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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, June 11, 2008

STEPPING UP
Sometimes, experience best teacher

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Tom Park, owner of the Leather Soul shoe store in Waikiki, is the Small Business Administration's young entrepreneur of the year.

Photos by RICHARD AMBO | The Honolulu Advertiser

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Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Tom Park's Leather Soul store in Waikiki carries four shoe lines, with Aldens — the No. 1 dress shoe brand in Japan — its biggest seller.

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Tom Park never got the master's degree in business administration that he coveted in college. Instead, he's learned enough by starting and growing a successful business that he probably could teach a course or two in an MBA program.

Park, 29, is the owner of the upscale Leather Soul shoe store in the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Waikiki. Park said the store is on pace to do about $1 million in sales this year, despite the slumping economy and softening of the tourism industry.

The 'Iolani School and University of Hawai'i graduate also recently launched a second venture, Hawaii Paperworks LLC, a wholesaler of custom-designed paper shopping bags. The company targets businesses that are looking for inexpensive, yet high-quality bags for their stores.

Without any background in running a business, Park became successful by piecing together experiences he gained as a Japanese literature major and an employee at various companies. He's had jobs as a financial adviser and a Lexus car salesman, but it was his part-time college job as a salesman at an upscale shoe store that had the biggest impact on him.

"I've always liked shoes. I was always known as the guy with the new shoes throughout elementary and high school," Park said. "I always thought in the back of my head that it would be cool if I could open my own shoe store."

"Thinking" and "doing" are worlds apart, particularly for a person who had always worked for someone and didn't know the first thing about being the boss. But Park recalled something his late grandmother told him and that encouraged him to move forward.

"She told me before she died to do whatever I want with my life and that kind of really stuck with me," Park said. "So I took it upon myself to take that risk and do it. I was kind of sick of working for other people."

Park admittedly didn't know where to start, so he did a lot of research and went to the Small Business Resource Center downtown for help. He also got a lot of on-the-job training.

"I really learned as I went and that's the best way of learning," he said. "You don't know what's going on, but somehow you make it work and you learn along the way. That's kind of how I went about it."

One thing Park did know was shoes and he knew that certain brands would attract a certain clientele. After his stint as a shoe salesman, he kept in touch with the sales representative for Alden Shoes, one of the world's top producers of fine men's shoes.

"I would get in contact with him once a year and tell him, 'I'm still thinking about it. Don't forget about me.' He would always tell me, 'Yeah, OK, OK,' " Park said.

When Park made the decision to start his business at the end of 2004, he was able to convince the man to send him a shipment of Alden Shoes. He opened Leather Soul in the TOPA building downtown with a small inventory valued at $40,000 and shoes that were priced between $100 and $400 a pair.

Park originally envisioned selling shoes to downtown businessmen during their lunch breaks. But a funny thing happened on the way to his store.

"Most of my business ended up being Japanese," he said. "Alden is the No. 1 dress shoe brand in Japan. It's just so popular and it's very expensive in Japan. So I drew a large crowd."

By the end of 2005, Park opened a 300-square-foot office in the Watumull building on Lewers Street in Waikiki to sell only Alden Shoes. He would open his downtown shop in the morning and rush to the Waikiki store in the afternoon.

Although that store was open just four hours a day, the tiny shop accounted for 90 percent of Leather Soul's sales. Park extended the hours at the store, but knew that he needed to find a "legitimate location" in Waikiki to expand his business.

Park said it took him two years before he found the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center store, which he opened in January. He closed the downtown location a year ago and now runs Hawaii Paperworks out of the Watumull location.

Leather Soul has gone from a one-man operation to three employees. Park said sales doubled from 2005 to 2006, and improved 150 percent last year.

His inventory is worth four times what it was when he started and shoe prices range from $300 to $1,600. Leather Soul also does a brisk online business, accounting for nearly 30 percent of its sales.

Park carries three other shoe lines, but Alden, which he sells for 30 percent to 40 percent less than in Japan, continues to be his top seller. So far, he said, his business has escaped the slump in tourism, particularly from the Japan market.

"I started in a time when it was pretty bad to begin with and I basically grew my business during this time and my business is still growing," he said. "But for other people who were in it during the heyday in the mid-'90s for the Japanese tourists, of course they're disappointed. But my customers are the type that come to Hawai'i at least once or twice or three times a year anyway regardless of the economic situation, so I'm pretty safe in that aspect."

To keep up with the latest in fashion trends, Park travels to Japan a couple times a year, as well as to shoe conventions and the Alden Shoe factory in Massachusetts.

"Another reason I think my shoes are popular is because I go to Japan and I see what's popular, what's hot and I take that into consideration ... so a lot of my shoes are really popular with the Japanese tastes," Park said.

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com.