The Rise of Saved Soles: Where Sneakers and Faith Create Community in Topeka | Eric Patterson

That shoe goes for $25,000. I'm willing to pay that much money for this shoe and it's like these right here. These are the Travis Scott Jordan 1 Low. This is about a $600 pair of shoes.

What? How much do you think my used on clouds are worth? I'd give you five bucks for them.

I was just doing gardening for my mom, probably about an hour ago In your $600 shoes, bro oh.

Yes, bro, eric Patterson, with Saved Soles on the pod. Hey, welcome to Topeka. Insider man. Edit that part out. Edit that part out, gabe. Welcome to Topeka.

Insider. How are we doing, brother? I'm doing good man. Appreciate you guys for having me on Dude. Thanks for being here. Yeah, let's go, man.

. Give us the rundown If someone has never heard of . What do you do? How long have you been operating? What's going on?

Yeah, so we've been open in Westridge Mall, topeka, kansas, for about eight to nine months now. is your high-end buy sell trade shoe store, so we buy shoes, trade shoes, sell shoes, different brands like Jordans, nikes, yeezys, the higher end stuff. Just give people here a chance to get into the sneaker industry that everybody's seeing online Gosh the sneaker industry.

That is something I know dangerously little about, I know I was like this is going to be embarrassing, like revealing a major blind spot. So I know that the sneaker industry exists, like I have buddies who are into it it, but I'm not really into it. So so, uh, as such, demonstrating the little knowledge I have about this, uh, when, when I first like heard about the idea, I was kind of like who would want to buy used shoes?

like you know but but in the high-end sneaker market it's that doesn't. It's not like. It's not like someone's wearing nasty shoes for a year and then selling them or something, or I don't know.

I mean, you definitely have people with terrible hygiene and with dirty shoes that come in.

But high-end shoes hold value, even though someone's so are these shoes that are sitting on someone's shelf forever?

It really just depends on the person.

Okay, and so everybody.

How I explain it is everybody has their thing right. Whether that be cars, whether that be hats, whether that be golf clubs, pokemon cards, shoes hold their value because to somebody they mean something, right. So the first shoe that Jordan ever wore was the not the first shoe that he wore, but one of his first shoes was the Chicago Jordan 1s that came out in 1985. That shoe means something to somebody. I'm willing to pay whatever that shoe goes for $25,000. I'm willing to pay that much money for this shoe and it's kind of the same all the way down the line right.

Right, right, so it's different shoe and it's the same all the way down the line. Right, right, right, so it's different. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. So I'm yeah, I need to catch up to speed here. So I was under the impression that a lot of the like shoe collectors it was more like you're more like collecting shoes that you're not necessarily wearing very often. It's just like kind of revealing hey, I own this, like you know, like a collection. You're not like bringing it out in public a lot, but is that really not the case Like people are? You might have one pair of $200 Jordans that you're wearing every day, and is that or is it just kind of depend? It really just depends.

There's extremes both ways, right. You have some collectors that I know that they have over 500 different pairs in their closet and they might wear only like 50 of them and they want to keep some of them. Just hey, this is for my kids whenever I die, and they'll have whatever that's like the retirement plan exactly. But then you have people like me, like I firmly believe that you should wear your shoes like these right here. These are the Travis Scott Jordan 1 Lowe's get a go the Travis Scott nice.

How much are those shoes worth right now?

Right now this is about a $600 pair of shoes. Dang, how much do you think my used on clouds are worth.

I'll give you five bucks for them. Five bucks for them, that's right.

Does it make you nervous wearing those outside? I'd be afraid to scuff them. You know what I'm saying.

It them like. I mean, it really just depends. I remember when I first got into it, a lot of the shoes that I had. You know I do like the pigeon walk when. I first got up and. But I mean, at the end of the day, a shoe's a shoe, a shoe is meant to be worn, so so have you seen, like the like the videos of guys like proposing and they take the one shoe off because they don't want to crease it when they kneel, yeah, like so would you do that?

those? I used to be that guy.

Yeah, I used to be that guy, but would you take those off if you were going to kneel?

No, I mean, I was just doing gardening for my mom, probably about an hour ago In your $600 shoes bro, it matched the outfit he's got a store. He's got. You know, that's just a commodity.

So if someone wants to come in and buy some high-end shoes, you're the hookup, of course.

when are you guys out of, and so we're in Westridge Mall right now. We're where the old journeys used to be Okay.

Oh perfect.

We're in about two weeks. We're going to be moving to a bigger location over closer by, like Petland and Champs.

Nice, heck yeah. Is that because you need the space, like you need more room?

And so we're going to be doing a few different things. Not only are we going to still be selling, you know, the shoes and the clothing, but we're going to be opening up, and that's actually the first time I'm saying this in front of people.

Oh, let's go, insider exclusive, here we go.

