CEO Sabrina Finlay is offering small footwear brands the production capabilities of bigger competitors at Otabo, her Minneapolis-based manufacturing consultancy.
Otabo, which Finlay launched two years ago, designs a custom supply chain for each brand's product through what Finlay terms collaborative manufacturing.
Under that approach, Otabo does not own its own footwear factories, Finlay said.
Instead Otabo creates a network of partner factories, primarily in China, that it runs as if it does own them, Finlay said. Full-time Otabo staff oversee production of client products, train factory workers and purchase materials and sometimes equipment.
The larger pre-existing factory groups that big brands work with can be out of reach for new or smaller brands and may have equipment or other constraints that limit designs, Finlay said.
"We're not taking an existing factory group and trying to fit brands into what's there," Finlay said. "We're evaluating the brand, their product and identifying what's important to the design, the function and what the end buyers care about. We're understanding the goals and in some cases influencing design. We'll then build the whole supply chain around that."
Making even a simple sandal, Finlay notes, requires at least three separate factories — for materials, toolings and primary assembly. Complicated medical or athletic footwear involves more than 30 factories.
Otabo clients include Nobull training shoes, Kujo yard shoes and local women's shoe startup Beryl Frances, said Finlay, who gained industry experience working in her father's former shoe factory in south Florida, including three years on the production line.
Q: Who are Otabo's clients?
