How a 'Sneakerhead' Went from Garage Startup to Thriving Entrepreneur The founder of a custom shoelace and sneaker restoration business explains how Amazon has helped him create new opportunities and achieve success.

As any successful small-business owner can attest, where you sell your wares is just as important as the quality of the goods you sell. Business owners want more than just a place to showcase their goods; they want the tools and services that can help them reach more customers and increase their sales.

Selling in Amazon's store can take a small business to the next level. More than 60% of sales in Amazon's store come from independent sellers, most of which are small- and medium-sized businesses. These entrepreneurs continue to partner with Amazon because of the value that Amazon offers: its deep commitment to customer trust, fastest and most reliable fulfillment and delivery services, and breadth of programs and tools that help sellers succeed.

Take it from Richard Brown, founder and CEO of Proof Culture. A self-described "sneakerhead," Brown started Proof Culture in 2016 as a sneaker restoration and custom alteration business run out of his garage in Cleveland. As demand for his services grew, Brown found the laces were hard to clean despite his ability to expertly refurbish the sneakers themselves. And finding replacement laces online wasn't easy.

Brown set out to solve the problem himself and began creating and selling his own line of laces in Amazon's store in 2018, noting that his Amazon storefront had a major impact in winning over new customers. In 2023, independent sellers in the U.S. grew sales to more than 4.5 billion items and averaged $250,000 in annual sales. That's huge.

Ahead of Amazon Accelerate, the company's premier annual seller conference that brings thousands of sellers together to network and learn about the latest Amazon innovations, Brown shared a few ways that Amazon creates value and helps businesses like Proof Culture achieve success.

Working smarter and selling more thanks to a breadth of tools and services

Proof Culture isn't just Brown running things from his garage anymore. Today, the business has grown to employ seven people who handle everything from operations to marketing and more. Along the way, Brown has leveraged Amazon's comprehensive assortment of tools, apps, free educational content, and services to help support his entrepreneurial journey.

Brown relies heavily on the rich reporting and analytics Amazon provides. "If you take the time to go through Amazon reporting, you can really put your business out ahead of your competition and just grow your business in general," he says. "For instance, I can see customer insights that give me new product launch ideas. That's what led us to launch our shoe cleaner."

Like many sellers, Brown sells his products in multiple channels, including Amazon's store and his own website. Using Amazon's Veeqo, a multi-channel shipping software, he's able to manage shipping, inventory, and fulfillment across his selling channels all on one simple dashboard.

"Veeqo is the foundation of how I stay sane on a day-to-day basis," Brown says with a laugh. "I have all that data in front of me, so I can see which products are trending, a visual representation of my inventory, and where my inventory is located. If I need to place an order with my suppliers, I can execute that in Veeqo, too."

Participating in programs that are built for business growth

In the early days when Brown directly shipped his laces to customers, he spent a lot of time packaging, shipping, and managing inventory. He quickly realized that no matter how organized he was, it was difficult to keep up.

He began utilizing Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and sending Proof Culture products to Amazon's fulfillment centers to let Amazon handle the receiving, packing, shipping, customer service, and returns.

Brown says that leveraging FBA has been vital in his ability to scale. FBA allows Proof Culture to sell and ship more products faster and more reliably than other options, resulting in more exposure and revenue. FBA on average is 70% less expensive than comparable two-day shipping alternatives, making it one of the best ways independent sellers can save time and money. Brown agrees it saves him time, enabling him to focus on other important tasks. "I'm sending product to Amazon and letting them do what they do better than anybody else in the world, which is logistics."

To build excitement and momentum around new products and generate early sales, Brown takes advantage of Amazon Ads, a tool that allows him to quickly and easily create promotional ads. "The hardest part with launching a product is getting that initial movement, that initial thrust off the ground. So, the bulk of my advertising spend is in that launch stage," Brown says.

Finding customers and establishing trust

In building his brand trust and appreciation, Brown credits associating with a company like Amazon on which customers rely to deliver a vast selection of products around the world—on time, in the condition expected, and at competitive prices.

"Being able to tell our customers that we're selling on Amazon establishes our credibility—by leaps and bounds," Brown says.

A big part of that, he says, is because Amazon is a trusted place to do business. In 2023, Amazon invested more than $1.2 billion and employed more than 15,000 people—including machine-learning scientists, software developers, and investigators—to help protect customers, brands, and selling partners from counterfeit, fraud, and other forms of online abuse. It's no wonder that Amazon recently was named the number-one most-trusted brand by American consumers¹. "As a customer, you know if a transaction [on Amazon] doesn't go well, you're covered," Brown says. "So, you can trust that this is a safe environment to shop."

Tapping into a network of knowledgeable, like-minded sellers

Amazon also provides a community for sellers to come together, network in person, and learn from each other. For Brown, that started with Amazon's Black Business Accelerator (BBA), to which he applied right from the start of his journey with Amazon. He says BBA helped him to quickly become an expert in the seller space and network with sellers on a scale that he says changed his life as an entrepreneur.

"Being able to learn from them, being able to learn from other people's mistakes, being able to share things that have been mistakes for me and save other people from headache and heartburn — that, alone, made BBA worthwhile," Brown says.

And Brown says that Accelerate is a must-attend in-person opportunity; he has attended Accelerate for the past two years for the opportunity to gather and exchange ideas with other sellers and learn about the new features and tools Amazon is launching to further help sellers thrive.

"It's about networking with other sellers and being able to speak with Amazon partners; it's about attending sessions, learning things, and carving out time to sit down with an Amazon expert and dive into a challenge that I've been stuck on for a while," he says, adding that there's an energy at Accelerate that helps inspire Brown in the year to come.

Click here to learn more about Amazon Accelerate, taking place in Seattle, September 17-19.

^{1 America's Most Trusted Business is Amazon (Clarify Capital)}