We're going to be opening up a custom lab and so a place for people to come and customize their own shoes. We teach people. Okay, this is the art of painting shoes, you know. If you want to turn your own swoosh backwards, if you want to put different laces in there, custom Air Force Ones, and so we'll have like a custom shop on the other side, Dude that's exciting.

Heck, yeah. So that's. The reason for the move is that you want to have space for something like that.

Of course that. And also you know advisors, excel is Excel coming into the mall they need a little bit more space on the other side, so we're just awesome.

So how long have you been going after it? How long have you guys been open?

Yeah, we've been open for about nine months now. Opened up in July of last year.

Cool, cool Now. Okay, so walk us through the high-end sneaker side, but there's also a ministry side to the . What's a balance? Walk us through that. What's what's going on there Of?

course, yeah, and so one of the things that obviously that I believe in is that in anything you do, you should put God first, and so, when obviously coming up with the name of the store, I wanted to incorporate that, but also that everything you do has some sort of ministry, right?

And so whether that be just sharing the word with somebody when they come in the store, encouraging them if they look down right, we've given out free pairs of shoes to people who need it. You know, you can just get a pair of shoes here, that's awesome.

Here's something for you and so just in everything that we do, we should obviously be putting God first, especially when it comes to a business side of things. There's definitely a little bit more that we want to do down the road, but also even from like the clothing side right, giving people an avenue to where they can feel like they might be, like fitting in with the types of clothes that they're wearing, but they're wearing something that they can ultimately believe in and share the gospel with as well.

Sweet man, How'd you get into shoes, man?

Yeah, and so growing up I actually I used to make fun of people like me. You know, shoes like this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I had a cousin who went down to Texas and he brought me back up a pair of shoes. I wore them and, man, you couldn't tell me nothing that day. Everybody was like, oh snap, ep he got on the.

XYZ. I forget what they were, but I was like, oh snap, you don't remember what the shoe was. It was. I think it was the original retro three black cements from 2000.

Yes, either 16 or somewhere around that I feel like we're talking about fine wines yeah I'm not a good vintage.

I'm nodding my head like yeah that's a great that's a great shoe like I have no clue.

But yeah, and so I got that and I wore it and everyone was like, oh snaps, ep, ep, that guy. Oh yeah, I was like, oh, I need to wear more shoes.

Just hyping you up, I know yeah.

And so I asked my dad. I was like hey, can I borrow like $250?

Just low key and he was like for what.

I was like I'm gonna buy some shoes. He was like, no, no, I'm not giving you $250 for some shoes. But then I was like kept asking him week after week hey, dad, I really want this shoe. The shoe's coming out. And so he was like, okay, whatever he gave me the $250, he goes. You better pay me back too, and so too. And so like three weeks go by and my dad said, hey, where's my $250? I was like, oh, sorry, here it goes. He goes. All right, now, walk me through it. What'd you do? How much money did you make? I was like, dad, I bought three pairs of shoes for $250 from this person and I sold it over here for $600.

I took that 600 and I put it into this and I turned that 600 into a thousand dollars. I was like dad, I made some money, yeah, I paid you back. He was like by doing shoes, Like this is what you're doing, and so I think he gave me like another like $500 to go buy some more shoes. And ever since then I've just been buying shoes and flipping shoes. Wow.

Just been wheeling and dealing. How long when was that process? How long ago did you start selling?

Yeah, so I started selling shoes when I was in the middle school, beginning of high school.

Wow, and you said you're 23 now. Yeah, so you've been doing this for 10 years, 10 year decade, a long time.

Dang, that's wild bro. Wow, so it was it pretty quick, like that turnaround of, like you said, it was your cousin who brought, brought you a pair of shoes, so it wasn't even just you collecting shoes to start. It was immediately like you saw the opportunity to trade and sell and and really basically start a little business.

Exactly. Um and so there's kind of like two ways of looking at it. Um, I love to pitch it to people like that, but there's also like the truth behind it was I wanted more shoes to wear, and so I'd buy the shoe, wear the shoe for a week and then sell the shoe.

Oh, for real Wear the shoe for a week and then sell the shoe. That's awesome.

Just so I could have more shoes. Yeah, at the end of the day, I was still reselling the shoes.

That's so smart though I mean I did, I mean that is not something I would have. How are you finding these shoes? Was this just word of mouth with your friends? Was this online?

Yeah, and so when I was getting into it, I started to meet a lot of the different resellers that were in town. There was probably around five to ten of us here in Topeka.

Mostly individuals.

Like no one had a store, yeah, there's no stores when it came to this here in Topeka at least, and so I met a lot of them. But about a year into doing it I realized that, okay, all these shoes are just kind of going in a circle, because I sold a shoe to somebody else and then three months later somebody's selling me that exact same shoe. And I'm like, didn't I?

