How I Turned My Passion For Sneakers Into A Successful Business
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hi! My name is Mikey Young, and I am the founder of Estuary; a unique secondary marketplace where people can buy and sell products without the hassle of unnecessary fees.
I am from Atlanta, Georgia, and currently, I am a senior at Georgetown University majoring in Finance and minoring in Entrepreneurship.
What's your backstory and how did you develop the idea?
One thing to know about me, I love sneakers. I love how they accentuate outfits and enable people to show off their creativity! Sneakers are versatile and simply just fun to switch up based on the colorways and styles! While I love sneakers now, that wasn’t always the case.
The summer before my 7th-grade year, my brother and I went to the mall with my grandma. We were walking around the mall when I saw the Nike KD 6’s. I fell in love right away and managed to convince my grandma to buy the shoes since “they were on sale.” My brother ended up doing the same, and we were ecstatic(but my mom was not enthused lol)! Since then, my love for sneakers has grown exponentially, and with that, so have my concerns about the way the current sneaker market works.
During the pandemic, I decided to start selling sneakers myself. I had just read the book Shoe Dog by Phil Knight and was inspired to turn my passion into a business since I now had the time to try new things while stuck at home. To do this, I would buy on the SNKRS app, an app made by Nike where they release exclusive sneakers, post the sneakers on GOAT or StockX, which are the best resale platforms, and wait for there to be a sale.
Through my experience, I quickly learned how hard selling sneakers was: the sneakers on the SNKRS app sold out extremely fast, and the amount I was making from selling on GOAT and StockX was very slim. I ended up taking losses or missing out on consecutive drops multiple weeks in a row. It was here that I realized that the current sneaker market may have a problem at hand–sneakers are becoming too inaccessible.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
The idea for Estuary came about around this time last year. I was thinking about ways to address the issue of sneaker inaccessibility when I had the epiphany of creating a subscription-based platform for sneakers!
An estuary is an area where streams of water connect with the ocean. By filtering out pollutants from these streams, estuaries provide cleaner waters for humans and marine life. Similarly, our resale platform connects buyers with a plethora of exclusive items. By eliminating hidden fees, we make these exclusive items more affordable and accessible for all. The meaning behind our logo is to reflect what we do: connecting people with their passions and removing the potential “pollutants” in the process.
The way it works is that sellers subscribe to Estuary to sell their sneakers. Because of the amount that these other platforms are taking from their sellers, we take the prices our competitors list sneakers at, discount them up to 10%, and return higher payouts to our sellers. The discounted pricing brings in buyers on its own, and eventually, we’ll offer subscriptions that unlock even deeper discounts.
After coming up with the idea, I immediately designed a survey to see if the problem I was experiencing was one that other people experienced too. Five months and 100 responses later, I got the validation I was looking for and started planning. I did extensive market research–surveying about 100 sneakerheads from my neighborhood, my summer internship, and on my campus. I read through multiple research studies on the sneaker market and signed up for a few certificate programs to help hone my skill set and bring everything to life.
I then started sketching out what the different app pages would look like and started walking around with an idea book to write down any ideas or features that I came up with to keep everything organized in one spot.
Initial sketches of the Estuary:
By our soft launch date of February 1st, we had over $200k in inventory and 7 sellers on our platform.
Despite having this elaborate plan to bring Estuary to market, everything was scrapped when I started my Launching Entrepreneurial Ventures class that fall. It was here that I met ⅘ of my co-founders: Chuma Azinge, Alec Livney, Alex Saunders, and Sergio Portabanco.
Through being paired with them and the class curriculum, I got the accelerant needed to turn an idea into reality. I got to pitch Estuary and work with my classmates to launch ad campaigns, create social media pages, engage in more customer discovery and of course, create our first launch page using Wix.
Since we got to do a large amount of trial and error in the class, we didn't need to spend a ton financially outside of the ads, because the university reimbursed us up to $200.
Describe the process of launching the business.
Turning Estuary into an actual marketplace didn’t begin until after the semester ended in December. My co-founders and I decided to turn our launch page into an actual marketplace and got to work.
We split the payment to incorporate Estuary and get an EIN too. Afterward, we set up a business checking account and started fleshing out our payment and other operational processes. By this point, it was January 11th, and we only had 1 person who agreed to sell on our platform–meaning that we only had 30 shoes in our marketplace. So we put our heads together and went hard until our soft launch date of February 1st.
What started out as initial conversations for sellers, resulted in us talking with other CEOs, getting verification partners, and potential creator deals. We 10x’d our progress in only 10 days. By our soft launch date of February 1st, we had over $200k in inventory, 7 sellers on our platform, and brought on board our final co-founder, Aniruddh Doki. While a lot of this can be accredited to our hustle, we also took the time to ask questions and get a lot of feedback from people who chose not to sell on our site. We then used this feedback to reiterate our approach and contact other leads!
As of today, we have started to roll out our referral program to incentivize current sellers to bring on other people they know in order to earn up to an entire year of their subscription.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Currently, our biggest traffic funnel is Instagram. We have the largest following there and our insights from Wix have shown that most of our website visits are from Instagram. On Instagram, we have taken several creative approaches to increase our follower count.
One of these approaches has been to tap into other chapters of our respective fraternities and have their members repost and comment on our posts! Our founding team is also based all across the US (Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, New York, and LA!) so by engaging with our friends and family at home, we have been able to dramatically increase our follower count.
