Jayssee Lopez On Building a Sneaker Empire with Urban Necessities & Being Homeless | DSH #175

What's the most expensive uh sneaker you've seen?

Oh, most expensive sneaker that I've physically seen is something that we had at the store for a little bit, which was this um Sotheby's auctioned LV Air Force One.

Wow.

Um, how much was that?

Like 300K.

Yeah, no, I've walked in the Rolex store in like sweatpants and hoodies, and they won't even talk to me.

I love not looking the part

and then being the part.

Not a boasting statement, but I hoard and you know, I

31, 31 time pieces in two years.

Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour, guys.

Have an amazing guest for you today, JC Lopez.

How's it going, bud?

Doing well, man.

It was good seeing you.

Yeah, it's good seeing you last night.

I've been in the store like three times before I even knew you owned it.

So thanks for having me at your store.

Yeah, no worries.

I mean, I'm just glad you had a little bit of time to justify a visit or two or three.

That place is

really hard to explain to the people that aren't into sneakers.

But when they walk in, it's like the same

reaction emotion.

It never gets old to see.

It's a real blessing.

Yeah, man.

I felt like a kid in a candy store.

Copped some Yeezys for me and my girl.

It was a fun time, man.

You got a lot of cool bare bricks in there.

Yeah, we, you know, we've done, we, we kind of went away from just sneakers, right?

It was like we're looking at this space and in the urban space and we're like, what are the needs?

And that's really kind of subjective, right?

And as the brand has grown and we've been able to attach a few more layers, it's really going in tons of different directions from food, from, you know, grooming, tattooing,

art, clothing.

It's just been a lot of fun of saying, yeah, that makes sense.

and then trying to piece it all together.

Yeah, so you guys had like an upstairs.

Is that where?

Yeah, so I'm assuming you went to our Caesars Palace location, right?

So that used to be a gap, and

it's about 18,000 square feet.

And, you know, when we had the opportunity or started having the conversations with Caesars, we were in a previous mall here on the strip, and We were they're like, hey, we want you to come over.

What does that look like?

And I was like, well, we're pretty happy where we're at.

But if we could try XYZ,

then you know, we're down to have a couple conversations.

And they were very open to this new, what seems like a new iteration to retail, but it's really just a shop and shop and shop.

And it just makes a lot of sense when you walk the space.

It's awesome.

I've seen your video on your sneaker collection.

It might have been the biggest collection I've ever seen.

Um, you know, uh,

hoarders hoard,

you know, like I, it, I, uh,

this whole sneaker thing, I've just enjoyed the chase.

Yeah.

Not just with sneakers, but with a bunch of different things.

And, um, you know, as you're, as your dream starts becoming a business, as your passion project starts getting all these layers that require responsibility, um, you start shutting and then downsizing and upgrading and downsizing and upgrading.

It's, um,

if it's a video that I think, I'm nowhere near that amount.

I think you have like a million dollars in sneakers, something crazy.

Yeah, we've shot way past that, but with a lot less shoes.

Sheesh.

But no,

I got lucky with a few.

Yeah.

What's the most expensive sneaker you've seen?

Oh, most expensive sneaker that I've physically seen is something that we had at the store for a little bit, which was this Sotheby's auctioned LV Air Force One.

Wow.

How much was that?

Like 300K.

Yeah, but it's, you know, when you're looking at sneakers and you're like, wait a minute, who's paying 300?

Why did this get to that number?

Like,

you're looking at it with just like it's like the purpose of what a shoe is, right?

You're supposed to wear it.

So you're like, why would I spend 300 grand on something that I'm going to beat?

Whereas

it's more like an archivial piece that

you just put up as art.

But there's some people that they're hoarding and they're collecting, like they could justify the wear.

Right.

Right.

And

wearing something of that magnitude creates an emotion that's really hard to explain very few people understand you're just so protective of not getting them dirty, right?

Some people don't even care, man.

Oh, really?

You know, like, yeah, I mean, like

my

what I consider my holy of holies, right?

