For the husband and wife duo behind luxury shoe brand Larroudé, fashion is all about joy. Although Larroudé’s playful and colorful footwear kicks up its heels across influencer pages and fashion magazines today, the ecommerce footwear brand was born out of necessity. Ricardo Larroudé had been furloughed for 6 months at the onset of the pandemic, just as his wife Marina Larroudé faced salary cuts and was ultimately let go. With two children to support at home, the couple decided to leverage their combined fashion and business expertise. 

“My wife had worked in fashion for a long time,” says Ricardo Larroudé, Larroudé’s CEO. “I had run businesses. She had made shoes. So we said, "What if we made a brand?””

Ricardo spent 7 years in private equity before taking on global leadership roles with companies like Anheuser-Busch and A Place for Mom. Marina is a fashion industry veteran who left her Fashion Director role at Barneys New York to head up retail, ecommerce, and wholesale channels at Schutz USA. 

Marina, now Larroudé’s Creative Director, had already spotted a market need: women were drawn to the sparkle and fantasy of luxury shoes, but put off by steep price tags. Faced with the cost, they felt compelled to buy a more practical shoe. Fashionable, handmade, and affordable footwear simply didn't exist at the price point—so Ricardo and Marina created it for themselves. 

Launching Larroudé as an ecommerce footwear brand on Shopify and build strong supplier relationships

Larroudé made the first moves to launch. They build a Shopify website for their brand. Then they sourced suppliers for their luxury inventory.

“My last name sounded like a brand,” Ricardo remembers. “We put a website on Shopify for $4,750.00 and we ordered 3,000 pairs of shoes. We launched December 21 2020.”

The idea moved to launch in the span of 6 months. Amid supply chain challenges and stay at home orders, Larroudé was guided by its founders’ expertise. Both Ricardo and Marina were authorities in their respective fields and, despite challenges, were able to create great supplier and vendor partnerships to launch. 

The couple’s skill and novel approach attracted interest from fashion media, which provided some much-needed traction for the new brand. Larroudé focused on innovating the shoes for comfort, adding elasticity and room for movement without sacrificing the high-end aesthetic and visual appeal.

Production was done in Brazil, a footwear powerhouse that has quietly become the 4th largest country for shoe production worldwide. Brazil produces around 850 million pairs annually, far surpassing luxury shoe stalwarts like Italy (100 million), Portugal, and Spain (86-88 million). Before China began dominating the footwear market, Brazil was the key producer of luxury footwear.

Scaling ecommerce effectively: mastering supply chain, team members, and strategy to hit 200,000 pairs of shoes a year

Larroudé has continued to expand in recent years. It now employs 200-300 people between its New York office and a factory in Brazil. After building up its vertical supply chain and harnessing Ricardo’s expertise, Larroudé now operates in a 30,000 sq ft factory and upped production from 1,000 to 3,000 pairs per day. 

With the help of Clearco’s Invoice Funding, the traditional 6-month production cycle in fashion has been pared down to just 45 days as they could better navigate supplier relationships. Investments in laser cutting machines, high-end sewing machines, and infrastructure for handling materials and storing finished goods have allowed Larroudé to scale efficiently. Ensuring every piece of leather is used across multiple designs and that there is limited waste in supply is Larroudé’s big focus to save customer costs.

These investments are a savvy decision by Ricardo, who says owning Larroudé’s production is key for the company to scale. Costs have been trimmed in every aspect of the business: even customer acquisition cost has been minimized, thanks in part to the creation of a studio to photograph goods in-house. Marina’s expertise as a Creative Director has enabled Larroudé to own marketing work typically outsourced by brands to agencies. Larroudé now produces 200,000 pairs each year, and plans to double this amount. 

Capital strategy and Clearco’s role in Larroudé’s 100% year-over-year growth

Working capital provided by Clearco allows Larroudé to connect its vertically-integrated supply chain with its home in digital retail – without giving up Ricardo and Marina’s ownership in the business. The founding duo has retained 88% ownership in the brand. Employees hold the other 6% of shares and angel investors are responsible for the remaining amount. The rest of Larroudé’s capital is bootstrapped, using its sales' revenues to fund new production.

Clearco’s working capital supports brands with cyclical businesses

Clearco provides working capital, Invoice Funding, for some of Larroudé’s most critical supplier bills enabling Larroudé to produce it-girl shoes on a tight turnaround. The additional working capital from Clearco helps the company fund its production costs, materials, shipping and logistics, and other inventory. 

Working capital is incredibly important given the cyclical nature of their business. It is during periods of lower sales that companies like Larroudé need to build inventory for the peak sales seasons.

“You can't grow 100% year over year without capital,” Ricardo says. “You need money for advertising, leather, products, and you want to turn goods around in 90 days. I need to make goods ahead of selling them.”

Seriously efficient and playfully designed, Larroudé is positioned for continued major growth in the fashion industry. Created to bring sparkle and fantasy back to affordable footwear, Larroudé’s working capital strategy is equally well designed.