We recently connected with Dominic Moscariello and have shared our conversation below.

Dominic, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

I know it’s cliche, but my hero is my father. He has been the biggest role model in my life. The best lesson he has taught me is that everything you get in life is earned. Nothing is ever given. When he was only 21 years old, he opened up his own business. A business that is still running to this day. Being that he has been a business owner for 39 years, he has obviously experienced the ups and the downs. The downs are where your true character is tested. Only after a couple years of opening up his business, he had realized his original partner had been stealing from him. Now at this point he could’ve just gave up and quit, but he didn’t. He chose to persevere. He had a dream and wouldn’t stop until he achieved his dream. So to keep his business afloat, he worked 7days a week for two straight years to get back on track. His hard work and dedication is what inspires me to be the best version of myself daily. He is the hardest working person I know and the way he and my mother have raised me have turned me into the man I am today. My parents are the ones that support me every single day and have been vital in my journey.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am Dominic Moscariello, but to my following, I am known as Snkr Kingdom. The funny part about my social media name is it was more of a play on words. I wasn’t sure if I wanted my username to be Snkr Kingdom or Snkr King Dom so I kind of just let my followers decide. I would say the majority of my following didn’t know my real name was Dom, so overall Snkr Kingdom won.

As for my story, I am from Lansdale, Pennsylvania born and raised. I’m approximately 35 minutes away from the heart of Philadelphia. My full-time job is actually working at my family’s restaurant, Giuseppe’s Pizza and Family Restaurant in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. I am a manager there and I’ll typically clock in 55-60 hours a week. And yes that’s already a lot of hours to work in one week, but my social media dreams required me to film after hours. On a typical work night, I’ll get out around 9 or 10, I’ll give myself an hour to unwind and then its right to filming. When you’ve got big dreams, you’ve got to work for it. We all have the same 24 hours, everyone just chooses how they use them differently.

Now I have been a sneaker head since as early as I can remember, but I started my business journey with sneakers in college. It all started one day when I walked into a footlocker in Willow Grove Mall to check out what they had in stock. A pair of Black Cat 13’s caught my eye and as I had grabbed the pair the employee had actually yelled over and said “Yo buddy those are the last size” and as I checked them they were my size. Size 10. As a sneaker head, when you hear those words you know it’s meant to be. This pair was an immediate cop. The only problem is when I got home and tried them on I didn’t like how they fit. Now this is the era when StockX was just coming around so it made sneaker reselling all the easier. I had already had the app dowloaded so I went to check out the prices. and to my surprise I could sell these sneakers and actually make $20. That trip to the Willow Grove Mall was the start of my reselling journey. My First year I didn’t have a lot of capital to play with and only made $1,000. My second year I slowly grew and made $3,000. And in year 3, i had made my most yet with $9,000. Now none of these are insane numbers but at the same time this was just a side hustle and I loved doing what I was doing. Year 3 was also when I made my social media debut. When 2020 rolled around and covid struct, I was out of a job for 28 days. and within those 28 days I gained over 5,000 followers on Tik Tok. As I started to gain a following on Tik Tok, Youtube, and Instagram, brand deals began to come in. This was the point in my career where I realized that I could actually make more money from making videos than actually selling sneakers. So in 2021 I stopped reselling and put all my efforts into content.

As for my social media life, I have been a content creator since 2020. Things all started for me one day during Covid Quarantine when I posted my first ever Tik Tok with 0 followers. Yet my whole life changed when I woke up the next day. The one video I had shared had received 750,000 views and I had gained 3,000 new followers over night. This was the moment I knew something special could come from this. As of today, 4 years later, I have an amassed a following of 260,000 followers on Tik Tok, 70,000 followers on Youtube, and 30,000 followers on Instagram. Numbers I never expected to reach. What was once a hobby could now potentially be a full time job.

As for being a sneaker head, I have been one since as early as I can remember. My first pair of sneakers that I remember having were my Jordan 18’s that I had worn in preschool. And the reason I do remember them so well was the fact that I never had to actually tie them. Being that I was that young and barely even knew how to tie shoes at the time, they were almost magical the way I could just hide the laces behind the outer cover. But with that being said, the only reason I even became a sneaker head was because of my older brother, Gino. He has been one of the biggest inspirations in my life and in a lot of ways I wouldn’t be myself without him guiding me all the years. So when it come to giving out credit, he’s the original sneaker king. The way the story goes is my brother was also asking my mom for new sneakers and at the time they weren’t necessarily affordable in his sizing, yet a lot of the times would actually be affordable in the smaller sizes for me. As I grew older, sneakers were always one of my main focuses. Whether it was school art projects where I chose to draw nike sneakers or even my 5th grade “design book” where I had even drawn up original ideas.