Like the ones that I'm like, I still can't believe I paid what I paid, like it's at its highest peak, and I still wear it and I don't even bother to clean them.

Like, I think that's part of there's no right or wrong with sneakers, right?

It's just you have to have an appreciation and and most of it is just a tie-on tie-in into the chase and the stories behind the chase and your the why, right?

That's really what

I think that's why I think sneakers now more than ever is all m all walks of life.

Yeah.

And I don't know much about like the the business side of things, but do sneakers in general hold their value pretty well?

Great question.

I mean, um, if you if you do the research and, you know, you tie it to the right story or you're at the right moment and you acquire it at the right time, yeah,

most of what you could purchase from any of our locations, if you allow a little bit of time to season and you don't wear them, they go up.

And a lot of times with the ones that you buy at the store, if you wear them even

seven, eight months from now, sometimes even less time, they go up or at least are still worth what you paid even though you wore it.

Wow.

So

it's like wearable stock in that sense.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

So it's almost like an asset.

Well, I've treat everything in my store like an asset because it really kind of is.

You know,

I don't know how much of my story and background on how we started, but you know, that location,

we got a little bit of love

from the property to kind of build out.

But I was building that store.

during the middle of a pandemic everything you're paying a premium expedited fees nothing was happening in the time frame that you were expecting.

And then next thing you know, your cost is triple.

And so, you know, the way my bank account is set up, you have to kind of let go of some of this stuff.

And when I shed a lot of my personal collection and funded the build out of that store, and that store cost millions of dollars to build.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

So you took a huge risk building that out.

Not really.

Calculated.

I mean, it's kind of easier to take those risks that, like, for most will be like, yo, this guy's crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

When you know that, like,

I mean, you 10x your money on, on an, on an asset,

you, you're, you're hoarding the asset, understanding that at some point it has to serve a greater good, right?

And for me, it's always been the rainy day fun,

you know, so yeah, I got a lot in the rainy day fun.

And you also had that personal brand to fall back on.

You spent years building that in the secret.

We've worked really hard to make it inclusive.

Yeah.

Right.

And,

you know,

you know, without like boring you with the story, at one point I really felt and I still feel that

what this brand like is focused on and all it cares about is like community, right?

And that's all walks of life.

And,

you know, it started on a kitchen table and now it's in Caesar's Palace and Saudi Arabia and all these other places, but it's with you're focusing on, hey, here's the, here's what you came in for, but this is really what you're going to support at the end of the day.

And building that brand and that sweat equity has really helped kind of get in those rooms and get these opportunities that for most, like

you don't even know where to start on how to unravel.

How did this even get to where it's at?

Yeah, you really emphasize the community.

I saw you at SneakerCon and people were just approaching you, and it was really cool to see that you still give love to everyone.

No, I mean, because

I know what it's like being that guy, the dreamer that wants to do something, and you're trying to articulate it to your friends, your family, your close ones.

And like because they don't understand why you're so passionate about something, like it's demoralizing when they criticize it.

And the criticism you receive in some cases,

it's more like because you haven't done enough and not necessarily because they don't want to see you do it.

It's just...

you're talking about something that how do you explain a tangible?

Yeah.

It's really hard to do.

Right.

So I know the impact of having a conversation with someone in front of you that gets what you're into and is proof of like, if you stick to it,

it could work out for you.

Right.

And so I try really hard to be a good ambassador for the, for, for my space, for our community, not just here in Vegas, but globally.

Yeah, that's right.

I've done over 170 shows globally, and I've made it a point to travel.

Like, I try to go to all the stores that I hear are doing it right or trying to do it right or just opened up so I could understand what their best business practices are.

So I could share mine because it makes, you know, like everything, no matter how good your idea is, you probably got it from somebody else or thought you could do it better than someone else.

Wow.

So I've been very fortunate to kind of like learn.

on a global scale and then teach on a global scale.

It's been a lot of fun.

