you can't go and sell running shoes for twice the price of Nike or Adidas
There are plenty of $160 running shoes out there not made by Nike or Adidas. It's also not unfeasible to make the shoes in the US. It's cheaper to make a billion shoes in China, but it probably costs about the same to make a few thousand.
I don't know about running shoes, but Tim & Mary just sent me another pair of ~$500 order made custom leather shoes last week. They have a waiting list about a year long and make everything by hand.
Sure, they're not running shoes and they're not selling things in volume (they probably only make 50-60 pairs per year), but it's not exactly impossible to sell shoes for those prices.
Sure there's a market for more expensive shoes. Just look at orthopedic shoes, they easily cost 1000$ dollars and in some cases are just slightly modified retail shoes (albeit not very trendy).
If you want to be all 37Signals and sell only 50 pairs of shoes per year and make a decent living: fine. But scaling that process up to anything of significance will cost you a lot more money and (typically) isn't done in your garage.
But still, I do hope he can find a partner who will help him get his product to market. It wouldn't be the first time that a good functional shoe got cancelled, because it wasn't trendy enough for a mass market appeal.
Let's just hope that within 10 years from now, we'll be able to 3D print most of the parts for his shoe at an affordable price. Which would go along way of making the process more accessible.
I've recently begun walking to work (about 2 miles one way), and have been seriously considering plunking down $350 or so for a pair of the American-made leather-soled Wolverine 1000-mile boots.
I don't want to turn this into /r/malefashionadvice (which regularly debates good urban walking footwear), but I'm looking for such shoes and welcome a new brand to investigate.
It's not so much a brand as a husband & wife team that travels to various fairs, making custom fit boots & shoes. They make them by putting a sock on your foot, covering it in duct tape so that it holds its shape, then cutting the sock off your foot. I think that you need to see them IRL for this process, but maybe it's possible to make other arrangements.
The waiting list is severe. It has always taken me ~11 months, but they will contact you when its your turn. They have a cool way of lacing them, so that the knot to tie them is one-handed. For me, that means that I can tie both shoes at the same time, but I hear there are people who only have one useable hand that appreciate it for more practical reasons.
There are plenty of $160 running shoes out there not made by Nike or Adidas. It's also not unfeasible to make the shoes in the US. It's cheaper to make a billion shoes in China, but it probably costs about the same to make a few thousand.