Benjamin was just 16 years old when he amassed nearly 1 million dollars from his Miami based sneaker reselling company. It all started when Kapelushnik received a nice pair of Nike’s from his mom in middle school. When a classmate asked to buy them off of him, he sold them and used the cash to buy more sneakers to resell. The process continued and the small hobby business steadily grew bigger. He would camp out with friends for Nike releases so that he could be the first to purchase high value, limited edition shoes to them resell for higher prices. With only five pairs of shoes, Kapelushnik moved to selling online. After building connections and networking with footwear stores and online retailers he was able to get some of the most sought-after shoes in bulk.
Now known as “The Sneaker Don” he has the reputation of one of the best and most successful resellers in the country, with such high-profile customers as DJ Khaled, French Montana, Kevin Hart, Drake, and Travis Scott in his repertoire. With an inventory of over 5,000 pairs his motto “Business is Boomin” certainly hits the nail on the head. With Certain shoes selling upwards of $10,000 the business is raking in so much as thousands of dollars per day. Not bad for a kid who just started a business as a side hustle.
I think Benjamin’s story is inspiring because he took something that he was passionate about and combined it with a gap in the marketplace to create a successful business. This story just goes to show that you don’t need to be some genius or come up with a revolutionary idea to be a successful entrepreneur. You simply need to find a gap or a need in the marketplace and figure out how you can provide what is missing to add value in a way that no one else is.
Dang, Ben found a niche and stuck to it. He realized that there were people out there that would spend a lot of money on limited edition shoes, and he went for it.