Getting the Call Up to The Re-Sell Big Leagues

In the game of resell…unless you are the son of ultra rich parents, we all have to start low in the small leagues and work your way up.  While some may make it and some will never…and most will lost interest before they call it quits.  I never was mad at the fact that I didn’t grow up in a rich family and had unlimited zeros in my bank account. In hindsight I am actually glad god dealt me this hand of making it on my own because not only have I learned a shit load in life, but I never have to doubt my ability to survive and make money in this society for the rest of my life.

For the first 3-4 years of Netmag I was treading in the small leagues dealing with small buyouts and limited cash flow and was basically considered a really small business.  It was so small I didn’t even want to call myself a business because I was literally only making only like $3,000 a month selling sneakers.  I called it a hobby instead.  However, 2017 was a big transition for me where I was called up to the big leagues without any prior notice. You see a Kaws 4 above because this WAS the shoe that changed everything for me!  I still remember the night when Mr.X (anonymous) hit me up and asked me would I be interested in some Kaws 4s. My eyes lit up and without a question I said of course…then i’m like wait…how many pairs we talking about?  Then he said…I have about 40-60 pairs…and even till today I still remember my jaw dropping because I never dealt with these kind of deals and just 1 week ago I was still running around the city trying to buy pairs and now it’s getting delivered to my front door – but I just have to be able to do my part and bring the money to the table.  It was a no brainer.  At the moment I wasn’t even thinking about that flex on IG with 50+ pairs…but rather I was doing math to see how much this would cost me.  I think at the time pairs were selling for about $1,500 CAD each and even if I was getting some sort of deal, I’m look at around $50,000 cash.  Without even thinking about how I was going to come up with that $50k because at that moment I really didn’t have 50 racks in free cash flow… I said yes anyways because I knew if I played it safe I might lose out on future opportunities and I want this type of deal to go on for the perpetual future.

Saying yes was the easy part…but now the hard part is how the fuck am I going to come up with $50,000 in 2 weeks?  Honestly that was the biggest hurdle I ever had at the point but I knew I had to somehow make it happen.  Keep in mind I rarely keep any free cash around because I always maximize my cash on buyouts to invest.  Luckily, I had about $15,000 in cash from a sales from a few days earlier, but was still short about $35k.  I had inventory, but fire selling in a short time frame was not the ideal option because certain pairs I knew were a good hold.  In those 2 weeks I sold what I had to sell and I had to make some tough decisions, but I had to do what I had to do.  The remaining $20-25k I had to make another tough decision…Should I sell some ownership in my business for investment capital or leverage my debt even more?  Looking for partners wasn’t easy as well… I didn’t know a lot people at the time I wanted to be partners with so I was really left with one option only and that is try my luck with the bank to increase my already maxed out line of credit.  After going into the bank I was able to extend my personal line of credit for another $10k.  I wasn’t able to extend my credit line any further because at the time I just started reporting tax for the corporation, so I had no financials to show for my ability to borrow under the corporation.  So the last resort I ended up borrowing against my credit card for a cash balance transfer for the remaining cash.  Luckily  at the time MBNA was still doing a promotion for 0% cash balance transfer for the 1st year so my effective interest rate was close to 0% and not 20%+.

I struggled my way to find the $50,000 and ended up with shit load of Kaws 4s and ever since, my business has changed for the better.  Getting the call up to the big leagues was easy, but staying there wasn’t.  This is a fact because not only do you have to change your business strategy, but it meant cash flow is ever more important which required me to make tough decisions on inventory when it comes to flipping.  I could have easily said no and stayed in my comfort zone, but that would mean I would have stayed small and never grew the way I did. In other words if I wanted to grow to where I am today, it could have took 10 years instead of 2.  Ever since the Kaws 4 buyout, capital and cash requirement became a bigger and bigger problem each time as business continued to grow and more product was being offered by Mr.X.  At times I would literally sit there clueless thinking how I can make the next payment as payment for inventory kept getting bigger and bigger.  BUT I some how managed to survive and for the sake of the length of the blog, I will leave “surviving” in the big leagues for another blog… I honestly enjoyed every bit of the struggle because living through adversity taught me everything I needed to know to overcome obstacles that can never be learnt in textbooks.  I’m not an influencer, but I want you to know one thing!  Next time you run into issues or problems in life/business…don’t be afraid as these are just one of many tests of your ability to succeed in life.  If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger.