If you've been patiently waiting for the opportunity to get some SFT custom shoes, we're excited to finally invite you into our community of beta climbers!

Help us perfect our last algorithm by ordering a pair of custom shoes. Every climber who helps us now improves the speed and flexibility of our algorithm, but for that, we need you to be ready to give us feedback throughout the shoemaking and fitting process.

In gratitude for your help, beta custom shoes are $300 per pair and guaranteed to fit - we'll work with you until you're happy at no extra charge (learning your preferences and performance needs is how our algorithm improves).

For those of you who are living the dirtbag lifestyle or otherwise not sure if you can commit to submitting feedback, we plan to offer custom shoe orders with turn-around times of about a week for $400 at the end of June. For updates on availability, subscribe to our mailing list.

If you're interested now, thanks a ton! You can place your order by emailing beta@sftclimbing.com.

SFT shoes, made for your unique feet. This prototype is sized based on the wearer's foot width, length, and height. And it can cost less than half as much as a custom shoe.

Many climbing friends brought up what a pain it is to find shoes that fit properly. If you or someone you know wants to help me fix this, please fill out these 7 questions.

Last week was last week: we drove to Las Vegas to learn about last- and shoe-making from Ray Klose, who makes beautiful custom climbing shoes. He taught us a couple fancy tricks to make perfect lasts that we can't share, but the basic process goes as follows:

Cast a one-use material around your feet. Pour a hard plastic in the one-time mold.    

Remove the hard plastic cast. This is the basis of the custom last. Trim and adjust the last as needed. For example, I didn't do a perfect job of holding my feet in the same position, but Ray was able to adjust the left to match the right by skilled trimming and gluing. Mak and I tried to help out where an extra pair of hands was needed, but much of the artistry we just had to watch, document, and absorb.

Roughen the surface of the cast lasts and sculpt out the final shape of the shoe. For SFT, we wanted shoes that were more generic in shape that the ones Ray usually makes. This will let us share the first pairs of shoes made on these lasts with user testers who have similarly sized feet. This means that many of the peculiarities of our lasts were smoothed out so that the final shoes wouldn't be too customized for other people to wear.

Ray showed us how to make quick masking tape patterns from our lasts to check sizing. He made up a couple of slippers that we tried on. They fit like gloves! Since the lasts passed this test, Ray will begin making two pairs of shoes in our design. We'll be working with him remotely for the next week as he builds them, and then he'll ship them to us for climb testing.