His name may not be as recognizable as his brainchild, TOMS, the $625 million apparel company best known for their canvas slip-on shoes, but Blake Mycoskie does not appear to be someone who concerns himself with frivolities like fame. Often seen in pictures with a signature look of long hair, a beard, and a festival of pendants around his neck (including one of a triangle in tribute to his only child, son, Summit, born in 2015), Mycoskie and his company set the precedent for the One for One® giving model when he founded TOMS in 2006; for every pair of shoes purchased, one is given to an individual in need. TOMS’s successful social entrepreneurship catapulted Mycoskie to the helm of a multi-million-dollar for-profit company that eventually made him a self-made millionaire but also, more importantly, a prolific philanthropist. By late 2019, TOMS had donated nearly 100 million pairs of shoes to disadvantaged individuals across 38 states and 82 countries.
Mycoskie was the first of three children born to Dr. Michael L. Mycoskie, an orthopedic surgeon, and Pam Mycoskie, a writer, on August 26, 1976, in Arlington, Texas. His mother put her oldest child in the spotlight early on: As a child, he was featured in both a Kmart advertisement and on television as J.R. Ewing’s son’s playmate on Dallas. An avid tennis player since the early age of ten, he graduated high school from St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin in 1995 and attended Southern Methodist University (SMU) on a partial tennis scholarship, and, in what would be an act of foreshadowing, he majored in both business and philosophy.
Early on, his father tried to steer him away from aspirations of a career in tennis, Mycoskie told CNBC, recalling that Mike Mycoskie had said, “‘Tennis is great, but I don’t think you’re going to be the next Andre Agassi. You’ve got to . . . learn some work ethic beyond this incredible work ethic as an athlete.’”
Mycoskie’s first job was waiting tables at a local Pappadeaux seafood chain, which he ultimately decided was not his niche. He turned back to tennis, this time as a coach, and conducted lessons to kids on his family’s tennis court. “ . . . I was making like, you know, hundreds of dollars an hour because I had multiple kids paying $25 each,” he told CNBC in 2018. “I had this discussion with my dad that night at dinner. And he couldn’t argue with it. I think that’s when he first realized I was going to look at things a little bit differently than the traditional path.”
But when a torn Achilles tendon effectively ended his tennis career, Mycoskie, who was unable to carry his laundry down the stairs of his room to wash it, concocted a plan that would turn his own misfortune into, well, fortune. Mycoskie recalled to CNBC that a friend’s father told him, then 19, and his friend, “‘You guys should start a laundry business. There’s probably a lot of kids at SMU that don’t want to do their own laundry.’”
Using the money he earned the previous summer teaching tennis, Mycoskie bought an old truck for his next business venture, EZ Laundry. The business expanded, eventually generating $1 million in sales. He dropped out of college and sold it to his partner. “Because I dropped out of school at such a young age, and because I was running a business at 19, I grew up really fast,” he said in the CNBC article. “People used to say I was the oldest 20-year-old or oldest 25-year-old they ever met because all I did was work.”
Mycoskie then moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for his next venture: his eponymous Mycoskie Media, a business that focused on marketing country-western music, a “one-trick pony” he said earned “great” money. He expanded the company to Dallas and later sold it to Clear Channel.
In 2002, he and his sister, Paige, appeared on the second season of the television reality series, The Amazing Race, wherein teams of two travel the world to compete for a $1 million grand prize. According to a fan page for The Amazing Race, the brother-sister duo’s decision to compete on the series was twofold: They both love to travel but had not traveled much abroad, and they had been separated throughout college and thought of it as an opportunity to reunite while marrying their innately competitive natures. The team finished third, falling behind “while running through the streets of San Francisco.” They reportedly lost the $1 million prize by just four minutes.
The television stint opened his eyes to the misfortunes of others in third-world countries, he said, but also to potential opportunities in California. Mycoskie moved to Los Angeles and partnered with Larry Namer, a founder of E! Entertainment Television, to try his hand again at reality television, this time as co-founder of cable network Reality Central, which aired reality television shows. But when media magnate Rupert Murdoch started Fox Reality Channel, a direct competitor that outbid Mycoskie’s network for programming and advertising, Reality Channel shuttered.