That's cool to see that because a lot of people would see other sneaker sneaker stores as competition and not even walk in there.

Why?

I mean,

no matter what you do, no matter how hard you go, no matter how efficient you are, no matter how many resources you have, you're never going to win everybody over.

I mean, like, you and I could be in the same exact room, same exact resources, same exact people, try for the same exact thing.

Guess what?

One of us isn't going to get the opportunity.

And it's not because you went about it the wrong way.

They might just not

like the fact that my voice sounds the way that my voice or my eye goes this way.

You know what I mean?

Like,

I

get frustrated when I hear people say it doesn't have anything to do with luck because it, to an extent, it does.

Like, you could be doing everything right and still not get the opportunity.

And you could be in the right room that could possibly give you that opportunity, but because it's not your time, you don't get it.

And that moment could, like, because you didn't get it at that moment, it could stop you from going.

Right?

So, like,

I don't know, man.

I look at a lot of stuff.

Business, I don't really care for the,

I love scaling.

I love trying to make it more efficient.

I've, you know, I could, I could sit here and boast numbers with the best of them.

But that's not really what drives me at all.

It's more about the teaching and helping people be more efficient.

Wow.

And you mentioned earlier people thought you were crazy when you were starting out.

Did you have any support system at all or were you solo the first few years?

Well, you know, to to tell you my story in the shortest form possible, right?

Like

when I moved to Vegas, my first six months, I was homeless.

And I slept in parks.

I ate out of trash cans.

I panhandled.

I stood in line for stuff.

When I couldn't sneak into hotels, I would shower in the fountains in front of Caesars.

On days like today, where there's like heat advisory warnings, I would jump in.

I would go to the properties on the strip that generated the most foot traffic to get out of the heat, but also to learn.

Retail, like, it's so intriguing.

It's all walks of life.

The city's like Narnia in a sense, right?

Like everybody's here, but nobody's here.

And like, if you go to one property, you don't really go to the other property.

And there was like a few properties in the city that like I really had a lot of fun,

even though I was like kind of trying to save myself, but I had a lot of fun just people watching and learning.

And like, Caesars won me over from day one, even though I didn't win Caesars over from the beginning.

and so you go from showering in the fountains in front of it to another point you're working all up and down the place right at all the retail locations that are in there from you know from sony back in the day to apple to nike to you know george jensen when it was there and then now uh i have one of the highest foot traffic stores in that place it's um it's really weird man but a real blessing what it is i'm just getting started yeah i love that attitude man and you said you're in saudi arabia too yeah so this started on a kitchen table, one shoe, 40 bucks.

Jeez.

I've been September of Mark nine years that I've been selling shoes through the brand.

At this point, I've touched through the brand.

We've moved over 4 million pairs of sneakers.

I started in the hood mall, went to the good mall.

Now I'm in the great mall.

I have two locations in Caesars.

a great relationship with some friends that I met through the store when no one cared about my brand.

Now in Saudi, and that's gonna, I think it's gonna get a couple more layers attached to it.

And, you know, we're kind of scouring the earth trying to find new friends to kind of be the right ambassadors for the brand and continue to scale it.

I definitely think like this is the smallest iteration that anybody will see of my brand.

That's insane.

That's a real blessing.

Do you worry about scaling too quickly?

Like you saw what happened with cookies.

Does that worry you at all?

Scaling fa?

I don't think we're scaling fast enough.

You know, what you have to understand is what I'm learning is that you got to make sacrifices in the growing, right?

So

you mentioned a great brand that I have a lot of friends of and I have a liking to.

You know,

you have to make it...

You have to water it down as you grow.

And it's not because you don't care.

It's just that it's too many moving parts.

So you got to make it more efficient.

You got to make it repetitive.

You got to make it safe.

And sometimes sometimes in doing that, as you grow a brand, you kind of lose your cool, right?

And or you're so used to seeing it and you're so good at it that it just becomes like bland, right?

So

am I concerned about with that with my brand?

Yeah, there's days where I think about it like that, but I also know that like my purpose is more to standardize the industry and I have to be okay with some of the things that like I might not necessarily run that way, but the majority of my message is going to come across and it's going to be for a greater good in the industry.

I think I change not just sneaker retail.

I think I changed retail in general with the experiences and formats and processes that we're implementing.

Wow.

So what do you do differently from like just regular sneaker stores?

Well, the entire store is QR code-based.

It's been like that for about eight years.

Yeah, that made it so easy.

Yeah.

I really am not a fan of walking into a retail location regardless of price point in a retail location where you want something you need something how about now right and then based off of what I think you may or may not have as far as the sales rep like is what determines your your sales experience right I've always much more been a fan of like

Look, these items that you're here for, you're here for because you're assuming I have them.

They're the holy of holies.

You don't see them every day.

And I want you to see, touch, and feel them.

And for me more, it's my concern is that my staff treats you like a family member they haven't seen in 10 or 15 years and that they become kind of like that liaison that walks you through gracefully, like through this museum that just curates a positive experience.

I don't even want my staff to sell.

I just want to make sure that you have a smile throughout the whole process because not everybody that walks in my doors needs to buy something.

Wow.

I need promoters of the brand.

Promoters of the brand are made by a positive experience,

not me grabbing you by the ankles and taking every little coin you got in your you know in your pocket no i love that man because the first time i didn't buy anything but no one pressured me no one even came up to me to try to sell me second time i bought something and now i just come back for fun honestly because it's so cool in there then we did our job yeah no you provide a great customer experience because there's certain stores you walk in and someone's up your ass like it's very elitist and it's very like i don't trust right yeah and it's like it's frustrating because i mean we're in a time pieces everybody's in a time pieces now right you walk into one of those you know, you got the money for what you're about to ask for.

And it's the same repetitive experience.

I don't got anything.

Got to get out of the way.

They wanted to talk to you.

It's like, why?

Is that really helping your brand?

Not at all.

And they have it in the back, too.

Yeah, there's an allocation that's based off.

I mean, if we're going to spill the beans, let's spill the beans, right?

There's an allocation that's provided at every store.

It's based off a seniority of the amount of reps that they have.

So if you and I come into the store and we get the same sales rep and you ask for a time piece that's not allotted to them, they're not even going to entertain their conversation.

And then if you're only asking for one, they really don't have an interest.

They're trying to build the next 20 years of clientele, right?

That means repetition multiple.

So if you're not in there throwing on the wall, asking for a whole bunch of them, you're probably not going to get any of them.

Yeah.

Right.

And the other part is, is these brands are asking these clients to wait at least two to three weeks before that rep actually gives you one, unless you got somebody that cares.

Right.

You know?

So that's no, it's crazy, man.

It's a whole, it's a racket.

Yeah, no, I've walked in the Rolex store in like sweatpants and hoodies, and they won't even talk to me.

I love not looking the part

and then being the part.

I live for that.

But I have some great relationships because I listen a lot and then I

attack where your opening is.

And I've been very fortunate.

I mean, I'm persistent, right?

Not a boasting statement, but I hoard.

And, you know, I

31 31 timepieces in two years.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm up to five.

I got to get like you, man.

I mean, I think you're going to be there a lot more efficiently than I ever was.

Oh, man.

I love your story for real.

It's really inspiring, honestly.

Thank you, brother.

Yeah, not a lot of people go from homelessness to.

I wasn't, you know,

I allowed myself to get into a space.

Where I just, you know, I was really young.

I was in my 20s.

Didn't have habits.

I'd messed up a few times being a knucklehead as a kid.

And I just didn't want to ask my parents, hey, can you, can you bail me out of this one again?

Like

at 23, 24 years old, I'm now looking at the other foot.

Man, what has my mom gone through?

Can she really, like, does she really deserve to have to bail me out again?

Like, I should probably figure it out this time.

Oh, so you didn't even tell them?

Yeah, I would have told everybody I was good.

