Why a Boston sneaker design veteran and crypto entrepreneur is making NFT shoes

What Endstate really sells are NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which it issues periodically in limited quantities. Customers buy an NFT, specify their shoe size and within weeks receive a pair of real trainers.

The shoes come with a wide variety of benefits and access to real-life experiences. (I wasn’t kidding about the cheesesteak thing.)

During NFT.NYC in June, Howard and Collen met me at a coffee shop days after they raised a $5.5 million seed round from investors including Archetype Ventures, Accomplice and Castle Island Ventures.

The co-founders arrived in matching sneakers, which looked like normal shoes until Collen tapped his smartphone near the laces. A 3D rendering of his shoes appeared on his screen, along with the word “authentic” in green.

In doing so, Collen confirmed that his kicks were one of the 50 pairs produced for Endstate’s first sneaker drop. The company embeds a chip in the tongue of each sneaker, which is linked to its corresponding NFT.

Why is this important? For Endstate, NFTs represent much more than digital art. The startup operates in the “tool NFT”, which means that digital assets come with certain rights and privileges for owners, much like a contract or membership.

It is a key development in the industry, since the market for NFTs as digital works of art has largely collapsed.

Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, wrote in a recent blog post that several “tech-savvy luxury brands” were likely considering selling NFTs last year that did not come with a physical item or utility component.

“Now that the hype has cooled,” he wrote, “these brands will begin to realize that the real innovation is not in exploiting fans by selling them overpriced JPEGs of dubious utility, but in combining merchandise with an enduring digital property .”

In fact, Endstate’s goal is to partner with artists, athletes, and entrepreneurs on NFT sneaker drops, and then connect these digital assets to physical goods and real experiences and rewards.

The firm is currently selling $250 sneakers in collaboration with DeVonta Smith, a Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver. Sneaker owners can attend an event hosted by Smith in Philly, as well as an exclusive gamewatch party. (Because of the chip in the shoe, “the sneaker is the ticket,” Howard said.)

The benefits will continue to come throughout the season – after his first touchdown, and for every run over a certain number of yards, NFT holders will receive a gift card for a free cheesesteak.

“It’s funny, but it shows how NFTs unlock this other world, beyond the physical sneaker,” Howard said.

While Howard couldn’t share details, she said Endstate is in talks with musicians, creators and a well-known sneaker and streetwear brand.

Endstate is also selling limited-edition sneakers for this year’s Boston College “Red Bandana” game next month, in honor of Welles Remy Crowther, an alum who died after saving at least a dozen people during the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City.

Both the company’s co-founders has experience at the forefront of innovation.

For Howard, it’s with sneakers. She joined New Balance after college and was the Boston-based company’s youngest employee when she designed the New Balance 850s in 1996, a groundbreaking shoe that the company re-released in 2019. (It was the first pair where the “N” logo did not appear on the side of the shoe.)

Howard went to Reebok before becoming design director at Nike. For the past decade, she has consulted on innovation for brands such as Timberland, Vans and Converse.

Collen, a BC alum, brings cachet from the tech world. In 2014, he founded Cognate, a company that sought to verify and enforce trademark rights on the blockchain. “Trying to sell it to lawyers in 2016, 2017 was an uphill battle,” he said.

GoDaddy, the Internet domain registrar and web hosting company, acquired Cognate in 2018.

Collen teaches blockchain and cryptocurrency at BC and wanted to start another blockchain business during the pandemic. He met Howard after attending a webinar on sneakers and the law, where she was a panelist.

Collen and Howard believe that in the not-too-distant future, everything that matters to consumers in the real world — sneakers, clothes, accessories — will be replicated digitally. (That’s what they think is the “end state” of product ownership.)

“This bottle of water is not going to have a digital counterpart, but anything that has value or meaning to me, I want a digital counterpart for,” Collen said. – We want to be at the forefront of that.

Anissa Gardizy can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @anissagardizy8 and on Instagram @anissagardizy.journalism.