Entrepreneur and Stadium Goods founder John McPheters was that “classic New York kid” he says, always with “more than one hustle” growing up. After college, where he studied advertising, McPheters didn’t have a gig so he did what most people do (not): he went to Japan. Because everybody knows that’s how you get a job at a famous hip hop label, right? What McPheters evidently learned in his college major is the most important thing: how to advertise himself. He walked up into the Japanese Def Jam offices, he says, “like I was supposed to be there” and made his pitch. Six weeks later, he had a Def Jam Japan gig.
McPheters made his bones at Flight Club in NYC, “driving and hammering” the business. Then he branched out, selling an app to Groupon and creating Stadium Goods, the surging sneaker consignment business. Basically here’s the plan, there’s a lot of stuff in the world, especially sneakers, and people sometimes want to sell what they have and buy new stuff. It’s a market, it’s a currency. These Jordans for those Yeezy Boosts? Done deal. Stadium Goods is like a killer specialized eBay, with more than 100,000 pairs of sneakers in stock. The interview McPheters gave Noah Callahan-Bever of Complex (below) is pretty inspirational.
