Admittedly, I am a huge sneaker fan (1 of my weaknesses), BUT now I could actually be a sneaker designer? A new company in Portland Oregon called RYZ (pronounced r-i-s-e) is flipping the sneaker business model upside down. RYZ allows everyday people like you and I to download their shoe designer template, create your own design, upload it for voting and if the community claims you the winner, you receive $1,000 upfront and 1% of the shoe sales. Outsourcing your design work to everyday people and building a community of buyers of those specific shoes is a risky biz proposition BUT I love it and think it can and will work. Firstly, the head of the company is an ex-head of Adidas North America he knows a thing or 2 about shoes – namely the 12-18 month production cycle and the high cost of development. RYZ brags that they can produce shoes as fast as 6 weeks, pay only $1,000 and a 1% royalty for design which saves thousands of dollars, have an instant community of potential buyers and fore-go expensive marketing because the buzz of the shoe designs spills over into facebook and myspace, blogs etc…The shoes sell for $90 and some of the designs are really creative. My main concern is the community that RYZ is building is mostly of designers. Would designers buy shoes from other designers, especially if there design didn’t win? RYZ, will have to be certain to market not just the cool, new crowd-sourcing business process but also focus on bringing droves of buyers NOT just designers to their site to make purchases. It remains to be seen if the site which is still in Beta can pull off the amount of sales it needs to keep it’s business running but I’m hoping for the best, cause I’m first in line for these old school “Space Invader” kicks or these if they win.

What are your thoughts? Will crowdsourcing businesses like these be a success? What’s the downside?