Hello, my name is Nick. I live in Colorado and sell sneakers as a job in Highschool. I’m here to tell my story (following Brown’s article) and show everyone just how I got to where I am now, to show everyone how little it can take to really get the ball rolling… After writing this I would encourage everyone to read the end. This is a shorter article just because it’s hard to type with a fractured hand.
I first got into sneakers when the Yeezy 350 Statics released in December of 2018, I had gotten a pair of the Frozen Yellows and saw these statics, thinking they looked a lot better than the Frozen Yellow, So my plan was to buy the Statics and then resell the Frozen Yellows and hopefully break even, this really started my reselling journey. I spent months trying to sell these Frozen Yellow Yeezy’s at retail and no one bought them. I was eventually able to sell them a few months later for a small profit, but in that time I had discovered this world of sneaker reselling, which seemed like great money for someone like me with only $150 to my name at the time.
At the beginning of 2019 I joined a cook group and learned the ropes of copping limited shoes and flipping them for a profit. During this time I met a few people that I still work with today and have really changed a lot in my life. I was always against botting at the time, went on with the hate from collectors and always thought to myself, ‘I will never own a bot, I can just buy them myself off whatever site I need to.’ For the most part this was true, I was able to buy almost every shoe during 2019 without a bot. I remember gaining enough money where I could afford to buy multiple shoes a drop, so I went to my friend Max and asked him for recommendations on a bot to buy, and that’s where my botting journey started.
Not knowing what a proxy was, or a server, I was lost and for a long time felt like I had wasted money on a sneaker bot that I assumed was broken and didn’t work, although I probably would have had more success if I actually read the guide and took the time to set it up correctly. Thankfully I was surrounded by amazing people that I am so thankful for meeting in my life. From late 2019 to April 2020, my reselling life was very boring and I honestly felt like quitting. I just didn’t think this was right for me, I mean it didn’t make sense spending all this money on a cook group and proxies.
Then, the day after my Birthday on May 5th, Thick from Leaf Proxies changed it all for me. At the time I was live streaming sneaker drops on Twitch and believed that was a cool thing that no one had done before, and I see why now (It’s very easy to leak personal information). I had no following and only live streamed to watch it myself and see what went good or bad during drops. Anyways, there was a tweet offering sponsorships from Leaf Proxies, and I signed up as a joke just cause… Well a few weeks later I was emailed a message asking if I could schedule an interview for a sponsorship. I was beyond excited and didn’t quite understand why Leaf chose me. I spoke with Thick the day after my Birthday on May 5th and was offered a sponsorship, offering free proxies in exchange for live cops. I was beyond excited but also confused, why did Thick pick me? I didn’t have a YouTube channel, and only had 90 followers on Twitter. Regardless I was so excited to get proxies that I could not afford at the time for free. It was amazing. I have to really thank Thick from Leaf for taking a risk on me and picking me for a sponsorship, when I had no following, no connections, no crazy success, nothing. This is when things changed very quickly.
Less than a week later I was in contact with Matt (Owner of Rush, SiteSupply, and XYZ) and was asking for a spot on the team offering support (yes, I big time simped), this was when Rush had about 1.5–2k followers. Matt did not know me at all and we had only spoken once and it was over Finishline accounts months ago. Thankful for Max, I was offered beta access and a vague answer on being support in Rush. I had the Rush discord open all day during online school and tried my best to help every single person who had questions, the grind was real to prove to Matt and Mark that I would be a right fit on the team. At the beginning of May I was given the Support role and officially on the Rush staff team. This was a lifechanging moment for me. Like Thick, Matt and Mark took on a risk hiring me. I was a no one that had zero experience working for a bot company and didn’t really know what I was doing at first. Joining Rush really started “rolling the ball” for me, I was able meet so many new people and really kickstart my botting career. From then on I was able to buy more shoes and grow a following on Twitter. Tip: POST SUCCESS AND TAG BOT/PROXY COMPANIES! Most of the time the bot/proxy account will RT your success, pushing that tweet out to thousands of faces over time, which can really help with growing a name for yourself. I know that's how BurgersKicks started to grow in this community.
Over the rest of 2020 I was able to become a mod in a cook group, join Rush, and get a proxy sponsor… Thankful for everyone who’s helped me get to where I am (you guys know who you are), you have done so much for me. Even though I had more money I still wanted to hit bigger clips for my new YouTube channel, so I decided to make an ACO server. This allowed me to make some extra cash off buying shoes for others while growing my following on YouTube and Twitter. Now that I think about it I’ll share how I personally balance school and sneakers…
Being in Highschool is my priority, I know a lot of this community is young and might have a hard time balancing school with sneakers. Well I’m here to tell you, make your priorities clear to yourself. What really matters to you? I know it’s hard to sit down and study for a quiz when you could be talking to people on Discord and setting up for a sneaker release the next morning. But grades are more important than a Yeezy that you’ll probably loose money on. It took me a while to figure out what works for me, which is simply grinding all school work out before opening Discord. On Sunday’s I often like to get easy homework for the upcoming week out of the way which leaves more time for sneakers during the week. Honestly if you see grades start to slip over sneakers I’d recommend just taking some time off and really focusing on getting grades back up, trust me It’s so much better to have consistent grades all semester rather than playing catch up and begging teachers for a retake. Take what you want from this, do what you believe is best for you and your future.
Anyways, I think this is a really interesting position I'm in, I went from nothing to owning multiple lines of business and just starting to grow a name for myself. Trust me I don’t think I have much of an audience at all, compared to where I want to take this, but I am so thankful for those who have supported me since the beginning, it means so much to me.
If you’ve made it this far, congrats. This article was to show how anyone can make a name for themselves in this community and I encourage all of you to keep the grind up and don’t give up… Like really. Don’t give up, unless you want to, these are just words on a screen that you’re reading. There were so many times were I really considered quitting and I’m so glad I didn’t. I had no idea I would end up writing a Medium article talking about this but look at this. Just know, it’s not that hard to get your name out there, just interact with people in this community, maybe try to become a mod for a group or something, you’ll grow connections WHICH IS SO IMPORTANT! CONNECTIONS ARE EVERYTHING! I didn’t even go into my Gmails and Nike Account business as that’s another story for another time, but I hope everyone can find something that helps make them money (coding is probably the easiest way to do that now), just please don’t start a cook group, there’s already too many.
I thank you all for taking the time to read my fairly boring story, but I hope this inspired some of you to keep going in this game. Have a nice day everyone.
