Getting to the PVO1 all started with a humble prototype. At the time, we didn’t know much about how to build a shoe, let alone manufacture one. Rather than trying to learn everything upfront about the manufacturing process before getting started, we took a more tactical approach.
We used a similar strategy to what we had seen others do on social media where they did a “sole swap”, which is where you take a sneaker and retrofit another sole to the bottom of that shoe in order to make a brand new shoe.
The journey started by looking for a sneaker profile that we found appealing. We were looking for a shoe with a sleek silhouette that featured a nice ankle cut to it. Second, we wanted to find a pair of golf cleats to swap the soles with. We ended up picking the Nike Fi Premier. So, we bought two pairs of each shoe in the same size and we were ready to begin our science experiment.
Our first approach was to attempt to do the sole swap ourselves. To do this, we had to figure out a way to separate the bottom of each shoe from the top. Our first idea? Boil the shoes to soften the glue that held the two pieces together. Yes, we literally boiled the shoes in hot water. After a few hours, and some prying with a screw driver and an exacto knife, the surgery was complete, but we still needed to put Frankenstein back together.
After a few days, the shoes dried out and we slathered some super glue on each individual piece and wrapped some rubber bands on while the glue settled. Two days later, we had jerry rigged our prototype together. While we had a "shoe" in hand, it was definitely not golf-ready. We wanted to test the shoe out and see how it felt, so we knew we needed a higher quality version of our golf shoe prototype.
Our hunch was that we could find a talented shoe cobbler to get the job done. We found a hole in the wall shoe cobbler in midtown New York City and took a gamble. As I presented the details of the job to him I could see the confusion on his face. Eventually that confused look turned into one of curiosity. He was excited by the challenge. He told me to give him a week and come back.
One week later, I returned and was blown away by the results. He nailed it. 
In about two weeks, we were able to go from an idea to prototype in hand. That momentum had us riding a high. We accomplished making a single bespoke golf shoe, but a big question still remained "how do we manufacture our OWN golf shoe?"
Answering that question was where the real work began...