Growing up, I always had to have the most original sneakers. When I bought sneakers, I wanted to have the shoe that nobody else had. I’ll never forget when I was in 6th grade, I needed some new sneakers for the start of my basketball season. Now I played for my grade school team and while I was never the best player on the team, I always had the best kicks. So when the Dwight Howard Adidas Sneakers were announced to release I knew I had to have them. My mom had researched and looked up exactly where these shoes were releasing and drove 45 minutes to the store in Philadelphia to buy them on release day. Although the only bad part of the this story was that a hit a growth spurt a little over 1 month later and grew out of the sneaker. That was kind of the moment I realized that I could not go after the grail sneakers until my foot was fully grown. So with that being said, fast forward to high school where my foot actually stopped growing. This was the era where I could finally start a solid collection. I was working at my families restaurant making money for myself so if I really wanted a pair I could buy them for myself. otherwise I was always waiting for Christmas or a birthday to come around. Kobe’s were my grails at this time and my rotation was predominantly retro nike sneakers and 1 or 2 retro Jordans. I didnt have too many retro Jordans at this time just because of their price tag. Also, when I was in high school back in 2014, the basketball sneaker trend was booming. Hyper dunks were at an all time high, Durant sneakers were highly coveted, people were literally wearing basketball sneakers and jeans as a fashion statement.

As i got through college, retro Jordans become a staple in my collection. Jordan 7’s, Jordan 9’s, and Jordan 11’s were my favorite at this time. I went to Gwynedd Mercy University to study business and play collegiate lacrosse. and being that my school colors were predominantly red and black most my sneakers were red and black. My favorite pair in college was actually Jordan 11 “72-10” sneakers. Still have them to this day!

Being a sneaker head is part of what makes me me. I wouldn’t be myself without my kicks. Sneakers taught me how to be a business man. It taught me at a young age that if I wanted something then I had to work for it. It became how many hours do I have to work in order to get this pair of sneakers. Sneakers taught me investing. Sneakers taught me supply and demand. Sneakers taught me how to travel across the country on my own. They taught me how to talk in front of crowds on stage. Sneakers gave me talking on my platform to hundreds of thousands of people. Sneakers have taught me a lot and they’ve shaped me into the person I am today. I wish you could walk a mile in my sneakers and see what I see.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

1. I built my audience by making videos that I personally wanted to see. I would make content that me as a viewer would enjoy to watch. If you wouldn’t watch your own videos then why would others. 2. I tried to appeal to the masses. when it came to content I wanted to reach as many people as possible. Therefore I always continued to try out a couple different styles. I mixed informative, educational, and even comedic videos into my rotation to keep my followers interested. 3. you have to evolve when it comes to social media. Adapt or die. For example, when I first started making content, videos were between 7-15 seconds long on average. But now videos probably range between 30 seconds to a minute on average. So it is important to stay up to date on trends.

Advice wise, consistency is the most important factor when it comes to social media. If you want to grow your page you need to be posting every single day. This will give you your best opportunity to go viral. Whether it’s tik Tok, YouTube, or instagram, consistency is the main focus in all their algorithms. But with that being said, you do not need to over post either. it is all about finding a happy medium for yourself. Find a schedule for yourself that you can actually maintain otherwise you will burn out. As someone has done this for so many years, I can first hand say that burn outs do happening and they are hard to get out of.

Patience is also important. Rome wasn’t built in 1 day so you cannot get discouraged. For example, when it came to YouTube for me it was hard to grow. I had been posting twice a day, every single for 3 months and barely grew a following. But in that 3rd month it had all paid off. My page had caught traction and my content had finally started to go viral. There was a 3 day span where I grew 30,000 followers, 15,000 followers in just one of those days. Patience and consistency are the two biggest factors in growing a page. There are no shortcuts.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

My side hustle has not yet turned into my main job. While I do believe I could in fact do social media full time, I have not yet made the jump. Right now I have the best of both worlds. I get to work full time at my family’s restaurant and produce content for my followers. When it comes to social media, there is not set income where to at my full time job I am guaranteed a certain salary depending on hours put in. With social media, you’re dependent on views and brand deals mainly. Now one month you could be making zero dollars in brand deals, yet another month you could have one brand deal for $10,000. It’s the unknowns that personally worry me mixed with the questions of longevity. How long do I want to create content? How long will I be relevant? Now deep down I know I could do this side hustle full time due to the fact that I have my friends who made the jump, but as for now I like my situation and I will continue to do both.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @thesnkrkingdom
• Youtube: @snkr.kingdom
• Other: tik tok: @snkr.kingdom