In the case of history repeating itself, Mycoskie’s failure serendipitously opened the door for yet another venture. At a goodbye party for Reality Central, Mycoskie conversed with a co-worker’s son who was unsatisfied with his driver’s education course. Having amassed some experience and business acumen after starting a few companies, Mycoskie quickly pinpointed the problem: uninspiring teachers. He then co-founded a mostly online driver’s education program, Drivers Ed Direct, and launched Closer Marketing Group to promote it.
But it was the year 2006 and a vacation to Argentina that would usher in yet another new idea for Mycoskie. During his trip, he met some English-speaking women who were traveling throughout the country to provide shoes to needy children. He spent days traveling with the group, walking the proverbial mile in the shoes – or the lack thereof – of people and kids who had to do their work and schooling without the aid of apparel many Americans take for granted. “[I witnessed] the intense pockets of poverty just outside the bustling capital,” he wrote for a 2011 article in The Business Insider. “It dramatically heightened my awareness. Yes, I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that poor children around the world often went barefoot, but now, for the first time, I saw the real effects of being shoeless: the blisters, the sores, the infections.
His experience provided the springboard for Shoes for a Better Tomorrow, later shortened simply to TOMS. Mycoskie designed the for-profit shoe business, which at first sold alpargatas (an espadrille style characteristic for their canvas or cotton materials and flexible sole, like those commonly worn in Argentina), matching each pair purchased with another donated to someone in need. His experience with EZ Laundry had taught him that “if you provide a great service, [your initial customers] will become the evangelists that will tell so many people. And that’s how you can grow your business . . . and that was very much the case [with] TOMS.”
With boots on the ground to personally sell his idea and a series of lucky breaks, TOMS – both its unconventional selling point and the shoes themselves – spread like wildfire. The company expanded into eyewear and coffee in 2011 and 2014, respectively, with each branch adhering to the TOMS giving model. According to the 2019 Global Impact Report on the TOMS website, TOMS has donated 95 million shoes to people in need; TOMS Eyewear has restored sight to more than 780,000 people, and TOMS Roasting Company has provided more than 722,000 weeks of clean drinking water. In 2015, the company launched its bag collection to provide training for birth attendants and disperse birthing kits so women all over the world can safely deliver their children.
In 2014, the pressure cooker of being the sole owner of a business with such tremendous impact had him burned out. He began his due diligence in seeking a competent investor, even asking the field of candidates to take psychological profile tests, and finally decided on Bain Capital Co-Chair Joshua Bekenstein. At the time of the deal, TOMS had an estimated value of $625 million.
In a newsletter posted to his LinkedIn account in March 2020, Mycoskie wrote that his stepping down as CEO and becoming strictly “Chief Shoe Giver” marked, “the first time in nearly eighteen years that I wasn’t actively starting or growing a company. What followed surprised me—a realization that in serving TOMS, at some point, I had stopped serving myself. Not only had I deprioritized my physical and mental health, but I had also adopted a busy-is-better mindset. Making time for family and friends proved difficult; being fully present for them proved next to impossible. Despite checking all of the boxes that I thought I needed to check to be happy, I wasn’t, and the more people I talked to, the more I realized I wasn’t alone.”
Mycoskie earned approximately $300 million from the deal, and in 2015, he and his wife, Heather Lang, used half of the money to establish the TOMS Social Entrepreneurship Fund, which, as the name suggests, provides money to social causes and entrepreneurship, both of which are near and dear to Mycoskie’s heart, as evidenced with his 2011 book Start Something That Matters. The New York Times’s best-seller is essentially a how-to for compassionate would-be entrepreneurs, people whose shoes (no pun intended) Mycoskie was in before starting TOMS fourteen years ago.
In December 2019, TOMS was unable to repay a $300 million loan due in 2020, and the company was taken over by creditors, avoiding bankruptcy and costly litigation. According to an article on CNBC online, TOMS had struggled to keep up with competitors who lowered their prices, and the company’s One for One® model had lost its novelty among customers.
In his March article, Mycoskie announced that he planned to work with former United States Navy SEAL Pat Dossett to launch Madefor, a ten-month-long self-help program for people looking to better themselves. “As TOMS enters a new phase of impact, I’m excited to also be embarking on another mission — helping others bring their best to the world . . . I believe that you cannot take care of others until you take care of yourself, ” he wrote.
Mycoskie’s efforts have earned him a host of awards and accolades throughout the years. He and TOMS received the Secretary of State’s 2009 Award of Corporate Excellence (ACE). He was featured in People Magazine’s Heroes Among Us section, and, in 2011, was recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of the top young businessmen in the world.