For $1,000 more than you. I was like, did I just sell a shoe to?

somebody else, and so that's when I started to really try to grow online, and one of the things that I did was I met a lot of people out of state, bought shoes from them to basically in a way repopulate the shoe industry Right. So I'd buy a lot of shoes from outside of the state so that you know, now I have zero competition.

Just through social media.

Yeah, wow, my biggest one was Snapchat, actually.

What Really one was was snapchat. Actually, what really? Yeah, dang, that's kind of like the, the lost cousin of social media. I know, I know, yeah, so what is the? Because I've seen videos online where you know someone comes in trying to trade a shoe and you know the guy will, you know, like pad it see if it's real or something. I'm like I don't know that guy's doing, but he seems like he knows what's going on. What is the craziest story? You have someone bringing something and trying to sell. You have you ever told someone like no, I'm not, I'm not buying that?

oh, many times, okay, that's a thing, okay yeah, and so when it comes to the sneaker industry, obviously when you have a really, really big industry, whether that be anything, there's going to be that replica side of things too, so if you have this big louis vuitton bag hey, you got this $25,000 Louis Vuitton bag and somebody's on a blanket in New York, hey, I'll sell you this Louis Vuitton bag for $100. There's something fishy here.

The odds are low that this is real.

It's the exact same thing when it comes to sneakers. There's a lot of replica sneakers out there. There's a lot of names for them, whether it be replica, whether it be factory direct, whether it be replica, whether it be factory direct, whether it be one of one, but at the end of the day, it's a fake version. Really Sure, wow, the sneaker right, Because if you have shoes that are going for $500 and somebody else is saying hey, I'll sell you the same shoe for $100. Right, that sounds interesting to some people.

Right, but at the end of the day, for what we do and from those replica shoes.

What are some obvious tells that a shoe is a fake or a replica.

Yeah, yeah. And so for me it's the weight of the shoe. Like I can put a shoe in my hand and be like this is not like a retro 11, or this is not a this, or even, just you know, knowing a little bit more about the shoe, right. And so if I know that this was supposed to be like a Chicago colorway shoe, this red is more of like a cherry red instead of like a Chicago red.

Oh wow, right, even down to. If you look at like the inside of the shoe, you can see the stitching is wrong on some parts. Right, it's a Jordan. Somebody brought in a shoe where, instead of the Jordan being like this, the Jordan had a little bit of sass and was like this, you know?

That's not I'm showing my knowledge of this industry is there is there laughing at me? And you know, just right now it's so funny.

uh, is there a difference between fakes and are there like misprints? There are that are like actually authentic from the factory but just done wrong on accident. Maybe John does know more than I do.

And so those are called your B grade shoes and there is like a market for it. We don't deal with a lot of B grade shoes, but what that is is they just they messed up somewhere. Sometimes, like, one of the biggest things for B-grade shoes is the color of the sole at the bottom, because, like when they're dying, like the sole of a shoe right, they might like run out of ink towards the end of all the shoes. So, the color is a little bit faded.

The print on the side is just a hair wrong. You'll see that there was one where somebody looked up a picture and this actually goes back to your instance. Right, they got it straight from Nike, but the back tab was upside down on the shoe on accident. So instead of him selling it for like $300, I think he sold it for like $40,000. Oh what? Because you know it was a one-of-one shoe. Okay, right, okay.

I'm not crazy.

So that does happen in some points, but that would be more of like a B-grade shoe rather than a Treader, but B-grade shoes could be worth more.

They could be sometimes, yeah, but most of the time they're not. Most of the time they're not, yeah okay.

It reminds me of shoot. I don't know who it is.

I think it's there's a baseball card, cause I collected baseball cards when I was a kid and there's this old I think it was a 1980s card and it's super valuable because the guy there's one version of the card where he's holding the bat on his shoulder and the knob has nothing on it. And then there's another version it's like a one of one cause they took it down, not a one of one because they took it down, not a one-of-one, it's just really rare because they took it down and stopped running as a print where the baseball knob said F you on it. And the guy did it on purpose because he thought it'd be funny for his baseball card.

Like as they took the photo.

He wrote it on the bat.

On the photo it's on the knob of the bat, and he did it on purpose, knowing it would be a baseball card. No-transcript the card, of course, but there's still some that are out there, so it's worth a lot more so exactly.

Yeah, that's crazy dang. Yeah, you have any like factory workers sneaking stuff into this one has a hundred dollar bill sewn into the.

What's the most expensive shoe that you've either bought or sold.

And so since we've opened up, we've sold two really expensive shoes. The first one, I think it was around $1,600. It was an off-white Converse actually. The other one that we sold, I think we sold like a month of being open and I was like, oh, this is amazing.

I need more of this Business is great.

Yeah, it was a $2,900 shoe. Wow, nice it was called the. Chunky Dunkeys.

The Chunky Dunkeys. Wow, it was called the Chunky.

