Emmanuel Eribo is the co-creator of Løci, a British luxury sneaker and apparel brand that is loved by Nicki Minaj. Prior to starting his entrepreneurial venture, he worked in finance despite not having a finance background.
He studied psychology at university, but to get into finance, he bought some books on coding and taught himself how to code. He was lucky enough to get a coding job at HSBC and started programming for the trading floor.
After a few months, he didn’t feel like it was a culture fit and decided to move on. He was also inspired by the fact that he wanted to be his own boss. However, because of the remuneration and lifestyle that came with his finance job, he stayed on for about eight years.
“I wanted to get involved in building something I could be responsible for—at that time, it was a venture into consumer products. My brother, and school friends, and I bounced ideas around,” he told Business Insider.
He continued, “I remember telling my mom I was thinking of launching a business. She told me, ‘If you believe you can do it, I’m here for you.’ That was all I needed because I started with nothing, and if I leave with nothing, I’ll probably be OK in the end.”
Eribo was initially afraid about quitting his job, but he quickly came to the realization that one of the hallmarks of being an entrepreneur is risk-taking.
He ended up building a business called Butterfly Twists as a side hustle. It was a ballerina shoe brand he built up as a hobby with his team while they worked in finance and distributed online.
“We started selling a lot of shoes, so we quit our jobs and built this brand up. It grew to have an office with 60 employees in the UK and 30 internationally,” he noted.
Over the next seven years, he came to fully understand how things worked in the industry, and his time in banking also taught him hard work, which translated into running a business.
Butterfly Twists grew significantly. He led the company to sell in 67 countries and had 32 stores, selling a million pairs of shoes in a year. While the business was doing well, Eribo wasn’t in love with it because he couldn’t really relate to it.
“I was very proud of what we had achieved, but it felt like I was creating spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations my entire time. The days of running around with sneakers in the bag and doing deals were long gone,” he said.
The pandemic ushered in his next business move, leading to the creation of Løci, a luxury vegan sneaker and apparel brand. The brand name was derived from the Latin word “locus,” which means center or place and the feeling of being at home.
“We wanted to build a business where we felt that way and built on our values, so we used repurposed, recycled, and biodegradable materials,” Eribo said.
He launched the brand in 2021 despite having no money to build a sneaker brand. “It wasn’t the skillset we had, but we knew how to build a brand,” he told Business Insider.
Since launching, the brand has gathered significant celebrity endorsements, something Eribo said he never imagined in the early phase of the business. He had Leonardo DiCaprio invest while Minaj became an equity stakeholder. What is more, his brand has done an exclusive sneaker collaboration with Minaj.
In April, thecut.com reported that the rapper had created 11 pairs of sustainable sneakers in a new partnership with LØCI.