The last noteworthy approach is that we have our sellers repost and boost our stories to their respective audiences, which are the customer segment we are looking to retain! By doing this we have engaged our networks to the maximum and are now expanding beyond these networks with new approaches.
From working with our Instagram for a few months, the one thing that has not worked is posting holiday posts. The holiday post we made during the December holiday season had the lowest engagement out of all of our posts, so we quickly archived it.
While the ad campaigns have not been the strongest yet, as we develop our strategies and learn more about our customers, Meta ads will prove to be more efficient. In the future, our goal is to grow a large enough presence on other social media platforms so that we can determine which platform is the best for Estuary.
To increase our incoming traffic, we have begun strategizing a digital media campaign to grow our presence on TikTok and Youtube. The growth funnels there are very appealing and until we take advantage of them, our potential is capped. We also are working to reincorporate Google Ads since we were suspended very early into our journey.
Since we are freshly launched, some of our retainment strategies are still new. However, what’s worked well for us so far is Mailchimp newsletters. When a person purchases a pair of sneakers from our website, they automatically subscribe to our newsletter, where we can keep in regular contact with them and keep Estuary on their minds.
Currently, we don’t have any referral programs in place for our buyers. Instead, we are working to launch a loyalty program where buyers can earn discounts and other rewards after a certain number of purchases with us!
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
As of today, we are on track to earn about $12,000 in ARR! With only being launched for a month, we have brought on 7 subscribed sellers, and have sold over 30 pairs of sneakers! Considering we’ve used no ads or flyers this month and have been working purely with word-of-mouth advertising, we are very excited about what the next few months have yet to bring.
Resiliency earns Revenue - the great part about being an entrepreneur is that it’s a constant teacher.
Despite the strong initial revenue numbers, we have yet to be profitable since we had several upfront fees to cover on our journey toward the soft launch.
We currently have 180 newsletter subscribers and 640 followers on Instagram! While these numbers do look strong, we still have a lot of work to do on our other social media platforms like Twitter.
In the future, we plan to launch an iOS app to connect with more people and work towards making the Estuary experience a mobile one. We are looking to bring verification in-house and begin incorporating exclusive clothing, collectibles, and other items into the Estuary experience!
We will be establishing a strong digital media presence in the coming months and will be at several sneaker meet-up events throughout the country to promote our brand!
Last but not least, we are planning to have our first Estuary community day in late April/early May in DC! We will be reaching out to local vendors, entrepreneurs, sneakerheads, and others to come out and enjoy a day filled with culture, sneakers, and most importantly community!
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
The biggest takeaway I’ve had is to just be patient. There have been many times in which we have had problems with our ads, or with a sneaker order, and the initial reaction is to move fast and react fast.
While I agree it’s important to move with urgency, I would argue It’s more important to take your time in responding to these issues because what you do now, sets a precedent for what happens in the future.
Another takeaway I’ve had is that organization is key! Finding a work schedule that works best for you is crucial! Whether it’s personal work in the mornings and meetings in the afternoons, or vice versa, being organized is imperative to your company’s operational success.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
Wix: We got a discount to use Wix, in which we made our current web page and get the initial traction needed to bring Estuary to life.
Shipstation: Our fulfiller! Shipstation has been great with fulfillment automation!
Stripe: Processes payments and enables us to pay our sellers separately as well!
Notion: Organizes all of our company operations in an intuitive manner
Google Drive: Organizes company documents all in one place for the team to best access them
Mailchimp: Strengthens our retainment strategy, and connects us to prospective buyers and sellers, and other stakeholders too!
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
How I Built This Podcast with Guy Raz - This podcast series is great! I love this series because it humanizes different founders, regardless of whether it's Brian Chesky from Airbnb or Emily Weiss from Glossier. Listening to the stories of these successful founders and how they overcame obstacles is inspiring!
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss - This book teaches different negotiation tactics that were mastered by Chris Voss, who is a former FBI hostage negotiator. This book teaches uncanny skills that are very helpful when talking to customers and other business stakeholders.
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - As someone who loves sneakers, reading the story of Phil Knight, and how he transformed Nike into a multinational brand is something that inspired me to keep going in some of the tougher times at the beginning of the Estuary journey.
The 10x Rule by Grant Cardone - This book is an inspirational one that has one real lesson at hand: set a lofty goal, and then work ten times harder than you think you’ll need to work to accomplish it. What you’ll see is that you’ll typically exceed your expectations, and often exceed the original goal you set forth
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
There are so many things that I have learned on my journey with Estuary.
Transforming what started out as an idea, into reality, has been amazing, but also very tough. There are days when motivation is low, and there are days when you feel as though nothing is in your favor.
I have 3 key points of advice for my fellow entrepreneurs: regardless of where you are in your journey:
- Just keep Swimming: There are days when motivation is low, and there will be days when you feel as though nothing is moving in your favor. You have to keep pushing through because fortune favors the bold, not those who shy away! So keep going, keep adapting, and keep attacking everyday.
- Build a Strong Team: There is no “I” in the team, and there certainly isn’t an “I” in Estuary! The Estuary team here has been fantastic! They are versatile, and tactical and have multifaceted skill sets! We all build off each other’s weaknesses and inspire one another to grow!
- Resiliency earns Revenue: This lesson is one that I am still learning myself. The great part about being an entrepreneur is that it’s a constant teacher. Many crossroad opportunities arise from mistakes made; however, it's how you respond to these mistakes that determines whether or not you or your company makes it to tomorrow.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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