Upon your move to Europe, you
began a blog, The Shoe Snob,
which is well known and is
rich in knowledge for your
shoe enthusiast followers.
Tell us what led you to develop The
Shoe Snob blog, what is the signifi-
cance of the name, and what do you
hope people gain from reading it?
The name came from my father. He was
a brilliant salesman and knew how to
captivate people. I told him of my idea to
start the blog and how I wanted it to be
the biggest blog in the world and I told
him that I was thinking of a name to call
it and told him that the only thing that I
had come up with was ‘The Shoe Aficio-
nado.’ He laughed and said that it was so
boring and said, ‘who the heck is going
The Shoe Snob Blog was to want to read ‘The Shoe Aficionado?
created for two reasons. No one Just,’ he said. ‘You have to be
The Shoe Snob!!! You have to go out
1. I wanted to be the
there and evoke reactions out of peo-
voice of the industry.
ple. You have to be like Howard Stern
My first goal was to see men
because I guarantee that the people that
wearing better shoes. That’s why I
hate him come back to watch him more
wanted to start a shoe brand. I was,
than the people that love him.’ I said,
and to be honest still am, disappointed
‘wow, you are right. Okay I will be The
by the poor choices we make as men in Shoe Snob!’ And that was it. My Dad
regards to our footwear. So my goal
gave me that brilliant name and he was
with the blog was to become an expert completely right. I started the blog by
and grow the largest shoe blog in the
being a bit crass and stating my opinions
world in the hopes to amass a grand
of sartorial blunders that were all too
common and was not afraid to be a
audience and start to make a change
in the way that men saw and purchased bit explicit. And it drew in a big
audience. Even to this day,
nice dress shoes would come with a
if I write a rant piece, it
customer base to launch my shoe brand
gets way more readership
from. I knew that I could at least get
than anything else. Brilliant
5-10% of my readership to become
but sad. Sad that the world thrives
my customers and instead of
on negativity.
launching a brand with no
customer base at all, the blog
helped me have customers waiting
for my shoes to come out to make
a purchase.