Veteran Matthew Griffin spent a lot of time experiencing destructive impact of the wars he fought in, but he still believed in positive change. He wanted to make sure something good came out of his hard experience, and find a way to give back to devastated war torn areas. In 2009, he visited a combat boot factory in Kabul and realized he had an idea to keep it running after the war; he was going to start Combat Flip Flops.
So Matthew got together with two close friends and started working on building a business that would create high-quality, all-occasion flip flops and that he could partner with organizations to provide education to Afghan girls and support veterans. With a strong social cause and a well-made product, Matthew and his team pre-sold more than 4000 pairs in the first 48 hours of their site launch and have gone on to branch out to creating apparel as well as a variety of other shoes.
His story is an inspiring case of how you can balance both profit and philanthropy, and run an impactful business.
Allow me to introduce Matthew Griffin…
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My name is Griff and I’m the Co-founder and CEO at Combat Flip Flops.
I’m a military brat from Iowa, joined the Army in 2001, served in special operations, and conducted four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Post military, I started returning to war zones to start small businesses making fashion and lifestyle products.
Combat Flip Flops builds cool stuff in dangerous places. Afghanistan, Colombia, Laos, and others. We even manufacture in the U.S.. Historically, we used our sales to fund 1000+ Afghan girls in school. Now we support veteran surf organization, One More Wave.
Gen X’r that grew up with the advertising, “Be all the you can be! Get an edge on life in the Army!”, I’m a 4th generation service member that just happened to join right before the Global War on Terror. This all started on my 4th tour when I realized that as long as we continued sending troops, there would be war. It lead me to question if there was another way to stop the needless bloodshed.
4 years later (2009), I walked in a combat boot factory in Kabul, Afghanistan. Wanting to keep that factory working after the war ended, the idea of Combat Flip Flops was born. Relaxation footwear from a boot factory centered in the Graveyard of Empires – seemed like a good idea at the time.
We had no business or footwear manufacturing experience, so we reached out to friends. Through a mutual connection, we connected with a shoe designer and off-brand manufacturer in Los Angeles. They helped us with our sketches, design packets, and took them to their prototyping facility in Asia. This first step only cost a few thousand dollars and seemed like a worthy investment in product validity, materials, and overall vibe.
We had three pair of footwear made by three different factories. When the box showed up with the variety of samples, we took cell phone photos, annotated our comments and feedback, and waited for final samples to show up.
Once we had our tooling, materials, and photo samples, we built a website and started selling product. How naïve of us.
Upon launch, we sold nearly 4,000 pair in 48 hours without actually making a pair in production. Coincidentally, President Obama announced the closure of Afghan operations in 2014 and the contracts to our boot manufacturer were pulled. Thousands of people went out of work and the ability to produce in Afghanistan was lost.
Doing the next best, logical thing, we built a guerrilla flip flop factory in my garage and built our first 4,000 pairs. It was miserable, karmic, and educational at the same time.
We started on Google. You know, “how to start a company?”.
Once we read the instructions, we followed through until we had a business license, Tax ID Number, insurance, bank accounts, and all the other essentials to start a small business. Took a few weeks, but none of it was overwhelming.
After that, it was the website. We bought the lease expensive monthly plan, took product photos in the garage, and wrote all the copy.
Mind you, all this took place during the Golden Age of Social Media. We could post at 11am and all of our followers would see the post. Those platforms and our ability to connect with customers made launching the company a community experience. I miss those days.
This is the part of the interview that hurts my soul.
We’re artists. Everybody at the company is into design, music, photography, video, art. For years, we spent countless hours with epic videos, photos, and professional “branding.” It didn’t work.
Smiles, freshness, and deals work. When we changed our social media to being more entertainment than business, people started interacting. When we have new products or deals, we see the traffic and ads work as intended. Clear message, good product photo, value proposition. It’s artistically draining, but works to get new customers onboard.
The Afghan withdrawal in 2021 felt like a right cross from Tyson. It truly impacted our small business. That said, it’s not our first rodeo.
We’re growing online, on Amazon, and selling into the military exchanges. The future looks like more good work with good people.
www.combatflipflops.com
IG @combatflipflops @combatflipflops.griff
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