Meet Steve Watts | Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Steve Watts and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Steve, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
My wife Angela and I run multiple direct-to-consumer brands. We started the first (Slyde) in 2010 out of a garage in Venice Beach. From the start, community and the need to make an impact have always been a driving force in everything we do. With Slyde being an ocean-centered product, we focused primarily on ocean clean-ups and community outreach supporting various nonprofit organizations like A Walk On Water, but we knew we could do more.

We were featured on Shark Tank with Slyde and were lucky enough to get to incredible investors in Mark Cuban and Ashton Kutcher. This experience and exposure helped to elevate our mission. With the experience and contact we had cultivated over the years, we decided to bring another company into the stable.

In 2018 we partnered with a brand from South Africa (my home country), and Veldskoen Shoes USA was born. For those who don’t know, Veldskoen is to South Africa what UGG’S are to Australia, or the gumboot is to The U.K. Veldskoen were first made as far back as 600 years ago in South Africa and were, in fact, the inspiration of what was to become the Clarks desert boot.

Mark and Ashton were both excited to go on this journey with us. Our primary mission is to give back to the communities that raised us. To inspire others to do the same and to show our daughter, Venice, she can make a difference. South Africa has over 30% unemployment, so empowering local communities is essential. That’s why all in a few short years, we have managed to become the largest exporter of shoes from South Africa, and we have helped to revive the South African shoe industry decimated by cheap Chinese imported shoes. Every one of our shoes is handmade and creates well-paid unionized jobs in our factory and tannery.

With the success of Veldskoen and a clear mission, we decided that we could make a real impact with another African heritage product. This time, the Basotho Heritage blanket, worn by the king of Lesotho and other dignitaries like Nelson Mandela, The Pope, and Prince Harry.

Fun Fact: The Basotho Blanket can be worn by the king’s guard in the Black Panther Marvel movie, and they were first made over 180 years ago.

Each Basotho blanket has a deep cultural significance and history to the people of Lesotho. They are sustainably and ethically crafted in South Africa with the blessing of the Basotho Nation.

As a small business, we wanted to make the most significant impact we could. In addition to providing jobs for over 600 people at our Mill outside of Johannesburg, we wanted a way to impact the community of Southern Africa even more.

In South Africa and Lesotho, Over 5 million people are without clean drinking water. All too often, children are given the family task of walking for miles every day to collect water. With the dangers of water-borne disease and the time wasted it takes to collect the water, children and their communities are having their future disappear, and it breaks our hearts.

For this reason, we have partnered with our Mill to fix broken schoolyard water pumps, and for every blanket we sell, we provide roughly 30 kids with water.

It is important to myself and my wife to make a difference in just one person’s life; it drives us every day to want to do better to help create more for those who have less and, in some cases, nothing. Also, we want to be mindful what we do is not about a handout; we want to create jobs that empower an individual. Africa, and specifically Southern Africa, has so much to give. We want to be the conduit that connects the North American Consumer with brands, products, and artistry they may never otherwise have been exposed to.

What should our readers know about your business?
I pretty much summed it up in the question not to be repetitive. I want them to know about the quality, craftsmanship, and beauty of products from Southern Africa. Products that are not only well made, beautiful, and meaningful. But provide a job for someone that can empower them out of, in many cases, desperate situations. Once someone has the dignity to provide for themselves and their family a whole world of change starts to occur and communities and people start to thrive.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If a friend or family were to visit, first things first, coffee. I would immediately hit up to Bear Coast Coffee; It’s our third place and where we have met most of our friends in San Clemente, and they have incredible coffee.

After that, either ride or walk down the beach to Trestles. After working up an appetite, I’d hit up Billy’s for the best sandwiches in town, eat them at Linda Lane park, and let the little ones run amok while we take in the beautiful day.

My all-time favorite is Nicks on Del Mar for the blackened fish burger for dinner. After dinner, nightcap out at any of the excellent hole-in-the-wall bars and pubs along El Camino Real, rinse and repeat because I could do that every day for a year and not get bored.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Angela Watts my wife and Russell Eller’s who was the first to believe in Slyde and who’s garage we used to start it.

Website: https://www.thulatula.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thulatulahome

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThulaTulaHome

Other: https://www.slydehandboards.com/ https://www.veldskoenshoes.com/ https://www.instagram.com/slydehandboards https://www.instagram.com/veldskoenshoesusa/ https://www.facebook.com/slydehandboards https://www.facebook.com/veldskoenshoesusa