(5/12) When I answered the phone, I was nervous as all hell. Here was something I had worked on for 2 years and this was my first time showing it to somebody in the sneaker world. I definitely felt like I put myself on the spot, but also felt like this was the dude I needed to be talking to. I explained the idea, and the impetus behind it. He was quiet for a minute, then said ‘so it’s like a kelley blue book for shoes?’ . Boom. I should have saved myself the trouble of my version and used that line for my elevator pitch. Jay was into it immediately. ⁣
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Bingo. ⁣
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A few minutes after the formalities, I started explaining to Jay the issues I was having…mainly…supply chain issues. How was I supposed to convince people to send me their shoes so I could grade them and send them back? How was I supposed to hold hundreds of pairs of shoes in my tiny apartment in Oakland? A few seconds went by…and Jay had a solution – ‘why don’t you come down, show my staff how to grade, and we’ll grade straight from the shop?’⁣
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Bingo. ⁣
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Another 15 minutes or so on the phone and we had a plan. I’d bring some *graded* shoes down to Las Vegas and would show them how to grade. At that point, the software package I had created was little more than a glorified spreadsheet, but I had the algorithm in mind. I called up a couple of good UX/UI design buddies and they helped me piece together a UI and we were off.⁣
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Bingo. Let’s do this.⁣