Michael Fox on the demise of Shoes of Prey, and how his new business survived the pandemic

If there’s one thing Michael Fox knows for sure, it’s that success is not final — and failure is not fatal.

A born businessman, he has spent over a decade navigating the highs and lows of the start-up sector.

But after his first venture capital-backed business Shoes of Prey collapsed into liquidation in early 2019, he found himself at an unfamiliar crossroads.

“We had 200 employees, and we had to lay all of them off. A lot of these people were our best friends,” he told Kellie Riordan on the podcast Curveball.

“It was a really tight-knit group of people who’ve been with us for years.”

Left to grapple with the personal and professional fallout from the collapse of his business, Fox embarked on a six-month sojourn in Europe “researching…