There are failures you see coming. And there are others you feed for years because you don't want to accept what the data already told you.
K-One was our second kind of failure.
K-One was our bet on premium sporting goods. A 700-square-meter store concept — our first large format — where we were going to compete head-to-head with the best sporting goods stores in the world. Running, training, soccer. Everything under one roof, with the best brands, in an environment that made you feel like you were walking into something special.
It sounded perfect. And it failed.
Not for one reason. For eight.
Mistake 1: We arrived before the market existed
Chile is a sedentary country. We knew it, but we chose to believe the trend would arrive faster than it did. The pandemic eventually accelerated sports in Santiago, but we were already in, burning cash, waiting for a consumer who didn't yet exist at the scale we needed.
Mistake 2: We got squeezed in the middle
From above, mono-brand stores crushed us. If you're going to spend $300 on cleats, you go to the Nike store, not a multi-brand. From below, department stores destroyed us with aggressive promotions tied to their own credit cards and events like Cyber Day. We weren't the most premium or the most convenient. The worst place to be.
Mistake 3: We tried to be everything and became nothing
Three main categories: running, training, soccer. By definition, we weren't the best at any of them. Early sales data clearly told us that running was our strength. We didn't listen. We should have picked just one category, in smaller stores, and been the best at that niche.
Mistake 4: We built the store for ourselves, not for the customer
We designed K-One based on what we wanted it to be, not what the customer needed. We didn't do enough market research. We didn't validate the concept with real data. We fell in love with our own idea.
Mistake 5: We picked the wrong locations
We opened every store in new, unproven malls. It was the only option we had — getting more than 200 square meters in established malls with an unknown brand was nearly impossible. But this poisoned our decision-making: we never knew whether the problem was the store or the location. That ambiguity cost us years.
Mistake 6: We kept them alive too long
Because our other businesses were doing well, we subsidized K-One far longer than we should have. The stores entered zombie mode — not growing, not dying, just slowly burning resources. Killing something you created is hard. But keeping it alive artificially is more expensive.
Mistake 7: Serious runners don't go to malls
We learned this late and the hard way. The serious runner goes to the store once to try on the shoe. Every repeat purchase is online. Our model depended on mall traffic. Our customer didn't live there.
Mistake 8: To be a specialist, you have to actually be a specialist
With three categories in 700 square meters, we didn't have room for the categories a serious runner actually needs: recovery, nutrition, technical accessories. We wanted the specialist title without committing to what that really means.
What we're doing now
We took down K-One's ecommerce — the last thing remaining of the brand. But the lesson didn't die with it.
We're pivoting toward a running specialist concept. Digital first, physical store second — and only where it makes sense for our consumer. The model that inspires me is Fleet Feet in the US: over 300 stores, $500 million in sales, with a radically different approach — employees who spend an average of 42 minutes with each customer, 3D foot scanning, gait analysis, and a deep connection to the running community. JackRabbit, Tracksmith, Pacers Running — all prove that the niche works when you commit to it fully.
K-One tried to be everything. What comes next will be one thing, done right.
The real lesson
Every single one of these eight mistakes comes down to the same thing: we didn't listen to the customer. We assumed instead of validating. We fell in love with the idea instead of falling in love with the problem.
If I had to give one piece of advice to any retail operator designing a new format today, it would be this: fall in love with the problem, not your solution. And if the data tells you your solution isn't working, kill it fast. The cost of keeping something alive out of pride is always greater than the cost of closing it on time.
P.S. These eight mistakes have quietly become a checklist we run before any new format launch — ours or a client's. If you're designing one, run it before you sign the lease.