Meet Eric Jones of LFLS Shoes in The Valley

Eric, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I came up with the idea to start my own designer dress shoe company during my undergrad at the University of Arkansas in 2015. The concept and drive to even start the business was inspired by my humble upbringing in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, where I saw his mother struggle to make ends meet at home working 2-3 jobs.

Having spent a lot of time in church as a kid, my mom would do her best to keep me in a nice little suit or whatever she could afford. Dressing up was always part of my lifestyle, and I viewed fashion as a vehicle for expressing myself beyond his circumstances. My mom used to always say, “Don’t look like what you’re going through or been through.”

My modest beginnings and the strict discipline of my parents truly have helped shape me into the man and entrepreneur that I am today. In 2015, when I pulled out an LLC for my business, my mother offered her support right away and helped me to get it off the ground by acquiring a couple of credit cards. A few weeks before graduating from college in December 2016, my mother ended up passing away, and I was forced to figure things out on my own. Three years before that, in 2013, I lost my father, and I also lost my grandmother in 2010. She had helped my mother raise me all my life.

Since then, I have faced many challenges as a young black entrepreneur, but I manage to continue pushing forward and inspire thousands daily. I set my mothers death at the top of the list for the worst thing that could ever happen to me, that has truly allowed me to get through all of my difficult times as an entrepreneur.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth journey, and I’ll tell anyone that wants to pursue entrepreneurship that it will not be easy at all. Aside from losing my number one source of motivation and support (my mother), I’ve faced many challenges in the past two years that would have pushed many to throw in the towel. After my mother passed, I made the decision to go full time into my business with nothing because I felt like I had nothing else to lose. Many people doubted me, friends, as well as family. I even doubted myself when my first order of shoes was delivered four months late. When I received them, they were defected, much lower quality than I expected, they fit narrow, and a host of other things went wrong. The agent I went through to produce those shoes had screwed me over big time and cut all communication. I was forced to throw away over 60 pairs of shoes from that order. Because of that unfortunate situation, I literally lived off of $10,000 the entire year of 2017.

Funding has been a huge challenge and set back for me, getting my people to support my business and see the value of my products, exposure, learning accounting and other business skills, sourcing through overseas factories, and so many other things have challenged me on this journey. With funding being one of the biggest challenges of them all, I’ve found myself always reminding myself that “If you don’t come from a wealthy family, a wealthy family must come from you!”

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the LFLS Shoes story. Tell us more about the business.
LFLS Shoes is a designer dress shoe company, but it is a company that offers much more than just luxury shoes to our community. LFLS is a movement; there is a huge purpose behind my business, so I always remind people that this is much bigger than shoes. Not only does the design of my shoes set us apart from other designer shoe businesses, but my story, drive, and purpose puts us into a completely different lane than brands like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, etc.

Through my business, I’m able to inspire young kids that saw the streets, sports, or rap as the only way out of areas similar to where I grew up! I’m able to shift the narrative that has been set in place for our people and shed a more positive light on our community. I am a huge advocate of supporting black-owned businesses and circulating the black dollar back into our community. I strive to shift our mindset and way of thinking when it comes to what is considered luxury and what isn’t. We tend to devalue our own brands, and this holds us back from ever building black-owned businesses to the point where they can compete with brands like the ones I mentioned above. I am proud to say that my business allows me to represent us in a way that hasn’t genuinely been done in the past. Representation is key; if the younger generation doesn’t see it, they won’t think they can achieve it. Our image is very important, LFLS Shoes is molding the image of the black man and woman into a dapper and elegant masterpiece.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I think luck plays a part in everyone’s life at some point in time, but I also feel like a purpose is placed on each of our lives. With that purpose being placed on our lives, I believe that our journey has been laid out for us, it’s just up to us to take the leap of faith and walk that journey. When people say “everything happens for a reason” or “trust the process,” they are speaking facts. You have to find your purpose and live in it daily! When times get tough, just remember if it was easy, everyone would do it. Don’t be the person that lives the same year 75 times and call that life. The best way to predict your future is to create it, and that takes much more than luck.