Atoms (shoes)

Last updated
Atoms
Company typePrivate
Industry Footwear
Founded2019
Founders
  • Waqas Ali
  • Sidra Qasim
Headquarters Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York
Website atoms.com

Atoms is a privately held footwear brand, based in Brooklyn, New York, that designs, develops and sells footwear. [1] Atoms offers quarter size shoes and allows customers to buy pairs of shoes in two different sizes. [2]

History

Atoms was founded by husband and wife Waqas Ali and Sidra Qasim in San Francisco. [3] In 2012, they started their first footwear company as students at Forman Christian College University, Lahore [4] named 'Markhor' (originally Hometown) in Pakistan, while working with craftsmen in their hometown of Basirpur in Okara, Pakistan. [5] In 2015, the couple moved to Mountain View as part of Y Combinator's accelerator program. [6] They were inspired by the challenges that most people still wear shoes that do not fit properly. [7] The founders wanted to design a shoe that people would use every day. Atoms started selling via invite-only access on its website and built a waitlist of over 40,000 people before publicly launching on June 3, 2019. [8]

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References

  1. Okwodu, Janelle (3 June 2019). "Meet the Sneaker Brand Set to Disrupt the Fashion Industry". Vogue . Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  2. Evans, Jonathan (10 June 2019). "Startup Sneaker Brand Atoms Just Fixed One of the Biggest Problems With Shopping for Shoes". Esquire . Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  3. Stolzoff, Simone (26 November 2018). "Will the Next Great Tech Company Come From the Developing World?". The Atlantic . Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  4. Khan, Nosherwan (2016-06-15). "The Markhor – Sidra Qasim & Waqas Ali". The Rozee Blog. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
  5. Tajammul, Khizr (10 July 2015). "Shoes with a story: Markhor is a start-up you should know about". Dawn.com . Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  6. Magee, Christine (11 August 2015). "Markhor Takes The Middleman Out Of Designer Shoemaking". TechCrunch . Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  7. Holmes, Elizabeth (15 June 2014). "Feet Are Getting Bigger, and Many People Wear Shoes That Don't Fit Right". Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  8. Moore, Kaleigh (16 May 2019). "Why Online Fashion Retailers Are Experimenting With Invite-Only Access". Forbes . Retrieved 28 June 2019.