Work was being done and pipes were strewn about under the tower, creating the perfect skate park. He and his friends hopped the fence and started skating, freestyling between the legs of the Parisian landmark.
“I saw an army of cops coming from the other side and was like ‘Holy mackerel. We’re going to get hammered,’” Senizergues recalled.
The teens that day were instead gifted with the treat of being able to continue the fun in their makeshift park. It’s a memory emblematic of what’s at the core of the CEO’s multibrand portfolio of action sports companies, which include eS, Etnies, Emerica, Thirty Two and Altamont.
The memories carry more weight this year as Sole Technology’s largest brand, Etnies, turned 35.
While skateboarding is more popular than ever, Etnies and its sister brands sit in their Lake Forest headquarters amid an action sports landscape locally that is significantly contracted, and much more corporate from their heyday more than a decade ago.
The Outlook
Sole Technology has been no stranger to the broader market contractions, with annual sales hovering around $50 million, compared to $150 million at its height.
Still, being founder-led and owned with a focus on innovating when it comes to the skate shoes it makes has its advantages, particularly as skateboarding is expected to build even more steam with the upcoming Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Senizergues anticipates growth in the business.
“The way we look at 2021, we look pretty good. I would say strong growth. At the same time, the outlook, we’ve been very careful and very frugal in how we do things,” the CEO said.
Last year’s stay-at-home order turned a number of driveways into skateparks, as sports focused less on teams and more on the individual took off. That’s helped with spring and fall 2021 product orders, Senizergues said.
Last year’s supply chain challenges leaked into this year as the company sought to bypass shipping product by boat with the tie up at the ports, by relying on air at about double the usual cost in some cases. Meanwhile, retail partners faced their own set of challenges, leaving Sole Technology to rely heavily on e-commerce, like most businesses.
“We’re not a huge, huge company, so we can move extremely fast and we’re able to pivot quickly,” Senizergues said. “I have to really thank my team because the team, of course, always makes it happen.”
Resiliency of Sole Technology’s 100-person companywide staff was one learning of last year. Reflection was another, the CEO said.
“It happened to me personally, but it happened to a lot of people, there was retrospective of life. A lot of sharing of memories about when times were better, when there was more value in our community and the drive towards more value going forward,” he said.
Brand Equity
Senizergues isn’t talking about price when it comes to value.
Rather, he’s referencing brand value which adds to brand equity, and eventually the hope would be a translation into sales.
For youth-oriented brands, many of them headquartered in Orange County, standing for something is critical if they seek to remain relevant and gain traction among the Gen Z consumer.
“People want something authentic, real, not something fake—more than ever,” Senizergues said. “And, I was really happy to see this because, for Etnies, it has always been about that. It’s been about this tribe of skateboarders getting together, helping each other, working together with high integrity. So, through this [pandemic] I saw a return to value of what’s really real.”
To that end, the company made good on a goal set some 15 years ago to become carbon neutral by last year, although it hit the target well ahead of 2020.
Additionally, as some companies struggled last year to be a part of the national conversation around equality and diversity, Sole Technology’s brands approached it in the way they’ve largely always operated.
“Within our group of skaters, there’s many different types of skaters,” he said. “They come from everywhere, from low income to high income, to different color skin—everything you can imagine. But for us there is only one team, our Etnies team, and we just support each other. When it came to Black Lives Matter, it was just natural to do something.”
Focus on Homelessness
Homelessness has also been a cause undertaken by Senizergues, who has donated thousands of pairs of shoes to the homeless in Los Angeles for over two decades now. The issue of homelessness is something the CEO understands at a personal level.
When Senizergues first came to America from Paris, he landed in Venice Beach with no money and lived on the beach. He later bought a cheap car, which he then lived in.
“I didn’t have a home for six months and, along the way, you experience a lot of things that could be brutal. Sometimes, being alone, you lose your sense of dignity,” he recalled. “Luckily enough, I connected with the skate community and, even though I didn’t speak English, we were connecting because I was skating with other kids. So that community helped me and I realized it’s just part of our culture. In general, the skate community’s very generous.”
Product Innovation
Giving back is one part to the core of Sole Technology’s brands, but so is innovation.
The company’s Etnies and Thirty Two brands have been working with Michelin on how to incorporate the French company’s rubber into various products. In the case of the company’s skate shoes, that’s expected to improve the shoes’ overall durability, with strong traction and impact absorption via the shoes’ outsoles.
Senizergues noted Michelin not only sets the standard as a rubber manufacturer, but also boasts a research-and-development budget larger than the footwear industry combined, making it a “strong collaborating company.”
Collaborations with riders will also continue for the company, including one with longtime Etnies rider Ryan Sheckler for 2022.
Next Steps
The CEO said he and the team are now looking at the next 35 years for Etnies, with no intent to deviate from being a founder-led and owned skate company.
“My mind is into skateboarding day and night. There’s never a day off thinking about it,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t doing this. I don’t have any interest in selling [the company]. I’d rather keep it authentic and real and serve our skateboarding community the best I can with my team.”
