Harvard Business Review Press Hardback English
The Book of Eastbay
Two Friends and the Catalog That Changed the Sneaker Business Forever
By Art Juedes
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Sneakers are a $100 billion business and a global obsession that started in the pages of a catalog called Eastbay. This is a startup story unlike most you've read, but as instructive and inspiring as any of the rest. It's the story of two entrepreneurs with $4,000 worth of track shoes stuffed into an AMC Gremlin who eventually launched a mail-order catalog, Eastbay, that became a bible and a cultural icon to Gen X and Millennial kids. The catalog that was such a powerful and authentic tastemaker that pro athletes swore by it and a burgeoning generation of sneakerheads coveted it. This is also the story of a company ahead of its time that understood the affirming power and cultural significance of sneakers. A company that mastered the mail-order business we take for granted today before most of us understood it. A company that never wavered from its mission as it grew fast, suffered massive setbacks, then grew even faster until the catalog reached tens of millions of kids across the world. And this is the story of Art and Rick, born two days apart, bonded by the company they founded together and by a lifelong friendship that's lasted throughout a tumultuous, heady, difficult, exhilarating, frustrating, and ultimately profoundly rewarding career. Together they built a business that mattered, with as talented and devoted a team as any leaders could hope for. In Eastbay, a generation of kids were encouraged to dream big and dream often, which is just what the founders were doing all along. This is their story.
Sneakers are a $100 billion business and a global obsession that started in the pages of a catalog called Eastbay. This is a startup story unlike most you've read, but as instructive and inspiring as any of the rest. It's the story of two entrepreneurs with $4,000 worth of track shoes stuffed into an AMC Gremlin who eventually launched a mail-order catalog, Eastbay, that became a bible and a cultural icon to Gen X and Millennial kids. The catalog that was such a powerful and authentic tastemaker that pro athletes swore by it and a burgeoning generation of sneakerheads coveted it. This is also the story of a company ahead of its time that understood the affirming power and cultural significance of sneakers. A company that mastered the mail-order business we take for granted today before most of us understood it. A company that never wavered from its mission as it grew fast, suffered massive setbacks, then grew even faster until the catalog reached tens of millions of kids across the world. And this is the story of Art and Rick, born two days apart, bonded by the company they founded together and by a lifelong friendship that's lasted throughout a tumultuous, heady, difficult, exhilarating, frustrating, and ultimately profoundly rewarding career. Together they built a business that mattered, with as talented and devoted a team as any leaders could hope for. In Eastbay, a generation of kids were encouraged to dream big and dream often, which is just what the founders were doing all along. This is their story.