Hatchery Business: Greensole
The following post is from Shriyans Bhandari MSM’16 , founder of Greensole, a fall 2015 hatchery business.
Greensole
Help a needy walk miles in your shoes
www.greensole.in
Greensole
Most inventions come from basic ideas. Innovations take place when we think hard and ask questions such as: Is the present situation ideal? Have I tried my best and can it be made better? Answering these questions sparked the idea of Greensole.
Till the December of 2013, me and my business partner Ramesh used to discard 3-4 pairs of sports shoes each year due to excessive usage. We felt really bad when we were throwing away such expensive shoes, which somewhere deep down we knew could be used for a better purpose. We thought hard and experimented for months on those torn shoes to finally realize that we could convert them into comfortable footwear.
Initially we utilized the slippers for our personal use but after making several improvements to the product we found out that the slippers thus made not just are low cost but also have the advantage of an added cushion and superior road grip.
We also researched extensively and found to our surprise that, every year 350 million pairs of non-biodegradable sports shoes are thrown away as they are no longer fit to use. While 1.2 billion people wake up every day without having any kind of footwear whatsoever.
Greensole with its partnership with Ram Fashion Exports, which is a company exporting 1.8 million shoes to the likes of H&M, Marks & Spencer and Aldo, can refurbish close to 10,000 footwear per month. We have donated thousands of footwear in the villages of India through the support of JLL (a fortune 500 company), Goqii, Canon, DTDC and various companies of the Tata group and this year we aim at providing the basic necessity of footwear to 10,000 needy.
Greensole Product Range
Since 2013 there has been no looking back and we are now consumed by our vision to provide footwear to the neediest throughout the World. By 2023 we will make sure that no needy remains bare feet but we cannot do this without your support so next time you discard your shoes; think!
