3 years ago my wife came to me and told me about a new pair of shoes called Crocs. She said these shoes are going to be big. And like a good husband I listened to her. As it turned out, my wife predicted one of the biggest cultural, apparel, and marketing phenomenons of our time.

After she brought home a pair, I was hooked and that is how this blog started. On August 21st 2005 I registered littlerubbershoes.com and started this blog about Crocs. Little did I know that nearly 3 years later I would still be posting about these silly shoes, but here I am.

In January 2006, I posted about the pending Crocs stock IPO. Oh, if I only knew then what I now know today…

You would think a guy inspired enough to create a fan blog devoted to a pair of rubber shoes would be inspired enough to purchase a couple of shares of their stock. Well if only that were the case.

$1000 dollars would have bought about 40 shares back in Feburary 2005. Today those 40 shares would be worth $3,647 or 3.6x return (Today’s Closing Price $91.18).

Well, since we are at it, let’s rub some more salt in my mis-calculation on how going about capitalizing on this priceless prediction by my wife by calculating the total opportunity cost/time for setting up and maintaining this littlerubbershoes.com blog:

5 hours - Blog setup and general maintenance

15 mins. - Time it takes to research and write the average blog post

132 - Blog posts.

$35 / hr. - My approx. salary hourly rate

$30 Domain Registration

$300 Web Hosting

(10 x (5+33 hours) x $35) + $30 + $300

$13,630 Total Opportunity Cost of Blog

Instead of taking 5 minutes to login to ETrade.com and to purchase CROX to make an easy 3.6x on a stock investment, I decided to spent $13,300 in opportunity cost by starting a fan blog. In addition to this, you might even consider that this blog (111,000 Unique Visitors in last 12 months) actually in a small way may have helped the stock price by furthering the Crocs brand value and spreading the Crocs message.

So, in summary…

My wife predicted Crocs would be BIG. Crocs are huge. Crocs are everywhere. Crocs are worth 3.64 Billion Dollars. Crocs stock is $91. And I have a Fan Site about rubber shoes. My wife still loves me, but wishes I would have gone the ETrade route.

All things considered… I have had fun with the site as this was my first blog. I have no regrets and I will probably continue to blog about Crocs. I have been able to get to know hundreds of fellow Croc Fans from around the world and helped spread the love for a truly great shoe that I wear every time I go work in the yard.

My Full Disclosures. I do not work for Crocs. I have never worked for Crocs. I have never met anyone who has worked for Crocs except I think an employee posted in our Crocs Forum. I have never recieved any free products from Crocs. I do not own any Crocs stock nor have I ever owned any Crocs stock. I don’t think I will ever own Crocs stock given the current price (unless the good folks at Crocs feel generous and want to thank one of their biggest supporters!). I do wish I had purchased Crocs stock back in early 2006.

Given all of that, I must say I have been able to pay for my blog expenses plus a little extra through the advertising on the site. Thank you to our advertisers Tillys.com and the other sponsors listed in the right column of the site..

If you have enjoyed littlerubbershoes.com over the past couple of years, let us know by leaving a comment, visiting our sponsors, bookmarking the site, subscribing to our RSS feed, and checkout Shop For Crocs where you can comparison shop for all styles of Crocs

crocs crox

Crocs have had one of the most successful stocks in the last year. Investors who bet against Crocs and their stock are starting to really feel the pain as CROX stock price hits $70 up from $21.

Howard Lindzon comments on this topic of CROX shortsellers.