Like, you know, and

I would call back home, check in.

Hey, how are stinks?

Yep, we're great.

You know, but but I'm really sleeping in parks and, you know, showering in fountains.

And, you know,

like I, I, once you,

you know, I replayed a lot of moments and that didn't work out in my way or in the way that I ideally wanted to.

And there was a common denominator.

And there was a few common denominators.

One was me.

The other one was my attitude.

And then my selfishness, right?

And so when I pretty much got it together, sorry, got it together and then lost it all again because i didn't really have any rules like like i just i was very reckless right i was just uh

i i looked at everything and i said man if i get the opportunity maybe i'm just going to start focusing on everybody else so it's like if i felt yeah and at first it felt very uncomfortable right um at first i didn't really understand how to do that like very foot and mouth felt weird and then as i started growing you know i was very scared to tell my story and then i I felt very uncomfortable that I wasn't telling my story and as the brand started growing that's when I started kind of telling my story and it's more because there's a million people like me that want to do exactly what I'm doing if not bigger that possibly could and all they need is somebody to tell them get off your backside and go get it wow What was that first breakthrough for you?

Was it someone taking you on?

Was it alone?

Was it, do you remember a specific moment?

I mean, there's so many moments

that I think helped me look at my brand and say, I think you're on to something.

I think one of the most, one of the biggest bursts that gave me a boost of confidence with the brand was

about six, seven months into my brand,

I came across another, a buddy that I had met earlier.

Like when I started my business,

the day I signed my lease,

I had $40 to my name.

Wow.

Like I signed my business license.

I got a credit card for $2,400.

I opened up in a 500-square-foot location.

Yeah.

No neighbors for six months.

I kind of sublet when I wasn't supposed to, but I charged it as marketing.

You know, and I made a post.

It was like, hey, man, I'm going to be opening something that I think is going to be very different.

If you guys want to get a first-hand look, like, come down.

And this was before the store was opened.

Reality was, I didn't know how to paint.

I didn't know how to put shelves up.

I was just looking for help all sorts of ways, right?

Yeah.

Came across this guy, had a great conversation.

He was like, hey, I don't feel well.

I'll be back later.

And, you know, I thanked him for his time.

Months passed, six months to be exact.

Comes back.

He's like a shell of himself.

And I'm like, dude, what happened?

He's like, look, I'm a little under the weather.

I need to get a heart transplant.

You know, it goes down this whole spiel of how like he has to try to raise money to be able to get into a program out in San Diego so he could get on the list to get a heart transplant.

I'm like, all right, so what do you need?

What are we doing?

He's like, well, I started a GoFund.

You know, the typical route route that you try to do to generate money.

I'm like, well, how much have you raised?

He's like, you know, a couple hundred bucks.

I'm like, who's helping you?

He's like, I'm like, where's the family?

He's like, none.

So it hurt to hear that.

Right.

And so I'm telling my wife, we got to help this guy.

We got to figure out a way to help this guy.

So this was around the Manny Pacquiao Mayweather fight.

Yeah.

And I'm a consignment shop, right?

So at the time, I really don't own anything.

Right.

I don't really have anything.

This is six months into my

six months into the brand.

So the way consignment works at the time and for most part is you sell something, you hold on to the money, money, and then there's that time period when you pay it out.

At that time, we were quick with it.

It was like a week.

Now there's so many layers to protect consumer, customer, consigner alike, right?

So it takes a little bit longer.

I'm trying for months to get

the tickets to the fight.

I have boxers telling me, hey, we're going to give you tickets.

Don't worry about it.

This is a great reason why.

But money is involved and people are reselling the tickets and it's just not working out.

So the Wednesday night before the fight, I asked my wife, how much money do we have?

And we have six grand in the business bank account, but on Monday, checks need to be cut and go out for most of that money.

So I'm sitting here like, all right, I don't have anything I could sell.

We only got six grand.

You know what?

Give me the six grand.

I'm going to buy two tickets that I could then do a raffle.

