Benjamin Kickz

Benjamin Kapelushnik, or Benjamin Kickz, is a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Florida. When he was in middle school, his mom bought him a pair of Nike sneakers that garnered him a lot of attention from the other kids in his class. Ben decided to pursue sneakers and potentially reselling them a bit more and this interest soon turned into a passion as he read about sneakers in magazines, attended conventions, and eventually invested his bar mitzvah money into buying a $400 pair of LeBron X MVPs.

At first his parents thought the idea of reselling shoes was crazy, until he sold those shoes later that day for $4,000. From there the legend was born. After he sold his first shoe, Ben started buying in bulk, purchasing shoes before they would even hit the market and reselling them to the public. Ben used his profits to reinvest in his collection and continued to sell until he got his big break and sold shoes to celebrity rapper DJ Khaled. His relationship with the rapper soon became the biggest and best thing that could ever have happened to him or his business. Through Khaled, Ben connected with other celebrity customers and became a regular on the rapper’s social media platforms; boosting his advertisement reach and getting him in contact with bigger and better customers.

One of the biggest takeaways from Ben is the networking he did and how that set him up for success. When he was in high school, he would go to parties and try to meet people who could help him expand his business. As mentioned before, when he was able to meet DJ Khaled, he was able to take his business to a new level as his network expanded. While some of it was luck, Ben took advantage of the opportunity given to him and continued to build on it, making him a household name in the sneaker industry.