Foot in the door: Suburban native started shoe company from scratch

The era when Deerfield native Eric Porter was in high school (2010-14) might have the peak years of “sneaker culture.”

Buy, sell, collect. Sneakers have been an American obsession from the early 1980s through today, but interest seemed especially high back then.

“I just remember me and my buddies that all were sneaker heads, we would travel all over the suburbs and into the city,” Porter said. “Six people, one car, all with duffel bags. We would go to these conventions, bringing shoes and bringing cash to buy and sell our sneakers.”

Porter was the type to sit in class and draw sneakers in his notebooks. As he got older, working in the shoe business was a natural fit.

But starting his own shoe company? Competing with Nike and Adidas and every other sports shoe on the market? That might seem like an illogical business plan.

But Porter and few friends have made it work. His company, Stria Sport, has three types of shoes available. They've got athlete endorsers, appeared in the 2024 Olympics and just landed a deal with the Harlem Globetrotters.

The product feels like the equivalent of a craft brewery, a small brand willing to compete with Coors and Budweiser for market share. One significant difference: Craft brew can be made in someone's kitchen, and each bottle doesn't need to come in eight different sizes.

But when Porter was young and just out of college, already loaded with knowledge based on years of sneaker obsession, he decided he'd rather try and fail than risk future regret.

“Certain people like myself, you want to be different,” Porter said. “You don't want to wear what everyone else has. We're that niche brand. We're the brand not everyone has.

“It's the 'If you know, you know' in the sneaker world. We've built a small little success and a small little culty following within the footwear community. It's been really cool to see.”

A shoe is born

Porter was a basketball player at Deerfield High School, then Lake Forest College, with a one-year stint as a walk-on at Loyola in between.

So that was a natural entry into the world of footwear. But another factor that shaped his interest was Porter's father would travel for work and bring back shoes from Asia that weren't available in the United States. So Porter had unique items to bring to conventions.

“We would mark on our calendars when there was a Sneaker Con, when there were different shoe conventions,” he said.

“We were traveling anywhere from downtown Chicago up to Schaumburg or McCormick Place, into random high schools, the West suburbs. There was really all types of conventions — small shows, big shows. We would hit all of them.”

While networking through his college years, Porter learned more about materials and the design process. He went to a shoe material convention in Portland, Oregon, and met a former Nike developer. While working a different job, he spent two years designing their shoe.

He chose the name “Stria” based on the Latin word “industria,” which can mean activity or energy. The pandemic slowed the process, but once they had produced an actual shoe, Porter thought back to his own reliable source for shoe information and sent his product to several social media reviewers.

“A couple of them posted about how much they liked this new Chicago footwear brand,” he said. “Next thing you know, we had pro athletes asking to wear the shoes, we got approved by the NBA. Fast forward, now we've had over 100 athletes around the world wearing our basketball shoe. It's just been kind of wild.”

A memorable moment was having the basketball shoe worn in the Paris Olympics by several members of the Puerto Rico and South Sudan national teams.

Since qualifying and roster selection ended just days before the event, Porter ended up packing up a few bags of shoes — just like in his high school days — and hand-delivering them to the athletes village.

Pickle juice

Nike made its massive leap by memorably signing Michael Jordan to an endorsement deal. Stria turned to Gabe Tardio, professional pickleball player, for an early signature shoe.

“People are calling him the Cooper Flagg of pickleball because he's 19. He's the youngest pro on the tour,” Porter said. “We ended up working with him for a pickleball shoe, which has been really cool. He wanted to do something different and we created a signature shoe, kind of bringing that basketball flavor into the pickleball market.”

Stria decided to market a pickleball shoe based on customer feedback. People would write and say the basketball shoe also felt good on a pickleball court. Sometimes Porter would just call customers to get more detailed feedback.

“There's similar movements to basketball, a lot of side to side,” he said. “You want ankle support, you want stability, you want durability. So we took a lot of pieces of our basketball shoe to pickleball.”

One basketball player wearing Stria is K.J. McDaniels, now playing overseas after three years in the NBA.

“Being able to see Eric’s grind at his craft and Stria Sport’s journey has been cool to witness,” McDaniels said. “There’s a reason I keep wearing them on the court. I can bring a different style than other guys, while knowing I’m in a light shoe that I’m fully comfortable in.”

Most of the sales are done online. Stria is in some sporting goods stores in the Western United States. The only store in the Chicago area that carries the line at the moment is Kiddles Sports in downtown Lake Forest.

The newest deal has the Harlem Globetrotters wearing Stria shoes during their 2026 tour, which will commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the team.

“It really was just a dream when I was 12 — 'Oh, I'd love to start a shoe brand,'” Porter said. “But as I got older, I know I'm not going to the NBA and I'm not going to be an athlete signed by another brand. But I do love shoes, so I just started researching.

“It's definitely competitive. But not everyone wants to wear what everyone else has.”