I'll figure it out.

And if, look, if we upset some consigners because we weren't able to pay them out, reality is we don't need them as consigners.

They can't have a heart.

Like, I should, I don't need to be making money for anybody.

So she was a little concerned, rightfully so.

I'm literally risking my business for a guy that I don't even know off of one, two interactions.

I buy these tickets Wednesday night.

I somehow get on the news Thursday.

Um, I

did what we had to do.

Wow.

I got that $6,000 back.

I got $15,000 for a guy that needed $10,000.

The guy that won the tickets then sold the tickets to then send his mom on vacation.

So it was like the gift I kept giving.

And at that time, I'm like, man,

I did that out of nothing.

I did that out of thin air.

So if I could do that with just a simple thought

you know, like a 48-hour window, like, what else can I do?

And that was like the first real empowering moment with my brand that like I knew I had something that was different.

Wow.

And we've from there on, we've probably paid for like nine or ten funerals.

We gave a car away.

And I don't have a, you know, a non-profit.

This is just a...

a husband and wife that feel like, hey, I think we could do this.

Let's pull it off and let's go.

That's insane, man.

You saved the guy's life with no money.

That's an incredible story.

Why wouldn't you if you could?

Yeah, that's so inspiring.

Wow, and you don't even do it for the write-off.

You just do it.

I could care less.

Yeah.

Because most people just do it as like a charity write-off.

I don't really...

I'm not wired that way.

There's a lot I got to learn from a business standpoint.

I'd be the first one to tell you.

But my intentions aren't to get a tax break.

If I got to pay the number, whatever it is, I'm paying, I'm overpaying, I'm underpaying.

Like, I'm learning, but I'm having fun and I'm helping.

That's that's all I care about.

I don't care about the dollar.

I'd never have.

Wow.

So money's just not even on your mind.

At all.

Wow.

Why?

Because, I mean, look, at some point, I'll probably have 100 locations.

At some point, I'll have enough layers that my brand is going to do all the work for me and they're just going to say, here you go, boss.

And I'll have the resources to go and move in any direction.

But my impact of where I'm still connected in the limelight like this, my window is very short.

So I have to really,

I'm focused on legacy.

Right.

Right?

I'm focused on generational,

and that doesn't always require a dollar.

You're thinking of long-term game.

You're not thinking.

I'm thinking way past anything that I'll ever be able to see myself.

Wow.

You got kids yet?

I have a 20-year-old.

Oh, congrats.

Yeah.

20 years old.

Yeah, she's going to be a junior in college.

She has my work ethic.

She is not consumed in hoarding like I am, which I am very thankful for.

You know,

same thing as the previous guest that I heard when I was walking in.

You know,

I told her, I'll make you a deal, save some money, I'll match it.

She got her first car.

She paid half.

I paid half.

You know,

it wasn't the little $250 Honda Court I had when I started.

Times have changed, and I'm really proud of her.

She's got my work ethic, and she's going to be way greater than I ever could be.

Do you want to pass the torch to her i don't think she wants it there was a moment where she was like hey dad i'll i want to do this let me i'm going to take over the business and then she kind of became my worst employee oh yeah uh yeah she

very uh

she's not enough experience right and in in human interaction and she's very foot-and-mouth like i was as a kid but i uh i think that when she finds what she wants to do she's going to be exceptional at it yeah she's going to have all the tools and resources to do whatever it is that she wants well

man, what's next for you?

Anything you're trying to promote?

No, I think for me, it's just being a better person than I was yesterday.

Probably having a few more local.

I know we have like seven LOIs in place from now to the end of next year, but

we want to kind of have 20 doors in the next three years.

I think 100 doors in the next 10.

I don't think it's going to take that long, but that's kind of what's on the board.

And just continuing to raise the expectations of what your retail experience should be.

You're about to take over, man.

I can't wait to see the empire grow.

Yeah, I'm excited, man.

I really appreciate your time, dude.

Absolutely, man.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you next time.

Take care.