“Dan Cataldi is the founder and CEO of Groov, a company rethinking how shoes fit by focusing on the part that actually touches your foot. Instead of relying on standard sizing, he is building a system that uses real data to create a personalized surface inside any shoe, helping people move with more comfort, stability, and control.”
Dan Cataldi tends to ask the kind of questions people skip over because the answer feels too obvious to challenge. One of them sits in everyone’s closet. Why do shoes, something worn every single day, feel slightly off so often, and why has that been accepted as normal?
At Groov, that question is not treated as a minor inconvenience. It is treated as a system failure. Traditional shoe sizing looks precise on the surface, but it quietly ignores the details that actually define how a foot moves, carries weight, and responds over time. Dan built Groov around the idea that the issue was never the person wearing the shoe. The issue was the approach used to fit it.
That perspective has roots. Growing up on Long Island in the same home his mother was raised in, with a father who sold orthotics, Dan was exposed early to how people dealt with discomfort after it had already become a problem. The pattern was clear. Fix it later, manage it as needed, move on. That stayed with him, even as his path took a few unexpected turns.
At Brown University, he studied theoretical mathematics and poetry, which sounds like an odd combination until you hear him explain how he thinks. There is structure, but there is also curiosity, and he tends to move between both without treating them as separate. After working with the founder of a Fortune 100 company, he headed to The Wharton School, where Groov started to take shape inside an innovation class.
What began as an idea quickly gained traction. Winning the Penn Launch Award and bringing on Alabama Football as a pilot customer pushed things forward faster than expected. At that point, staying in the MBA program no longer made sense, so he left to build Groov full-time.
Today, Groov is built around surface personalization, which sounds simple until you realize how much it changes. Using ShapeSense technology, the system captures over 30,000 data points through a quick at-home scan. That information is used to create a custom insole designed to match how a person’s foot actually functions, not how it is expected to function based on a category. The insole fits into any shoe, whether it is a cleat, a sneaker, or something far less forgiving, and adjusts the surface so the body does not have to compensate.
That shift matters more than people expect. Comfort improves, which is the obvious part. Stability becomes more consistent. Performance gets more predictable. Over time, it also reduces the kind of strain that tends to build quietly and show up later as something bigger. That is why Groov has already earned trust from people who cannot afford to guess, including athletes and professionals in medical spaces.
Dan’s background as a former NCAA Division I wrestler adds another layer to how he thinks about movement and balance. Small misalignments are not small when they repeat over time. His interests outside of work, which include surfing, stand-up comedy, music, and building things by hand, reflect the same curiosity that keeps pushing him to question what most people accept.
He does not talk about footwear as a finished product. He talks about it as an interface, something that should respond to the person using it. That idea tends to land quickly once people hear it. It is hard to unsee after that.
Dan Cataldi talks about something people deal with every day but rarely question. Shoes. Not in a surface-level way, but in a way that makes people stop mid-conversation and go, “wait… that actually makes sense.” The shift happens quickly. What starts as a simple topic turns into something bigger, and that is what keeps audiences engaged.
Key Talking Points:
Why the current shoe sizing system is outdated — He explains how sizing was built around manufacturing efficiency, not individual fit, which is why so many people fall outside what “standard” can actually support.
What surface personalization really means — He breaks down how the surface inside the shoe matters more than people think, and how adjusting that surface changes comfort and performance.
How poor shoe fit affects the body over time — He connects everyday discomfort to bigger issues like instability, fatigue, and long-term strain that often go unnoticed until later.
Why people adjust to their shoes instead of the other way around — He highlights how common habits like breaking in shoes or changing the way you walk have become normalized, even though they should not be.
How biometric data is changing footwear — He explains how data can capture the way each foot actually functions, allowing for a more accurate and personal fit inside any shoe.
The role of fit in performance and injury prevention — He shares how better alignment and support can improve movement and reduce the risk of injury, especially for athletes and active individuals.
What the future of footwear looks like — He paints a clear picture of where the industry is heading, where personalization becomes the baseline instead of an upgrade.
Why Groov is trusted by professionals — He touches on how athletes and medical experts rely on more precise solutions, which is why they are early adopters of this approach.
Conversations with Dan usually start with something familiar and end somewhere people did not expect. That shift is what makes it interesting.
Dan Cataldi is the founder and CEO of Groov, a company building technology that figures out the perfect surface for your body to stand on and lets you put it inside any shoe (from a ski boot to a stiletto). After growing up in the same Long Island home his mother was raised in (and with a father who sold orthotics), Dan headed to Brown University, where he somehow studied both theoretical mathematics and poetry. After spending several years working with the founder of a Fortune 100 company, he enrolled at The Wharton School, where Groov was dreamed up in Serguei Netessine’s Innovation class. After winning the Penn Launch Award and landing Alabama Football as a pilot customer, he dropped out of his MBA program to focus full-time on building Groov into the future of footwear. Formerly an NCAA Division I wrestler and presently a mediocre surfer, Dan is someone whose curiosity tends to wander. He's been a line cook, he's been a playwright, and he's surprisingly good on horseback for a city slicker. When he’s not trying to make every shoe your comfiest shoe, he enjoys making music, performing stand-up comedy, learning about ancient history, studying human psychology, and building things with his hands.
