My 2015 bet that was better than the Mega Millions.

First Athru Inventory, up way past my bedtime, about to go work my real job on 4 hours of sleep, but I was so excited.

I made a bet over the summer in 2015, and it wasn’t that I won the lottery, although that would have been gnarly. My neighbor asked me to help him with his son's college application and, instead of getting paid, he introduced me to Sam Edelman, a well known shoe designer. So, I guess it was more of a handshake deal. 

Sam hired me as a favor to his friend, placing me in a position I didn't want but was happy to take.  

For the summer, I would do my work and then work after hours alongside the design team to learn their process and help where I could. Within six weeks Sam had me moved to design, I was working on specialty projects, sitting in all licensing meetings, and Sam even asked me to leave school to work for him full time. 

Three months after graduation, Sam sent me to China to learn production management and all its facets. By the time I was 23, I had been to China over 8 separate times, I had worked on countless star products and was presenting collections alongside Sam to our biggest accounts. It was an incredibly hard but rewarding few years, and I was apprenticing one of the best shoe dogs out there. 

Flash forward, in 2021 I was living in Wyoming, training for a Spartan with my roommates, and I decided I hated my personal collection of athletic-wear. Within a few hours, I found factories in China and sampled sets to function under the circumstances I wanted (my roommates and I are all tall basketball players… we needed more length). I launched Athru Athletics in December 2021, turning profit within 6 months and then re-strategized so it now functions as a white label producer for content creators. Our objective is to help creators monetize on their followings with ease. 

Now, I am back in New York City, re-launching a shoe line for another company, learning how to automate Athru, and looking to learn as much as possible about building brands to make millions, not thousands.

Granted, handshake deals aren't always the smartest business moves, but this one favor I did in 2015 brought me a wealth of knowledge only experience can give you.