Dunkeys, the Chunky Dunkeys. It's a Ben and Jerry's collab with Nike.

Oh, okay. All right, so were the Converse just normal Converse, like what was special about?

Yeah, and so most of the time when you get into like really expensive shoes, it's a collaboration with either two companies or a person in a company. Like the reason that like these are more expensive shoes is because this is a collab with Travis Scott in Jordan. So those Converses was a collab with Off-White, which is a company, and Converses.

I totally just heard the color Off-White. I was like what's so special about Off-White Converses?

I'm going to act like I knew more than you did, yeah totally. So do you have any employees? Is it just you rocking and rolling, or what's the team look like?

Yeah, I got my main man there. Everybody calls him JB but I call him Zoom, so we've known each other for way too long. But basically my brother, he's there, one of my partners up there, so yeah.

Heck yeah, that's awesome man. Where would you like to see this go?

Yeah, so there's a few different ways that we really want to grow this. One of the biggest ways that we would like to grow this is like a Target or a Walmart or fill in the blank right. That we could be kind of that collective group where people can come in, buy, trade and sell different Christian brands. Obviously we want to keep going with the shoes and everything like that. But we want to be like this, this big collaborative space where people can come in and buy different Christian apparel from all across the country.

Wow, heck, yeah, that's awesome. That's a big goal for us.

Most of your sales do they happen online or is you get a lot of foot traffic in the mall and you do a lot of business? You know brick and mortar. What's kind of that breakdown?

Yeah, breakdown, yeah, and so most of our business as of now is in store. Um, we did a lot of online stuff when it uh on the platform called whatnot, um, it's, it's kind of like eBay and an auction house mixed together right you go live and you not only have the point of like entertaining people, but then you're also like selling stuff there too.

Oh, it's like video, like you're oh, okay, wow.

And so you're live video in front of people showing them different products, and then you have the opportunity to sell that stuff as well.

Wow.

And so that's where a lot of our online business has kind of stemmed from. That's where we've gotten those really far oars with somebody coming from Dubai to to order a pair of shoes from us. Yeah, I think we've hit almost every single state in the United States from sending shoes out to Dang, but yeah, that's one of our big online platforms.

What's it been like starting a business in Topeka? What has been better than you expected? What's been harder than you expected?

Yeah, yeah. The hardest thing for me is getting out of my own head of what I think is going to work or not work. Coming from especially like a sneaker perspective, I would like to think I know a lot when it comes to sneakers and that I have a good grasp on taste. Doesn't always happen like that. There's some shoes I'm like oh, these are fresh, Everybody's buying these. They sit on the shelf for like three months.

I'm like oh, these are fresh. Everybody's buying these. They sit on the shelf for like three months.

I'm like ah well, no, they're buying these and then you'll pick a shoe and I'm like those are ugly, I'm not going to buy those. Put them on the shelf and they're sold out in two days. I'm like, ah well, dang. And so for me, I think, it's on what Topeka wants and what Topeka likes, like what their tastes are, maybe Exactly.

And I think one of my biggest shocks was when I was in high school and college. I was telling a lot of my friends hey, I want to open up a shoe store. They're like, yeah, no, you can't do that here. You got to go to Kansas City to do that. Because that's all there ever was. There were sneaker stores in Kansas City, manhattan and Lawrence and there never been a sneaker store in Topeka.

And so I'm like you know I want to open up a sneaker store. You know they're like. I know like Topeka's not doing that Right.

Yeah.

We're not having that, but the feedback that I got the from from day one people coming in and and some of them spending some big dollars on shoes and just the the attaboys that I've got from doing this here in Topeka that's really surprised me.

That's awesome.

Most of my business doesn't have to come from bigger cities, but it can come from my own city right here.

Yeah, wow, I love that your dad was basically like your first investor. Oh, absolutely. Like that's such a cool story, like that your dad gave you 250 bucks to then like and then you paid him back like making money. Yeah, doing what?

it wasn't the first time that he gave me money to and I had to pay him back, but that was definitely a little bit.

There are other times you're like I'm I made nothing, so I just need to go get a job, and here's 250 dollars back like the first time that he gave me money.

He's gonna be mad that I told this story actually For Christmas one year. I forget how old I was, but for Christmas one year both my sisters got like an iPod Touch. Like one of the new ones that just came out. I think that was right when they first started putting like the buttons on it. They got an iPod Touch.

And then I got like one of those little like Walkman. It had three players. I'm like like you have to have like a headphone jack for it. Yeah, xyz. I was like dad like what the heck man? I wanted an iPod. I was like, actually, no, I want an iPad mini. Can I have an iPad mini? He was like sure, you can have whatever you want, as long as you pay for it yourself. Classic dad move, what is this right? And so he was like you know what? We're going to teach you how to make some money. And so this is my first entrepreneurial job. We went to he gave me 80 bucks. We went to Joyland. What was it called? Joyland Joyland, yeah, boyles, boyles, joyland, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we bought a little red wagon. We went to the hardware store, painted it red. We went and bought like a big 40 gallon cooler. We went and bought like a little cocktail dispenser. I didn't know it was a cocktail dispenser at the time, but a little cocktail dispenser went to Sam's Club bought some bottles of water.

