Go onto Google and type Nike Air Force One, Basketball Shoes, Nike Shoes, Jordan Shoes, Shoe Magazine, or Air Max 95 and you’ll see that Instyleshoes.com is always ranked #1 or #2. Coincidence? I think not. Instyleshoes.com has been the force behind the shoe community since its inception and that title isn’t going anywhere for a long time to come thanks to Tammy, Jackie, and Larry who now run the business.
Very few people are still around in the shoe world remember this but Mullholand.com/nike/ was where Instyleshoes.com was born. If you go to archive.org you’ll see some interesting pics and prices from back in the day! Steve Mullholand started Instyleshoes in 1999 and his goal was to create a high-end sneaker site, one with excellent pictures and professional customers service. Back then there were just a few sites and none of them were professional so it was a big deal. I can remember an article written about Steve and he said he just sold a technology company and put the money into shoes. He bought two pairs of shoes to start off with and had 1,000s within a year. And to bring it way back, do you remember when Steve had a secret webpage called “area 53″? And it had Gray XIs for $99!
Instyleshoes.com took a hard stance on fake shoes early on as well. To this day Instyleshoes.com is known for selling only authentic shoes and taking on fake shoe companies constantly. I think this is one of the claims to fame for Instyleshoes.com and you can trust that you will get your shoes 100% of the time. Many of the other sites today don’t take customer service serious and you never know if you’ll get your refund or price adjustment. Of the 28 pairs of shoes I’ve bought from instyleshos.com they have all been perfect with the exception of one FedEx problem and they fixed that for me for free!
Starting in 2002 Steve and his girlfriend Nicole traveled around the world seeking the rarest shoes they could find. They have been to 4 contents and 30 countries and have found some of the most amazing examples of old school sneakers.
In 2002 Instyleshoes.com started a forum called ISS Forums which developed into a cult following. People from all over the world came to the forums to talk about shoes and buy / and sell them. To this day I’m impressed that Steve had the insight to create a market place on his forum as it is in direct competition with his site. Shows that he is in it for the community and not just for the money. Back there was only one popular site, NikeTalk, and nobody thought ISS had a chance. But Steve came out of the gate with free picture hosting, much better forum software, release dates calendar, and a feedback system. Not to mention the best moderating team this side of HK. And when people saw how successful the Instyleshoes.com forum became they all followed and tried to do their thing. None have lived up to ISS’s standard which has 41,000+ members as of 8/06.
In 2003 I remember seeing a post about a magazine and I thought here we go! If Instyleshoes.com is behind it then it will be hot. I bought the issue and for the first time ever I could actually read a shoe magazine! (all the others were in Japanese!). And of course Sole Collector has become extremely successful and is actually better than the Japanese magazines that spawned it.
A lot of great things about Instyleshoes.com but there is one area that they did have problems with. When Steve created the magazine I could see that he traveled less for shoes and grew his consignment area more. In fact, Instyleshoes.com was the first online store to take consignment sales seriously and it blew up. But a long post was created about some people getting paid late, really late, and I was one of them. Tons of people replied to the post weren’t involved in it and the forum that hosted it just wanted to see negative things happen to Steve. Well Steve came in and corrected all of the problems and to this day it is one of the most popular areas of the site. I’ve sold 50+ pairs in just the last month and have been paid on time each and every time. I guess all businesses go through growing pains but it is how you deal with the problem that marks your place in history.
So this single directory Mullholand.com/nike/ grew into a multi-national company that sells high-end shoes, is a high-trafficked site, and created a high-end magazine. Entrepreneurship at its finest.
(thx for the review Lisa)
