Launching any new business can be tough, let alone in an industry as competitive as the soccer boots market. Established brands have significant market share and brand awareness, but that hasn’t stopped Concave from jumping in and challenging for their share of this lucrative market. I recently had a chance to sit down with Dave Frederick of Concave Sports and talk about the origins of the company, the technology and the difference between US and UK consumers when it comes to soccer boots. Full story after the jump.

Let’s start with the back story on Concave – The original idea was developed several years ago in Australia when someone was watching Australian Rules football and saw somebody miss kick the ball and they came to the conclusion that there has to be a better way for a foot to strike a round object. He literally went into his garage, started cutting tires and started attaching them to the top of a shoe. One thing led to another and he got in touch with the Australian National soccer team. One guy said he would try them out, and one thing led to another. They connected with a design team and manufacturing facility in Indonesia and the initial design started to take shape. Fast forward six or seven years from there and a group of people in North America got in touch with the Australians and acquired the company. They basically brought it to market in the UK after making a couple changes. But the concept of a concave shape on top of a soccer boot is what took hold. The concave piece on top of the boot is the same circumference as a size 5 soccer ball. We went to market last year on a limited basis in the UK and a very, very limited basis in the US. The goal of the company is to enhance through technology people’s ability to play the game. Its very similar to what Prince did with the oversized tennis racket and what Callaway did with the oversized driver when they brought out the Big Bertha. Larger sweet spot on the striking area of the foot results in more power and accuracy with less effort. So with the increased striking area it helps everyone from professionals, to youth players or someone like me that plays Sunday mornings. It gives people more confidence in their ability to strike a ball and improves overall game play because their having more fun doing it. They know they can put the ball where they want to much more often with the increased accuracy and have more power on the shot or length on long passes and have the same amount of comfort and control that you would find in traditional boots.

One of the things that I find interesting is that in recent years soccer boots have become so technologically advanced, and the technology is now playing a huge role in the design of boots. You guys seem to be taking the technological approach to boot design a step further. – Essentially I think we were out in front of technology in regards to the upper of the boot. A lot of the design changes or modifications that have been made by other manufacturers concern the outsole. Whether it’s the shape or configurations of the studs or materials that are used in the outsole. We focused on the actual performance part of the boot, the upper part of the boot. Some other people have done some stuff with materials that they used, whether it’s a boot that stays dry in wet weather or stays tacky in dry weather. I think Kelme had come out with a shark skin boot. I’m not sure what the technological advancement there was, but its pretty cool marketing I guess. The other changes to the footwear have been in taking weight out. The Predator was probably the most famous one with adding ridges on the fore front of the boot that was supposed to add spin and what not. Not sure if that’s true or not, but its been an incredibly successful shoe for adidas.

You mentioned the strategy of limited releases in the UK and the US, is that an initiative where you want to keep product highly limited in the beginning? – That was the strategy that we employed last year for a variety of reasons. In 2008 we did an exclusive retail arrangement with JJB Sports in the UK. We have gone away from that strategy in a very concerted effort for 2009-10. Our focus in the UK now is to be in football specialty shops primarily, and some limited larger retailers as well, but mostly retailers that have a major football presence. Largely we want to be in the football specialty shops in the UK where we are getting good traction there right now. We’re employing the same strategy in the US to be in the true soccer specialty stores. That way we can tap into the customer service that those stores employ. The people that work at these stores play and understand the game and they can understand what’s going on with our cleats and really help the customer understand that. As opposed to having them in a big box store where the personnel is a little bit more general in their sporting knowledge.

That seems pretty important to have knowledgeable people explaining the special elements of the boot because on the one hand it’s a very technical boot that might appeal to players at a very high level. But with that in mind, it seems that it would help out less advanced players. – Last year we came out with one version of the shoe with a couple different outsoles configurations so we were limited in our ability to reach different people in the soccer playing hierarchy. This year we’ve got everything from our high level kangaroo version of the shoe, in a couple different outsoles. All the way through a calf leather synthetic indoor product and a kids shoe. So we can get the shoes on young kids who can start out with the shoes and get to experience the technology. Which is very similar to the shoes that we’re putting on the feet of high-end players. We can reach everybody now.

Looking at the boot market, it is obviously a highly competitive market with a few very established companies. How open minded have you found consumers and retailers to be to a new brand? – We’ve found by and large their very open minded. There’s kind of two different aspects to it. With respect to the retail stores, I think they like having new options. Pretty much its adidas and Nike and to a much lesser extent Puma, and then you’ve got a whole bunch of other brands. They like having a new option in there. Some will tell you that their clientele is really only going to come in and look for an adidas or a Nike, but others are very receptive to having something new and especially that differentiates itself through the technology. Which can help anyone from your once a week player to a five times a week player. So in that respect the consumers have also been receptive to it. We’re not going to convert everybody, no one brand dominates to that extent. We can’t hope to have everyone walk into the store and say that their going to ditch the boots they’ve been using for years for some Concaves. But there are plenty of people out there that are interested in trying something that they think can help improve their game. It’s like a golfer who is going to try a new driver because he needs a little more distance off the tee. He’s going to be willing to take a look at some different options that might help him do that. With soccer, apart from the gloves a goalie wears, there’s pretty much only one piece of equipment that impacts your game, and that’s your cleats.

