Interview with Michael Krause - How Zellerfeld is turning the shoe industry on its head
The Zellerfeld company prints shoes in 3D printers. Their vision: "Printed shoes on every foot". We spoke to Michael Krause about the company's plans.
Michael Krause spent over seven years at Spotify - most recently as General Manager Europe. Then he made the surprising move to Zellerfeld, a German start-up that prints 3D shoes. We asked our Advisory Board member Michael Krause how the company wants to revolutionize the shoe industry and to what extent platforms are important for this.
nextMedia: Hi Michael! You were at Spotify for a long time. Then you moved to Zellerfeld. What attracted you to Zellerfeld?
Michael: Similar to Spotify, Zellerfeld is transforming and democratizing an industry, in our case the footwear industry. Designers and brands can upload designs directly to the platform at no cost and sell them directly to their fans for a price of their choice on Zellerfeld.com - much like Spotify does for musicians and labels.
nextMedia: You are Chief Platform Officer & Founder Associate. What are your tasks?
Michael: As Chief Platform Officer, I take care of our two-sided marketplace - designers and brands on the one hand and our customers on the other.
So it's about managing the brands and designers, marketing, e-commerce and PR. In my second role, I work closely with the founding team, help with fundraising, manage the HR department and the software team.
"In the long term, we believe that everyone will have a profile of their feet stored with us (...). Then there won't really be any reason to buy your shoes anywhere else."
nextMedia: What is your goal with the platform?
Michael: "Printed shoes on every foot" is our motto. We believe that the sale of shoes is currently very suboptimal and we want to improve that. All our shoes are bespoke and sustainable and our system democratizes shoe design and allows designers to make a living directly from their creations.
In the long term, we believe that everyone will have a profile of their feet stored with us and then all shoes from Zellerfeld.com will fit them perfectly. Then there won't really be any reason to buy shoes anywhere else.
nextMedia: If I understand correctly, you decided to use Discord for the design process - why?
Michael: That was an intermediate step and very important, especially at the beginning, because designers still had to talk a lot about the new possibilities. Discord will remain active as a community tool, but we will soon be launching a new studio where you can upload shoe silhouettes as easily as a video on YouTube.
nextMedia: How do you want the design and distribution process to work in the future?
Michael: Designers have access to many tools for their creations. AI also plays a major role in this area - whether as inspiration or as an aid. In the medium term, it's also easy to imagine that users will be able to prompt or customize their own shoes.
nextMedia: How important are your/your connections in the music industry?
Michael: I would say less important than experience with the platform economy. How to manage creators and big brands, how to work editorially or what platform effects there can be. In addition, there are of course many musicians who also want to design shoes. The musical network helps here and there.
nextMedia: What role do artists and creators play in your business development?
Michael: It wouldn't work without them. For the first time, we are offering them the opportunity to launch and sell shoes without start-up capital. They receive 60% of the profits. In return, we get a great selection of models. Of course, the creators are also multipliers when they advertise their shoes on our platform via their reach.
nextMedia: What's next for you?
Michael: We are currently putting 2000 new printers into operation and will be able to print more than 1 million shoes a year for the first time. We are also opening a new printer farm in Austin, Texas. The growth in demand will then come from creators and brands that use our platform as a distribution space. We have also started our first attempts at retail and our shoes are being sold at Solebox in Berlin as of this week.
nextMedia: How important is the Hamburg location to you?
Michael: Hamburg is a great city for us as an R&D center. We can easily recruit colleagues here and have already brought people from over 20 countries to Hamburg who are experts in their field, as well as founding a support association for 3D printing and additive manufacturing (IAMHH) with the Fraunhofer Institute, among others.
nextMedia: Thank you very much for the interview!