Then I went to Dollar Tree and I bought some little lemonade packets and I went door to door selling a bottle of lemonade and a little lemonade packet. It was called Little Eric's Pink Lemonade Nice. And I sold it for a dollar a piece. I went all over the different neighborhoods, I set up at different parks and just went door to door selling pink lemonade. And I remember like the first three weeks of me doing that. I was like Dad I made $150 selling lemonade. He was like hey, you still owe me that 80 bucks.

I cried in my room. I thought the 150 was mine.

But I paid him back and then at the end of the summer I think I made like around 500 bucks I went and bought a brand new iPad mini and so it was fun.

I mean all from that 80 bucks like the 80 bucks, but all the supplies that made you 500 bucks, yeah, wow, yeah, and so it was fun, I mean. I didn't want to do it All from that 80 bucks, like the 80 bucks about all the supplies. That made you 500 bucks yeah.

Wow yeah, and so it just. That was my first job, my first entrepreneurial kind of day.

So your dad seems pretty entrepreneurial then. Is he kind of naturally thinking like that too. Yeah, he does, he does, and so my dad he's a pastor of a church here in town called Living Truth. My mom owns a daycare center here in town.

My sister owns a salon here in town. Wow, family of business owners, exactly. I've kind of always grown up around, hey, almost that kind of like do it yourself, make your own money, do your own thing. My dad always told me get your own little red wagon that you can push down the hill, kick it, do whatever you want, but at the end of the day it's yours. And so, just having that kind of mindset growing up, is one of the different ways that I can hustle and make my own money.

Man, I love hearing stuff like that, because I'm not naturally like that Like if you gave me 80 bucks, be like now go make $500. I'd be like dude, I have no idea. Like I don't know, like casino, I'm not sure. Like I don't know, like it doesn't. That's not just how my brain works. You know, uh, what are some other things. Were there other lessons your dad taught you growing up that contributed to? Like? You know just how you think and how you see opportunities and things yeah, definitely the um.

another thing that that lemonade experience taught me was you, you know, if you go up to you know an eight year old kid and he'll say, hey, I'm selling lemonade for a dollar, they say no, slam the door on my face. I went home and cried a few times but that kind of told me, um, he would explain to me, hey, everything's not going to be a sale.

But at the end of the day, if you don't make a sale, you can make a friend.

So just keep that mindset of hey not everybody's your customer, but everybody's a person at the end of the day that you can have a connection with, and so that's one of those lessons that has grown with me.

That's so good.

Ever since I've been selling stuff, I used to follow my mom to the bowling alley. She would bowl league and she would bowl league and actually had a nickname at the bowling alley called Candy man. I would go to Sam's Club and buy, like you know, those 40 packs of candy and then I just go sell them to everybody at the bowling alley.

What A dollar a piece.

You know, I spend 20 bucks and I make 50 bucks or whatever, and I would do that every single Friday.

You've been wheeling and dealing since birth, for a long time.

This is wild bro. I used to sell candy out of my locker in middle school I used to sell polo shirts out of my locker in middle school, and so I mean I've been selling stuff for a really long time, Wow.

That's wild dude. Wow, man, Tell us, would you mind getting into just like. Obviously your dad is a pastor. Your store is very faith focused, Like how did that come to be such a strong part of your life?

And why is that a big influence in your business? Yeah and so for. For me personally, and what I've told people is too many things. Just work out for me Right. When I was growing up, there was a lot of stuff that you know. It gets to a point where coincidences stop being coincidences.

Right.

And you have to give glory and honor to God for all the things that he's putting in your life.

Obviously, I grew up in a religious household and so that was kind of given to me. But I think where it becomes like boots on the ground was when I kind of left home and I had all these bills and all of this and I couldn't do anything and everything was just crashing down. And it got to a point where one day I was literally in my car crying because I was like I can't do this anymore, like I cannot do this by myself anymore, and like at the end of that day I got a phone call and this big opportunity opened up for me and I was like you know nothing but God. A lot of stuff happened because of God, especially in my life and in my family's life, and, like I said, it gets to a point where you can recognize and see it's not coincidental, it's hey, I've put my faith in God and he has blessed me because of X, y, z. So I wake up and I thank God for all that he has done for me.

You know just waking up, having use and activity of your limbs. You know having breath in your body that's a blessing every day, because people that don't wake up. There's people that you know don't have shoes to put on, whether they're $40 shoes, or I'm blessed to be able to put on $600 shoes right.

