Joey Zwillinger told CNNMoney that practical reasons drove him and co-founder Tim Brown to base Allbirds, their company that makes wool shoes, in San Francisco.
"I've been living there, and Tim was looking to move somewhere close to New Zealand, and we agreed that the New Zealand of America is San Francisco," Zwillinger said.
"It's got the same sensibilities, the same focus on the environment, and this idea that celebrates disruption, and we were trying to do something different, so we thought there couldn't be a better place," he said.
Zwillinger said it helps to be away from New York, the traditional hub for retail and fashion.
"We often hear, 'You got to do this this way,' and we ask why, and we don't know any better because we're not from the shoe industry, and the answer is something like, 'It's just always been done that way,'" he said.
"Our naiveté and being outside of where the magic usually happens," he said, "has allowed us to look in from a different perspective and has given us this ability to create newness that other people just wouldn't have seen."
