Seven Hills Running Shop: Year One
It’s a great day when a small business celebrates their first year. On October 2, 2013 Phil Kochik, owner of Seven Hills Running Shop, placed the first candle on the shop’s cake. In full disclosure, Kochik actually contacted us about doing this interview. That action alone speaks more about the type of business Kochik is building. It’s a business model centered around Kochik’s passions and his understanding that his target market is as much trail runners as it is his friends.
Seven Hills Running Shop started out as a six days a week operation. According to Kochik, the Magnolia business scene has two “sleepy” days:
“Yeah, we originally were closed on Monday for a couple of reasons. I only had one employee, a lot of Magnolia businesses are closed either Sunday or Monday, and I didn’t want to overwork myself.”
Conveniently, the shop’s one employee was Glenn Tachiyama, a well-known trail running photographer. Tachiyama’s energy saturated photographs line the once barren walls of the shop side-by-side with other locally spirited artifacts like race numbers from races that include Brock Gravely’s nearly disintegrated 2006 Western States bib number to Gary Robbins’ 2012 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc bib number, Adam Hewey’s Hardrock 100 stick, and an airplane towing a Seven Hills Running Shop banner decoration by Doug Garza.
Seven Hills Running Shop has ascended from seven brands on opening day in 2012 to twelve brands in one year. Kochik makes it a point to support brands that support trail running. The idea is that Seven Hills Running Shop supports the brands that really make an effort to grow trail running, and trail runners support the shop thus creating a circle of support for trail running:
“I wanted to support and represent the brands that put a lot of money into the trail world. Magazines, races, sponsored athletes. Montrail, Salomon, and Pearl Izumi were specifically the three brands that I hoped would sell like hot cakes: all the time. I really thought they were going to be my top three brands because of the people they sponsor. You just hear and see those brands at all the races. When I started the store, Pearl Izumi still had that crazy team of elite guys and then they got kind of disbanded. That was one of the first few bad news I got. I ordered thousands and thousands of dollars of Pearl Izumi shoes in part because I liked the shoes but also because they sponsored an elite team of ultra runners. I was worried that when that team went away people would stop caring about the shoes, and that Pearl Izumi was going to stop advertising their shoes the same way.”
Kochik’s intention was to carry a lot trail shoes, but he still saw the importance of bringing in a number of different road shoes. The primary reason is because a lot trail runners like to wear road shoes:
“Trail runners use road shoe, so I didn’t want to exclude any trail runners that did use trail shoes. I wanted something for everybody. It was great to get Saucony. They’re a company that has good road shoes and good feeling trail shoes.”
The biggest fear of any owner is not having something a potential customer wants:
“When we opened I pretty much carried every size from men and women. I had a couple of men’s 7.5, and in just about everything I had men’s 8 to 13, and then a couple of men’s 14. I knew it was going to be tough going at first. There just was going to be that many people, so if someone came in and happen to be a men’s 8 I didn’t want to just have two shoes for them. I couldn’t just assume everyone that would come in would just be the key men’s 10 or women’s 8. Surprisingly, I sold a lot of weird sizes that first month. I sold a lot of men’s 8 and men’s 8.5, and the men’s 12 and men’s 13 seemed to just as quickly as the men’s 10. I was just glad I had them. I’ve found now, a year later, that I’m falling into the bell curve of shoe sizes. I’m still ordering small sizes, but now I keep track of everything. I have a spreadsheet that I reference all of the time.”
It’s even more surprising that Kochik didn’t even keep track of the numbers for three months. Surely even Dilbert’s co-workers did this:
“It’s funny, I didn’t keep track of what we sold shoe-wise the first few months. I didn’t start until January. I guess I didn’t want to be depressed by what we were selling.”
How does Seven Hills Running Shop decide on what to bring in? According to Kochik, it’s products that are in the media. Specifically, Trail Runner Magazine, Ultra Runner magazine, websites like irunfar.com and Uphill Running, and things that are floating around Facebook. The decision sounds a lot less glorified than what most would imagine, but Kochik explains that the store is fueled by what people want and see everyday, not by just want he thinks is better. A good example, Kochik says:
“I brought in the Montrail Badwater instead of the Montrail Bajada. I thought, ‘no one is talking about the Badwater. Everyone is talking about the Bajada.’ I felt like the Badwater was just as good of a shoe, and maybe even better. It felt really good to me. I said to myself that I was going to sell a ton of these, and get people to start talking about the Badwater. You know, people would start wondering, ‘where did all those Badwaters come from? Oh, they’re coming from Seven Hills.’ But, of course, I sold like two pairs and it just proved to be a really hard shoe to sell even though I liked it. I ended up getting the Bajada, after I quickly realized the Badwater wasn’t selling.”
With every oops, there are also “ah-ha” moments. Kochik admits that the store opening with seven brands wasn’t really planned to coincide with the name, but the vendor he thought of as his seventh brand he had his reservations about if it was even a good idea to risk it:
“When I first started, Altra was a brand that I decided to just throw in there knowing that I was probably going to regret having it. But a year later it’s one of my top brands. I had a lot of people coming in from all over the place in the first few months because I was an Altra dealer and on their website. More so than any other brand that I had at the time.”
Although, Kochik had his top three brands picked out in his head, Pearl Izumi, Montrail, and Salomon, he learned that sometimes it takes some faith, and selective ordering until you find something that works:
“I really wanted to push Salomon because of Kilian, the runners, the team and you just see that stuff all over the place. I ended up only getting a couple of pieces, but I was on the fence of getting all that fancy Kilian clothing, but it was just so expensive. I got quite a bit of their shoes, but they didn’t all take off. The Mission sold well for women, but not men. The XT Wings sold well for women, but not men. I brought in the Mantra, but it was a bust. The Fellraiser, however, is now here and it’s actually doing well. I’m really excited about it because it’s the first shoe in the ‘14 line-up that fits and feels a lot better for the American foot. Too many people say it fits too tight, or too narrow, but the new stuff is a bit more roomy in the toe-box. I booked heavily because I think they’re totally different, and I really, really want to support the brand because of how much they do for trail running.”
The decision to keep trying with Salomon is rooted in Kochik’s business model of supporting brands that support trail running the most. Which brings up a brand like inov-8. The company was largely seen as having some of the best trail shoes for a long time from most of the trail running elites, but inov-8 switched markets last year to focus more on Crossfit®. "We'll see how it goes, I really want to stick to my business model."
Looking forward to next year, Kochik says he hopes that he’ll look back on his website like he does the store:
“I just remember how little stuff we had in here. Well, I remember looking at it and thinking we have a lot, but I don’t know if every customer saw it that. I look at the store now and I know we have a lot of product in comparison to when we first opened. Hopefully next year I can look back at the website and say the same thing.”
Happy Birthday, Seven Hills Running Shop.
Seven Hills Running Shop - (206) 941-5866
3139 W. Government Way Suite B