There's people that wake up and they don't have food on the table, they don't have a roof over their head, they don't have family, they don't have friends, they don't have a car. At the beginning of each day, that's something that I have, access to, all of those things and so you got to wake up and thank God every single day just because of the simplistic things that everybody has in their lives.

Wow, preach man, come on man, that's so. And what, what? How'd you go from that point to not just starting, you know, like maybe a standard shoe store, to like no, I want this to be faith-based. I want this to have a faith element in the branding in the store. Like you know what I'm saying, like how did that go from? Just okay, personally, you know, I'm obviously trying to serve God, but I want this to be a part of the business itself.

Yeah, and for me it was like I had said just in everything that you do, give God glory, and whether it's the smallest thing or the biggest life accomplishment in your life, right, you want to give that to God, just because if you give it to God, he will bless it. If you put it in his hands, he will bless it. And so one of the things for me was just hey, I want to start a shoe store, but you know, all these opportunities that I've gotten up to this point, to even be able to do this, that was a gift from God, and so I want to be able to put him at the forefront of everything that I do going forward.

That's awesome, man so you clearly have your head on your shoulders. You're rocking and rolling, being 23, starting a business. Do you have any business mentors in Topeka that have kind of come alongside you that you go to for advice or that you look up to, maybe in town?

Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a few, obviously literally everybody in my family. They've been doing this longer than I've been doing this. I'm in here for maybe not even a year yet my mom's at a childcare center for for 20 years I was in the childcare center, so she's had a business for 20 years.

You were her first client.

I was one of them. My sister has had her salon for, you know, I think, going on five years.

Cool.

Obviously looking up to them and asking them questions of hey, how did you do this? Hey, why, why is this a thing Like, why do I have to pay so much in taxes? Like all of this different stuff, exactly. But another aspect of it was before I opened up the shoe store, I worked at WIBW and I did marketing for a lot of different small businesses in the Topeka area, and so I was able to meet a lot of different business owners, and so I've also used them as my network to ask them different questions and find out a bunch of different things. Obviously, cody Foster is a big mentor for me. Just in, you know, he's a small town guy who grew up here, and look at everything he's done from staying in.

Topeka, Michael Dubitin. He has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to business and opportunities and being community focused. There's a lot of different people who I definitely could give props to, but those would be kind of the few.

Sweet.

Yeah, heck, yeah, wow, have a big impact on me.

That's awesome, man. Wow, that's really cool, yeah, wow.

Have a big impact on me. That's awesome. Man. Wow, that's really cool. Dude, Would you have any advice for somebody else with an idea that's thinking, hey, Topeka needs, you know, I don't know a pickleball place, or you know, Topeka needs this thing that we don't have. But man, maybe like your friends, thinking like man, that'll never work here, what advice would you give to somebody that's wrestling with whether to start a business or not?

Yeah, at the end of the day, you just have to try. The biggest thing that I told my wife when I first did this and I was like what if I fail? This is my dream and it's my fault if my dream doesn't work out. She was like you never know if you don't try. It's so simplistic, but you just never know what you don't know.

And so one of the people that I was like, oh, oh, snaps, you can do this at 23 years old. It was this guy in the corner right here who has his own business, who I met. Right, he was somebody that I've met.

Can we turn the camera around? Yeah, who's that guy? Oh yeah, turn the camera on the camera guy. Yeah.

Not going to happen, mr uh-huh yeah, and so that's somebody that I've met who, okay, he's the same age as me, he has his own business, he's rocking and rolling, is it easy? Maybe not, but yeah, he's doing the thing are you only 23. Yeah, yeah, I'm 23, dang bro.

Wow, I think that's super cool and I think there's a big shout out to your dad and making you go door to door and I love it. You know you make a sale, you make a friend and I think there's a ton of people that will never give it a go because they're afraid of failing and they're afraid of the.

what is this going to look like? If I don't make it, I'm going to get made fun of or, you know, might lose some money, and you know you have to. You have to give it a go If you want to make it, and nothing that's worth. It is just going to be easy and just be an automatic yes. I mean, if there's no risk, there's no reward, exactly.

Even how your dad made you face rejection. You know like you got rejected a bunch of times as a kid. So you know, rejection is never fun, no matter how many times you faced it. But I got to imagine that at least helped later Like well, I faced that. So it's not the end of the world, you know like maybe I could do this.

So, okay, walk us through. Uh, give me, I want to hear from your perspective and uh, you know we're talking about some people who were trying to encourage other people to start businesses. You've been in topeka for a long time now. You said you moved here, moved back here when you were nine. What is something that you think topeka is missing? And if you had a buddy say I'm going to start this business, you'd be like, yes, go for it.

Yeah, and one of the things I think we've actually chatted with this a little bit too. I feel like some of the things that are missing in Topeka is good, clean, fun past 10 o'clock. And when I say good, clean fun, something that is safe for everybody, that anybody, any walk of life could come into, have a great time doing it, that's open past 10 o'clock.

