In early November, Shoedio owners Mike and Emily Griffin had a gender reveal worthy of its name. As the Carolina Panthers players emerged from the locker room to take on the New Orleans Saints at Bank of America Stadium, they wore cleats painted in UV-reactive paint. When the team sprinted onto the field, their shoes changed from white to blue, revealing the surprise: “It’s a boy!”
The Griffins, already parents to 8-year-old son Max, were delighted.
“We can afford to have another child because of that team,” Mike says. “Some of these players have turned into good family friends of ours.”
Since 2023, the spouses and business partners have created colorful cleats worn by the players in pre-game warm-ups and special events, adding creative, hometown flair to the Panthers’ gear. Today, players from the Charlotte Hornets, Charlotte FC, and several NFL teams sport their personalized footwear, too. They’ve also designed custom kicks for musical superstars Nicki Minaj and Morgan Wallen.
At the Griffins’ South End studio, people can commission custom sneakers or participate in workshops to design a pair. Workshops are open to all ages, and participants supply their own shoes.
“We recommend new, all-white leather sneakers because the paint holds better,” Emily says. “Nike Air Force 1s make a great canvas for beginners.”
The Griffins are there to offer tips and tricks, but participants are free to take their design in any direction they choose. Some opt for color blocking or a traditional floral aesthetic; others might do anime characters or go full-on Pollock with a burst of paint splatter. As the paint-covered tables and walls show, mess is welcome.
Their lives—and Instagram pages—are full and colorful now, but the Griffins’ path to small business ownership wasn’t easy.
“Before I met Emily, I was homeless and an alcoholic, like, sleeping-on-a-park-bench homeless,” Mike says. “I got in trouble at age 16, and society told me the only thing available to me was flipping burgers.”
They met in Wilmington when Emily was studying medical sonography at Cape Fear Community College. By the time Max arrived, they were living in a shed in Mike’s father’s backyard.
“I was making $8.25 an hour washing dishes,” he says. “I thought that was as good as it was going to get for me at 31.”
In January 2020, news of Kobe Bryant’s death affected Mike in a way he couldn’t explain.
“I was three years sober, but as a grown man, I couldn’t take care of my own family,” he says. “I was a sneakerhead, so I took an old pair of shoes and painted them purple and gold in honor of Kobe. They weren’t good at all, but it was the only time all my worries and stress disappeared out of my head.”
During the pandemic, Mike used their stimulus check to make more sneakers. Friends and family thought they were crazy, but Emily told him to stick with it. Her job as an OB sonographer, administering ultrasounds for pregnant women, allowed them to purchase a home in Raleigh while Mike continued to sharpen his skills. He estimates he sold one pair of shoes every three months, but he kept at it, sometimes working for 20 hours a day.
A year later, he saw a custom sneaker shop open in Los Angeles. It was the push he needed to move forward with his dream, so the Griffins sold their house and moved to Charlotte, Mike’s hometown.
“We downgraded our home, which gave me a profit, and we used it to open up a studio,” he says. “We had $13 combined between personal and business bank accounts, so we really bet on ourselves.”
The Shoedio’s grand opening was August 19, 2023—the same day Emily quit her job to run the business full-time.
“I thought, ‘If we’re going to win, we’ll win together, and if we lose, we’ll lose together,’” she says.
Their gamble paid off. In addition to workshops and custom orders, The Shoedio hosts events on Friday and Saturday nights for guests 21 and over. Participants can bring their own beverages and have an interactive date night, or just a fun friends’ night out. Private parties are available by request, and for every participant who brings in a pair of shoes to paint, The Shoedio donates a pair to a child in need.
Their custom cleats remain in high demand among professional athletes as well. In 2023, the year they opened the studio, Mike made 63 pairs of shoes for the Panthers. In 2024, he made shoes for more than 500 players on 14 teams. “Last year, I stopped counting in March,” he says.
Emily admits she’s not a sneakerhead, but says if she had to design a shoe that perfectly represents Mike, it would be a mix of luxury and budget-friendly leathers, “something one-of-a-kind.”
Mike would put his wife in a pair of python Jordan 1s.
“They’re flashy, but only when the light hits,” he says. “Emily’s very reserved, but when she steps out into the light, she’s a superstar.”
“I thought, ‘If we’re going to win, we’ll win together, and if we lose, we’ll lose together’”