Hidden Heels: Universal Detachable Heels
Turn Any Flats Into High Heels, Combine Professionalism With Comfort
High heels are a staple of women's fashion, especially for professional businesswomen. However, moving around the city in high heels can be very uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous. While required to wear high heels on certain occasions, they do not necessarily have space in their purse to carry a second pair of shoes, nor do they have the time or a convenient location to change into them.
For those businesswomen, we, an all-female team, developed Hidden Heels, a pair of universal heels that can be attached to any flat shoes.
Each pair of Hidden Heels includes a pair of heels and soft bases. Customers can cut and stick the bases to their flat shoes, and then easily attach and remove the heels from the bases of all kinds of shoes, converting their favorite flat shoes into high heels quickly, conveniently and seamlessly.
3D model demonstrating how to attach a heel to its hard base
300K+ Young Professional Businesswomen
We targeted professional businesswomen between 26 and 40 years old who live in big cities, wear heels at least once a week, and do not use a car as the primary means of transportation.
They are confident, need to move around easily and quickly while maintaining professional attire.
They are ambitious, eager to grow professionally, and have a very tight schedule.
They are hard-working. They shop online and only take a break to go to the gym to stay active and fit.
The most likely early adaptors, our target beta users who live in the major cities on the Eastern coast, account for around 300K potential users.
With Hidden Heels, they no longer need to bring an extra pair of shoes, and can change styles quickly to fit in all occasions in their tight schedule. Hidden Heels not only free their style choices, but also free their feet after standing all day at work.
From B2C to Partnership
To maximize market reach, we drew out two business stages: from year 1 to 3, Hidden Heels directly sell our products to targeted customers in big cities on Eastern coast; then, starting from year 4, we partner with other shoe companies and license them to manufacture shoes with universal detachable heels under their brands using our patent.
Hidden Heels’ business canvas & financial estimation
With the two-stage business plan, we expect to break even in year 3 and start expanding our market with partners in the fashion industry. We estimate to earn USD 1 million in revenue in year 5.
Heels & Hard and Soft Bases
Each pair of Hidden Heels includes two parts - heels and bases. The base consists of a hard part, a soft part, and a layer of strong adhesive. The hard part has a groove to fit the heel, and the soft part is cuttable, so as to adapt to different base shapes of flat shoes. This design allows users to stick a base to flats of any shape, while the hard part of base can hold the attached heel stably, ensuring user safety.
To make mass production possible, we plan to use bioplastic injection to mold both heels and hard bases and cut leather to make soft bases, all of them connected by solvent-based glues and covered by waterproof coating.
Bill of material
Bill of process
Product design model (left) & 1st and 2nd round of 3D printed models (middle, right)
For now, to prove the concept at this early stage, we 3D-printed the prototypes of Hidden Heels with two iterations, and found the attach/remove idea does work, as shown in the model demo video above – we believe that with Hidden Heels, we can create a free, beautiful, and convenient life to young professional businesswomen.
Duration
2023/02-2023/03
Instructor
Prof. Kenneth Rother
Team Members
Hsin-Ming Chao, Ge (Serena) Guo, Xiaomeng Li, Natalia Andrea Valdivia, Amy Marie Murro
My team developed this product plan in the course Physical Product Entrepreneurship, held by Cornell University SC Johnson College of Business.