Steve Madden's Business Model

Megan Garrison

One of the word’s most famous shoe designer, Steve Madden grew up in one of Long islands smallest towns Cedarhurst, New York. At a very young age Steve began dealing shoes making his own money by working for a local shoe store called Toulouse, which allowed him to consider the possibilities of this amazing market. “I was sixteen years old,” he recalled in an interview with Johanna Berkman for New York Magazine. “My boss was 26. He had his own business. He was this really cool guy. He drove a Mercedes. He was my idol.” After graduating from High School, Madden made his way down to the University of Miami in Florida. Life was grand, only for a short period of time before his irate father reused to continue paying for his
In the early years of the nineteen nineties, Madden took matters into his own hands and launched his own company, naming it directly after himself and using a single line of credit to pay for the minimal five hundred pairs of shoes he designed. When the final product was completed, Madden had nearly a little more than one thousand dollars to his name. He took his first design- a clog with a pointy toe he called the “Marilyn”- around the New York area selling these shoes directly out of the trunk of his car. His first big seller was the “Mary-Lou”, patent leather Mary Jane’s with an exaggerated toe, which sent Maddens shoe company skyrocketing. When “Steve Madden” took off, Madden designed a stream of platform heels, which dominated the teenage market. In the early nineteen nineties. In less than five years, Steve Madden Ltd. Was commonly cited in the business media, featured in many articles about capturing the loyalty of his customers so
Shortly after, Madden did an interview with Marisa Wong and Fannie Weinstein for People Magazine. “I checked myself in, and the next day, I was cleaning bathrooms and picking up cigarette butts out in the rain.” He also said there were many things he missed, among them “being able to take a shower without shower shoes,” he told Wong and Weinstein. “Walking down the street on a fall day in Manhattan. Getting up in the morning and reading the newspaper.” Not all bad came out of Madden’s incarceration, Wendy Ballew, Maddens director of operations regularly came down to visit Steve while he was away. Sooner or later the two fell in love, shortly before being released Steve Proposed to Ballew and were married later in 2005 after being released. Madden remained a very vital part of Steve Madden Ltd, SEC rules had forbid Madden to hold any executive positions until after 2008. Back at Maddens office he had put up a famous saying from Britain’s World War II-era prime minister Winston Churchill. “’If you’re going through hell, keep going,’” He quoted it to Wong and Weinstein in the People Magazine interview. “That’s what I’ve done. I kept