them online, in major retail stores (including Scheels and Nordstrom) and at Kizik's first brick-and-mortar store in Fashion Place Mall in Murray.

Watch KSL's Beyond Business to meet the people behind Kizik and learn what's coming up next in the hands-free lineup.

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