This footwear-tech company is betting on step-in work boots with a new brand

After Kizik launched with its line of step-in shoes in 2017, it focused on demonstrating that its assortment, mostly lace-up sneakers and casual shoes, was as easy to slide into as flip-flops.

Now HandsFree Labs, the footwear-tech company behind Kizik, is launching a new step-in work boot line, Blue Ox. And while Blue Ox again is promoting how easy the work boots are to put on, it’s also going to great lengths to show that the boots stay on—especially in situations where losing a boot could be dangerous.

In a video posted to Instagram, Jensen Pratt, special projects manager at HandsFree Labs, steps into a pair of Blue Ox boots affixed to a board and is hoisted upside down and hangs possum-like.

In another video, Jason Lee, COO of HandsFree Labs, steps into Blue Ox boots attached to a wakeboard and does some impressively gnarly tricks, including flips, while pulled by a speedboat.

“You get the convenience of a hands-free step-in, but once you’re in, you’ve got the fit,” Lee told Retail Brew.

For HandsFree Labs, the launch of Blue Ox, like Kizik before it, is as much about showcasing the technology inside the footwear as the footwear itself. That’s because HandsFree Labs’s business model is to simultaneously highlight its own brands while licensing the technology to other brands, and today it counts Nike (an investor in the company) and New Balance among its licensing partners.

Lee pointed to the luggage sector as a place that was transformed by an invention in the same way HandsFree Labs aspires to transform footwear.

“It’s like putting wheels on luggage,” Lee said. “Once someone starts putting wheels on luggage…I would never want to go back to carrying my suitcase.”

A mile in their shoes: Lee said part of the reason HandsFree developed a work boot was that Kizik customers who were in the trades suggested it. Many of their jobs require removing their shoes during a shift, whether changing into other boots for a concrete pour or not wanting to track mud onto flooring that’s just been installed.

“People realize the inconvenience and the repeated nature of constantly putting on a work boot and taking them off,” Lee said.

While they aren’t all necessarily wearing work boots on the job, there are about 6.4 million workers in construction and extraction jobs in the US, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While some major brands like Wolverine and Thorogood date back to the 1800s, some challenger brands have come along more recently, including Keen Utility (2009) and Brunt Workwear (2020).

Foot traffic: Kizik opened its first store in HandsFree’s home state of Utah in 2023, and another the next year in the Mall of America outside Minneapolis.

HandsFree says about 3 out of 4 shoppers who try on shoes at Kizik stores go on to purchase them, but Blue Ox, which launched on October 1, will start as a DTC-only brand.

“Our goal is to expand into wholesale next year,” Lee said, adding that the precise timing is to be determined.

In the meantime, Lee touted what Blue Ox calls its “30-Day Risk-Free Trial,” which promises a full refund, even for boots that have been worn on messy jobs.

“We want to remove those barriers so people are willing to try it, and if you don’t like it, send it back,” Lee said. “We know when people try the hands-free technology, they love it, and so we want to get people into the boots as fast as they can.”