So not just a bar from 10 to 2 or 3. Exactly.

We have plenty of those. We have enough bars Right.

What would be and maybe you don't have an answer, so I'm not expecting one, but what would be an example of that somewhere else?

Like in and I'm different from a lot of people, but I'm the person. If one of my buddies calls me at nine o'clock at night say, hey, we're going to play basketball, I'm going to get my shoes and we're going to play basketball.

The Travis Scott ones. Which shoes, yeah, which shoes.

But yeah, and so for me, something that I would love to see is some type of like 24-hour sports complex. Oh yeah, that'd be sick. Anybody, any point, can go have a pickup game of basketball or a pickup game of pickleball or whatever you want to do, and so just an open area for people to go have some good, clean fun.

Yeah, yeah, dude, ichabod Grill's putting in a pickle bar course.

I saw that. Have you seen the? They just posted some pictures. I just drove past it over here, yeah it looks sweet.

I think they opened this week. That's wild.

Yeah, they do like a soft opening.

I'm pumped, that'd be awesome Anything else, other things that you're like, man, we really need that would be what I would have like off the top of my head Any restaurants.

You know, I feel like we have enough. I really do. I feel like me personally, I like a small like mom and pop burger than I do like a. We talking like Bobo's or we talking like. So my favorite burger joint in Topeka is Price Package.

Oh bro, yes. Not enough people bring up Price Package.

We haven't talked about that on our show. It's like the best burgers ever.

You will feel it and regret it the next day.

Yeah, 100%.

But, at the time it's the best thing ever.

You'll need to shower and change your clothes right after too. I mean, it drips through the bag into your shirt.

That's like my favorite yeah.

That's amazing, dude. I love that place. It's so incredible. I was shocked the first time I went there and it's like I don't know how you describe the inside of the place.

It's standing room only. It's like an eight foot by eight foot area with the counter and they also sell like toys and random stuff like on the wall, like it's almost like a Chuck E Cheese prize counter it's kind of what it looks like. But they sell burgers and they just dump it all in a bag, like burgers and fries dumped in the bag. Here you go and it's dripping when they give it to you.

Oh yeah, it's amazing, it's so good. You said. You said you went to college. Uh, did you go to college here? Yeah, uh, washburn, yeah, you know what'd you? What'd you study there? Um, music, business, music, wow okay, so you're a musician?

um, I like to think so. So, yeah, I mean, you have a degree in music. I don't have a degree oh, you started a degree in music business.

I feel like that's. You're a musician, what do you do? What do you? Do you play? Do you do? Do you play, do you?

sing, yeah, and so I play piano, saxophone and set. Obviously growing up, are you?

kidding me. I asked you if you're a musician and you said I like to think so. I don't know.

And you listed up like five instruments you play.

It was three.

And then I ran track at Washburn as well.

Oh cool. Did you grow up playing music at your dad's church? Yeah, nice, let's go. Cool man Heck. Yeah, pk. My dad started a church. I was the drummer from eighth grade on. Oh yeah, he said PK. Yeah, pastor's kid, come on, pastor's kid PK. You got to stick together. All of us it's like.

Either you're like a drug dealer Right, or like you're the up and coming pastor for the church Exactly. There's only two routes.

Exactly.

That's 100%.

Yeah, yeah, you're. Either you know you deconstruct and leave the faith, or you follow in your father's footsteps. Exactly, I followed in my father's footsteps, you know that's super cool.

Well, you want to hit them with some rapid fire sure man.

Um, we kind of would you say price package would be favorite restaurant or just best burger. Do you have a favorite restaurant generally?

best burger from price package. I don't know that I have like a favorite restaurant, but for each like category I have like my spot for it what are some of your?

what are your like? Your top three categories, then. And so, like we, top three categories would be tacos pizza burgers. Okay, give us your top in each of those.

All right, so for burgers, price package. Yeah, for tacos. There is a food truck over off of like what is it? 21st and California?

Yes, I was hoping you would say that one Right when you get off the highway the best when it comes to pizza.

My favorite pizza place in Topeka is Doughboy's Pizzeria Doughboy's. They have a pizza called the Slaughterhouse, which is when is? That I've never even heard of it. It's over like right outside of Noto.

Ah, okay.

You're doing a home project, you're fixing up something around the house. Do you go to Menards Home Depot or Lowe's?

I go to Menards because I used to be a forklift driver.

Oh.

Yeah.

That's one for the podcast. That's what I love to hear. One for how many episodes? This is 17, I think One. One Sweet action. Yeah, it's all right.

You can't win them all.

Date night.

Date night tonight where are you going? What are you doing? Price package no. Price back no. You can't answer for him.

One of the favorite things that me and my wife love to do are escape rooms, actually dude yeah, yes, we, we actually we've traveled the country doing escape room what, just to try different what, and so how many have you guys done? We've done over a hundred no way are they, like all, similar, and you get one, you get good at a couple, you're good at all of them, or they all like different.

