Founder of Toms looks back on 10 years

Toms would not share company valuation numbers but its worth at the time Bain bought in was estimated at $625 million.

Once a simple slip-on doing double duty for girls and boys, Toms now makes women's wedges－a top seller－h(huán)igh heels and ballet flats, along with brogues and athletic shoes.

In the early years, Toms got a boost when celebrities started wearing the shoes peddled by the young and handsome Mycoskie. The challenge was to keep them coming.

"People said, Blake, your customers will buy your shoes once because of the cause and the mission but they'll never buy them a second time unless they're comfortable, priced right, fashionable," he recalls. "The biggest challenge in recent years has been hiring designers to make that happen."

There were other bumps along the way.

As a Christian businessman, Mycoskie was lambasted in 2014 for giving a speech at an event hosted by the conservative group Focus on the Family, itself criticized as openly anti-gay and anti-choice.

"So beliefs in terms of my values and morals are very much a part of the center of Toms," he says. "Now political beliefs, religious beliefs－those really aren't. There's no real place for those I think in the business because the truth is we have customers and people who are amazing supporters of Toms that are on every single end of the spectrum."

Toms operates in more than 75 countries, including Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and China. Since starting the company, hundreds of others have jumped on the one-for-one bandwagon, from Pampers and Crocs to Subway and the Gap.

Mycoskie remains the face of Toms, including on social media streams, where he chronicles his globe-trotting adventures.

So who's this Tom guy?

There isn't one. The company's name, he says, stands for his vision from the beginning: Sell a pair of shoes today and give away a pair tomorrow. All of that wouldn't fit on the first tags he put in shoes back in Argentina, so he shortened "tomorrow" to Toms.

"I've been called Tom, like, so many times, and I answer to it," Mycoskie says. "My wife always gets a kick out of it. It's just easier to go with it, so there is no Tom. We're all Tom."

I've been called Tom, like, so many times, and I answer to it. ... It's just easier to go with it, so there is no Tom. We're all Tom."