It’s interesting to see how much of an impact technology is now having on the sport. – It’s been a lot of work and a lot of science behind it and it’s interesting to see how it’s taking shape now.

I bet. You mentioned selling in the US and the UK. Do you find that there is a difference with the consumer mindset in terms of what people in the UK are looking for and what people in the US are looking for? – That’s an interesting question. In the UK you get a higher percentage of hard core players that are playing all the time. Or even if they are a weekend player, that weekend game is everything to them. They don’t have the multitude of outlets that casual players in the US might have. In the US it’s a lower percentage of people that are hard core about the sport. But given the numbers of people in the US, it still gives you a pretty significant number of people who are hard core soccer players.

With that in mind, how important is the US market for Concave? – Very important. Soccer is the number one sport by participation in people younger than 21 years old. So the sheer volume of people in the sport makes it hugely important to have an impact.

I’m sure you guys have done a tremendous amount of research on the American soccer market. From your perspective where do you see it going? – I think all the signs that you see are very positive in terms of the growth. There’s kind of two separate issues. There’s the growth of the sport as a recreational sport. The other issue is it’s place alongside other major sports at the professional level. I’m not sure that its place alongside sports at the professional level is going to change a whole lot. I think you are going to get increased fan bases and increased recognition but I don’t think it’s going to crack into the top three. But it’s going to grow and I think you see signs of it’s importance increasing through the availability of soccer through different media outlets. You have a couple different channels that are pretty much 100% devoted to soccer, ESPN which is now carrying EPL games. The crawls on ESPN 2 now include World Cup Qualifying for countries around the world. It’s visibility is growing, its place as a participation sport is growing and I think just the sheer numbers of people involved in the sport make the US a great place to launch a new brand and do business in soccer.

[Manchester United's John O'Shea wearing Concave boots]

Changing directions, how important do you find athletes endorsing a product, specifically a product as technical as soccer boots? – Very important. Particularly being a new brand. At a base level people want to see that it’s being used at the highest level. It’s kind of a validation of the product. The consumer wants to know that it’s being used at the highest level by guys that make their living playing the game. So to that extent its very important for us to have it on professional players. This is particularly important in the UK, but also in the US. We have a couple guys in MLS wearing them, and a bunch of guys in the UK wearing them. We’re going to spread that out. We’re working on moving into more international markets with teams in Africa and some teams on the continent. It’s been used by professionals in Australia for some time now. It’s spreading out and were getting people at the highest level of the game wearing the product. That gives us huge validation that its not just some sort of fly by night kind of thing. There are guys who make their living doing this. This is really significant for us.

You asked earlier the biggest difference between consumers in the UK and in the US. I think this is one of the biggest differences. It’s important for consumers in the US to see professional athletes wearing a product, but it seems to be even more important in the UK.

You just mentioned about branching out into Africa. With the World Cup coming up there next year and all the exposure, it seems like a great time for a young brand to get even more exposure. Does Concave have a lot in mind with the World Cup coming up? – We’ve got some initiatives in place. One of the most significant is having a few players who are playing in the World up wearing the product. Part of our product road map is tailored to making certain advances prior to and during the World Cup and making sure we have well timed campaigns to take advantage of all the attention that the World Cup drives.

What’s up next for Concave? Any new initiatives you want to share? – Mainly expanding our presence. We are at the early stages of our first significant product release. Very carefully growing the company through a grassroots, viral marketing approach. We have various initiatives utilizing some of the new forms of marketing on the Web. Expanding our footprint in North America, and the UK and Ireland, But also expanding globally through various distribution where we will have the product out in every continent giving people access to it everywhere.

You just mentioned using the Web as a key part in creating awareness for the boots. It’s obviously pretty incredible these days, specifically for a young brand to get a message out and communicate with people. I think specifically within the US soccer market people really look to the Internet for information. How much does this play into what you guys are doing to connect with the soccer audience? – I think it’s a great connection for us, particularly to be in touch with people such as yourself who are running websites and providing information directly about the sport. I utilize Twitter, the Twitter feed is on our website, Facebook fan pages where we put out information. Putting information up from one of the pros that had a game and wore the boots and what they did in the game. People who wore the boots in their local Saturday morning game and scored a goal wearing the boots. If they let us know we’ll get that info out and let people know about that. We love that stuff and being able to expand the Concave community by having people share their stories about using the boots. One of our big marketing programs is called the kicker tube. It’s an inflatable tube with netting and it has a radar system. We’ll take it to events and have people try the boots out and let them kick the ball and let them see the speed of their shot. We’ve got a pretty big database of people that have tried it out and we’re going to get it posted on the site so they can see their score and how they compare against people elsewhere. We really want to make a road show of getting several kicker tubes spread out around the country and then using the web to link all those events together by having people be able to come online and compare and contrast and share their experiences with the boot. The only way to do that is through the tools available on the Web.

It’s definitely important to engage with consumers like that. I think people these days like to be a part of the process and not just being told what to buy. Is that what this campaign is about? – Absolutely! We want to be inclusive and have people come on and share their stories and let us know about that. It’s just great to hear what they are up to.

It sounds like things are going well and I’m interested to see the growth of the company. – I appreciate being able to connect with people like you who are the cornerstone of what we are putting together and allow me to speak to you.

No problem. Best of luck with everything and keep us up to date on how things are going. – Definitely! Thank you!