In April, Texas country band Midland will set sail from Miami on a cruise to the Bahamas, along with 3,000 dedicated fans. Hari Mari will be the footwear of choice as the cruise’s official flip-flop.

Earlier this month the Dallas, Texas-based footwear company released its Hari Mari x Midland flip-flop for men and women ahead of Midland’s Last Resort Cruise. The sponsorship is a good example of a major marketing push by the sandal company after closing on its $10 million equity round, which aims to turn Hari Mari into a household name.

Landon Smith, founder of business advisory firm Riveron, led the round, which also included Montgomery Capital Advisors and DWBI Investments.

Hari Mari, started by husband-and-wife duo Lila and Jeremy Stewart, have already gotten a good base to work off of, creating a sandal brand focused on premium. Think arch supports, heel cups, trademarked MemoryFoamToe, and vegetable-tanned leather that’s earned them nods ranging from Outside magazine to Vogue.

Their headquarters are set off from many of the surf flip-flop brands dotting the Southern California landscape, with Lila seeing Hari Mari’s Texas surroundings as an upside.

“Jeremy and I are both from Dallas, born and raised, and so starting the business here, where both of our families and friends live was important to us from the onset,” Lila said. “Being surrounded by this community and army of supporters across the state of Texas, has certainly been an advantage.”

Even still, the brand’s far from just a regional player. California is a major growth target for wholesale and e-commerce, given its spot for the past three years as the No. 2 online market for Hari Mari. Overall, Hari Mari is distributed in more than 800 doors spread across roughly 450 accounts in 49 states, Mexico, the Bahamas, and Canada. Sales were up last year and this year the business is on track to sell between 450,000 and 500,000 pairs of flip-flops.

New Perspectives, Partnerships

The raise marks the company’s fourth round of funding and will be deployed across product and new hires. While Jeremy and Lila had handled wholesale and e-commerce in the past, former Chaco Head of Sales Dana Sawyer was just brought on to lead Hari Mari’s sales division to build out the company’s territories and team. Another new add was Jim Twining, the former CEO of Southern Tide, who joined earlier this month to sit on the advisory board.

Outside of new faces to the business, Hari Mari is creating a more diverse strategy around marketing.

The company’s working on larger influencer partnership deals after a major brainstorming session to identify anything neighboring flip-flops that made sense for the brand to be aligned with, including bands, music festivals, outdoor activities, fishing, and surf to name a few examples.

“Part of the raise here was to amplify brand awareness,” said Jeremy, who serves as the company’s CEO. “A lot of that’s through sales and a lot of that’s through marketing. To date, we haven’t done a lot of grassroots marketing. We’ve really focused on digital only.”

That makes sense given Jeremy’s previous history running a digital agency. Efforts such as the Midland collaboration and Hari Mari’s sponsorship last week of the Luck Reunion music festival on Willie Nelson’s Luck, Texas ranch are part of the broadening marketing efforts. Other opportunities building on Hari Mari’s marketing gameplan include the possibility of advertising in TV, radio, and direct mail.

Emphasis on Premium

Growing the communications platform will help, but the Hari Mari team’s not taking its eye off product innovation. In fact, they’ll be doubling down on product with the capital injection.

The Dunes Sunset is a good example. Hari Mari is close to launching the new style, which marks its first-ever platform sandal. It’s rolling out at several retailers, but will make a big splash with Free People.

“It’s one of those accounts when Lila and I sat down daydreaming about who we’d love to work with, Free People was always at the top of the list,” Jeremy recalled. “This was one of those pinch-me moments at retail.”

Earlier this month, Hari Mari also responded to long-time inquiries from fans of the brand with wider feet, introducing the men’s Grande flip-flop online and at retailers such as Dillard’s, another new account for the company.

There’s a whole other part of the calendar outside sandal season Hari Mari is eyeing with its boots and slippers that the Stewarts expect will continue to expand in the coming years.

“We are doubling down on our commitment to slippers and colder weather months,” Jeremy said. “We really feel like there’s this easy connection between flip-flops and slippers, and its clearly something we want to continue to reinforce and do at a lot more premium level than what’s out there now.”

Additional slipper silhouettes for men and women will launch and tout materials such as Texas shearling, high-quality leathers, memory foam footbeds, and stylish options.

Global Business

Hari Mari, at 20 employees currently, expects to expand by another eight positions. The most senior of those is a head of e-commerce, a responsibility previously overseen by Jeremy over the past dozen years. Lila, meanwhile, had previously handled wholesale until Sawyer’s recent hiring.

“We’ve been in a friendly married couple competition over the past 12 years,” Jeremy said. “The first eight years, Lila just took me to the woodshed every year, but wholesale and e-commerce are now pretty even.”

The latest additions at Hari Mari now leave the couple open to redirect their focus on the big picture of growth and ensuring the basics that got Hari Mari to this point are maintained.

“Our customers expect high quality, and they expect high quality customer service,” Jeremy said. “They go hand in hand, and I think that demand and that bar being set is a really good thing.”

By the numbers, Hari Mari is a private company and doesn’t disclose financials, but the team sees a $100 million-plus business in the longer term. What it’s done so far and what the plans call for this year are steps to help get there, Jeremy said.

Asked whether there’s consideration farther off into the future of a potential IPO, the CEO is measured in responding “we’ll see,” with the focus right now on what can be done to further solidify product and brand.

“We’re taking up a blinders approach to it in terms of how we amplify what we do well and use this capital and strategic advisory components that come along with this raise to really get there,” he said. “We’re being very methodical about it and for the past two months really gone back to our core strategy that have focused on the things that got us here.”

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