Shoes of Prey Interview from the Tech Side
360Tech caught up with Mike Knapp, from Shoes of Prey, an online fulfillment service for making stylish shoes. We talked about his experience at Google, and how he has turned entrepreneur.
Where for Google did you work and on what projects?
I
worked for Google variously in Sydney, Mountain View California, and
Shanghai over a period of about 4 years. Initially I worked in their
sales team, where I developed sales software, and I later worked on
Google Reader. I enjoyed working on Google Reader the most if only
because it is my favorite Google product. I use it religiously every
day.
Why did you go the Google route, your bio says you dabbled in entrepreneurship before?
I have
previously started a business that offered custom programming services.
Then the Google offer came along, and I couldn't refuse. In 2005 I
think there were only about 14 people working in Australia for Google.
Joining back then felt like joining a small startup. It was great fun,
and a fabulous opportunity.
Do you have toys in your Shoes of Prey office?
No toys as such, but many many beautiful shoes!
With what did you architecture the site?
The
site is all hand coded (just like our shoes are all handmade). We run
our site on Google AppEngine, which provides scalable hosting and has
so far cost us nothing, and our shoe designer is built with Flash.
How do you handle the fulfillment? Do you have a warehouse?
Because
all of our shoes are made to order, they are shipped from the studio as
soon as they are finished. Consequently we don't have a need for a
warehouse. Our employee, Vanessa, handles all of the logistics from our
studio.
Are they manufactured locally?
All
of our shoes are made in the Canton region of China by workers that
specialize in custom, handmade shoes. They are real artisans, and it's
breathtaking to watch them work. The attention to detail is amazing,
which is a product of their 4 - 5 year training process to become a
shoemaker.
Do you think you can claim a global market with the shipping costs from Australia? Or are you going for the Local Australian market?
We
charge a flat $25 AUD fee to ship worldwide. This week we plan to
localize our currency offering into 6 additional currencies:
USD, NZD, EUR, YEN, GBP and CAD. Hopefully that should expand our
international presence some more, which is already healthy despite only
offering our shoes in AUD.
What are you doing for marketing of the product?
At the
moment we're receiving an amazing amount of word-of-mouth and editorial
coverage. For instance, this month Marie Claire covered us in
Australia, which brought a tidal wave of people to the site. We're also
getting lots of coverage on other fashion blogs, and a lot of referrals
through Twitter and Facebook. Having worked at Google, we are big
advocates for Google AdWords, which we also use constantly. We've also
dabbled a bit in Facebook advertising which has worked well.
Do you want to be the next Zappos?
Yes
and no. We want to scale our business to offer beautiful, custom made
shoes for as many people as possible. However, we don't want to become
a clearinghouse for every style of shoe imaginable. We want our product
to stay relevant, unique and hot.
How come we didn't see you overseas at any of the Tech Conferences, LEWEB, LIFT, DLD, etc?
We're
keen to get to more conferences - however at the moment all of our
efforts are being invested into pounding the pavement in Sydney and
trying to refine our product offering before we really take it to the
international stage. Having said that, we were a finalist for a
TechCrunch Crunchie this year in the best bootstrapped category. We
also made it to the last rounds of consideration for the TechCrunch50
conference last year.
How should technology influence people? What should the goal be?
I
think technology influences different people in different ways, and at
different times. People are now going online in droves to find learn
what's cool, buy things and be entertained. However, for us, we've
discovered that it's much easier to sell our product face-to-face
first, and let the technology play second fiddle. That was unexpected,
but it makes total sense in retrospect. For any business, I guess the
goal is to find the right mix between online and offline. Sometimes you
need to experiment a bit to find the sweet spot. We're still
experimenting with Shoes of Prey!
What about this real time discussions that are going on, do you believe in twitter or Facebook?
We're
all big users and believers of Twitter and Facebook. For us, it's a
great way for us to connect with our customers, and get feedback about
our product. I don't know that we would have grown as quickly without
either of these tools. Facebook, for instance, drives a very solid
proportion of our website traffic.
Do you think blogs are dead?
Absolutely
not. I think really blogs are only just beginning to gain mainstream
acceptance - and I don't think they are going to die anytime soon.
Instead I think we'll see a vast improvement of the production quality
in top tier blogs as traditional publishers transition their assets
online.
If not, what blogs do you read?
As
of today, I subscribe to 246 blogs in Google Reader. Everything from
software engineering topic to business, to art and fashion. It's my own
customized newspaper. My favorite blog at the moment is Springwise -
which chronicles fresh business ideas from around the world.
Are you mac or pc?
Mac. Definitely Mac.
Nokia or Blackberry?
Neither
actually, I still use my first generation iPhone. However as soon as
Google's Nexus One is available in Australia, I'll be switching to
that.
What do you wish to achieve with Shoes of Prey?
We
want to surprise and delight every single customer that we have on a
daily basis. If we can do successfully, I think the rest will take care
of itself.
4 Comments
Stimulating thoughts here. Are you optimistic this is the proper way to look at it though? My own personal experience is that everyone should pretty much live and let live because what one person observes as just -- another person simply does not. Human beings are going to do what they want to do. In the end, they always do. The most we can pray for is to distinguish a few things here and there that hopefully, allows them to make just a little better informed decision. Otherwise, great post. You're definitely making me think! --Ben
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www.onlineuniversalwork.com
The Center for Media Research has released a study by Vertical Response that shows just where many of these ‘Main Street’ players are going with their online dollars. The big winners: e-mail and social media. With only 3.8% of small business folks NOT planning on using e-mail marketing and with social media carrying the perception of being free (which they so rudely discover it is far from free) this should make some in the banner and search crowd a little wary.
www.onlineuniversalwork.com
What a fabulous website, i've always wanted to design my own pair of shoes, and now I can do just that! The only problem now is making my mind up on what height of heel, and what material i should choose - maybe i'll have to get more than one pair! Thanks to the creators of Shoes of Prey, i'm sure they will make many women very happy :)
http://www.ladiesshoessize8.org.uk
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