No, they're all different. It got after we did like 50 of them, we started calling ourselves like escape room connoisseurs and so we would like.

I feel like after 10, you're officially like, like how many people have done 10?

Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah. And so like there'd be some that like all booked out and we'd like act like we're like social media influencers. We travel the United States and do like escape rooms and we've got some of them for free and we've got some that's so cool.

Do they ever look you up on social?

Like this dude is not.

There's nothing about escape rooms. This guy sells sneakers.

Yeah, yeah, but we've, we've, we've done a lot of them. What's the best?

one you've ever done, the best one, or like some? What are some of the best ones?

So two of the ones that like really stick out to me was one of our like first truly immersive ones. It was actually in Lawrence, it was called Civil War, and so there was.

That was the name of the room, or the business. That was the name of the room. Okay, yeah, yeah, or the business it was the name of the room.

Okay, yeah, yeah, the name of the business is Breakout, lawrence. I think, but yeah, we went in there and then, like at some point you had to like hold four things on the wall and then like the wall opened up and then you did something else and the floor opened up and now you're crawling through like a little tunnel into a different room. It was crazy. I was like you know what happens to just like the locks.

Right, yeah, and like open this door, find a key behind the picture frame.

You know that's funny. And then I guess the other one would be. We went to Branson and there was one there and they're like hey, we don't think this room is for you guys. Like this is. Usually we have at least five people in this room because it's so big.

Oh, like they thought it was too difficult.

Like this is one of our hardest rooms.

He said I took that personally.

Yeah, I was like no, now we're doing it, now we have to, and we go in there and the premise of the entire room is chess, and I just happen to love chess.

And so we get in there. What don't you do, bro? Of course you do.

And we beat the record for the room. What? And like got out in record-breaking time and I was like, ha ha ha, they posted us up on all their socials, dang. So yeah, dude, he's like the most interesting person in the world Musician.

Yeah, you're a musician, a connoisseur of escape rooms, dang man. Are there any escape rooms in Topeka?

Yeah, so you have Noto Escapes in Noto. The owner's name is Kelly. I've known her for a little bit of time. She actually would let us go in there and test out her escape rooms before she left Dang, that's cool. And so she has a lot of family-friendly good ones there, Nice. The other one that I know of in Topeka I'm pretty sure they're still open is Conundrum. It's right across the street from Sonic, off of 29th and Fairlawn.

Oh, okay, it's like in an office building. Yeah, oh, that's cool. How many do they have? Do they have multiple in Topeka?

So yeah, they have those two escape rooms in Topeka. Each one of them has maybe two to three rooms at a time. Have you done all of them. I've done most of them.

Are escape rooms, something like you do it once, you never do it again because you know how to beat it. No, he's obviously done a hundred.

No, no, no, no.

I mean like oh, you mean the same one over the same room like oh yeah, like you go back to the one you said, the one that was about chess. Like you know, it's great. It was probably fun and exhilarating the first time, but you go do it again. You know exactly what you're doing exactly you do it once, yeah yeah

yeah, yeah, dang man, have you have you heard about the? The like immersive, like scary ones where they like?

I want to try to get up in your face, or they're like they can touch you there's one in kansas city called the basement that I really want to go to really, but my wife is dead set on no yeah no, I'm not going I almost debated.

I almost debated not mentioning this story, but I'm going to. I was doing an escape room with my family one year and there was we. There was some key that was in the corner that we didn't know what it was for and I started like throwing it around, you know, because I didn't know what I was doing, just kind of throwing, it ended up going behind a wall and I lose it. And 15 minutes later we are stuck and like we, we like we cannot go anywhere. Like we're like we, you know, hitting the help button, like we, you know at the camera guy. He comes in and he tries to find this key goes. Where's that key? And I was like I accidentally threw it behind the wall. He goes yeah, you're going to need that. I was like all right.

Did he get it for you? Yeah, he went and got it.

He said you can figure it out from here. Well, rapid fire. What else do? How many potholes did you hit on the way over here? At least three. At least three.

At least Brutal. Yeah, dang man man, we asked you I think we hit all of them.

I think we did. Where can people find you at If they want to come visit the shop or if they want to get in touch with you? How can they best get a hold of you?

Yeah, and so you can look us up on Google. We're in Westridge Mall. Like I said, we're in the old Journey spot right now, but here in the next two weeks we're going to be moving to the other side, to the right Of the upstairs old Sears building. We're going to be right there, right across from the food court. You're on social media Instagram, instagram, facebook and then Snapchat is still our biggest audience.

Snapchat If you want to get in touch with Save Souls Snapchat. It is wow, eric.

Thanks for joining us brother, thank you so much awesome man looking forward.

This is incredible. Appreciate you, guys yeah.