It all begins with an idea…

The year was 2011. I had finally made it: freshman year of high school. I followed my brother, Guch, to 'Iolani, one of, if not the top high school in all of Hawaii. The dress code was simple but strict: collared shirt, non-athletic shorts, clean haircuts. I wore a hand-me-down Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirt, Dickies khaki shorts, and topped off the fit with Locals slippahs, purchased, of course, at Longs Drugs. I thought I was slick. I was used to being shirtless, barefoot, in boardshorts, so being in a collared shirt was already a big change for me. Everyone wore slippahs if you weren't barefoot, or shoes if you were really trying to impress. It was the norm back home. I didn't think much of it.

Fifteen minutes into homeroom, I was sent to the principal's office for a write-up over my attire. I was puzzled. I thought I looked good. My principal was a good dude though, and he let me off with a warning. But I remember his words like it was yesterday: "Kenji, you're not at the beach. You have to wear closed-toe shoes here in school!"

That was the moment my sneaker journey began.

The New Kid

I was the new kid who didn't quite get it. My classmates looked at me like, who's this guy wearing slippahs? But as the day went on, I started making friends and laughed it off. Still, I needed real shoes, so I started paying attention to what everyone else was wearing. Vans, Asics, Nike Roshe Runs, were mostly what was walking up and down the hallways. But I wanted something more. Something cool.

Then I saw the freshest pair of red and black Nikes I'd ever seen, the signature swoosh cutting across the sidewall. This guy walked with a swagger in them. The shoes gave him confidence in every step. I asked him what they were.

"My guy, these are Jordan 1s!"

And that's when the addiction took off.

When I got home, the first thing I did was search "Jordan 1s" on Yahoo. Back then we didn't have iPhones, iPads, or laptops with everything at our fingertips, just the family's shared desktop, a dozen tabs open, trying to track these things down. I found them eventually. "Banned 1s." They sparked something in me immediately. These are swag. I need a pair. The problem was finding them at all.

Turns out, it wasn't as easy as walking into Sports Authority and grabbing a pair off the rack. They were sold out everywhere, and on top of that, they were going for around $500. No shot, I thought. But curiosity won out, and the next day at school I asked the guy directly: "Bro, where'd you get those?"

"Truest," he said.

Truest

If you've ever been to Oahu and you're into limited-edition shoes, clothing, or collectibles, you already know Truest. Shoutout to John and HSS. I walked in broke as beans and stared at the price tags like they'd personally offended me. They just looked like normal shoes. What gives? So I asked John how he got all of it.

He gave me some OG advice: "People like what’s different. Put in the time, wake up early and grind, and you might just have a chance at getting something. Be sure to make connections."

Back then you had to sign up for raffles or be first in line for a shot at retail. Everyone loved Foamposites, but Air Jordans were, and still are, iconic. People put in real time and energy because they understood the value, and that's exactly why guys like John could resell at a profit.

A lightbulb went off.

For a few years I tried my luck with terrible results. Signing up for every raffle, waking up early to catch the 57 bus to Ala Moana just to stand outside Footlocker. Eventually I got tired of coming up short, so I saved a few surf paychecks to buy something exclusive at resale price instead. Something that would give me my own identity, or maybe reinvent it. The pairs I actually wanted still needed a few more paychecks... So I kept saving and waiting.

The First Flip

The next big release was the Air Jordan 4 White Cement. I was hesitant, but figured why not give it one more shot. Signed up for every raffle, hopped in line at Footlocker on release day. The sneaker gods blessed me. I snagged a pair, size 8, not even my size, but with that many people in line, I knew exactly what I was holding.

I took them to Truest. My first ever sneaker sale, to John himself. I thought I'd walk away with easy money. I made about fifty bucks over what I'd paid. I didn't know anyone else to sell to. StockX and GOAT didn't exist yet, and Craigslist was sketchy at best. There were a dozen other guys like me lined up trying to sell John pairs they'd just copped. He had a business to run too, so he offered just enough above retail to make it worth it. I took the deal and walked away with a small profit, and a much bigger idea.

The more I dug in, the more I realized how far people would go. Guys were paying "bodies" to wait in line for them. Signing up for raffles under multiple names. Doing whatever it took to win. It was a lot of time and effort for not much margin, and I remember thinking: there has to be a better way.

The Bot

Then I stumbled on a Vine video. "Nike bot," they called it. Looked like random code to me. I didn't understand any of it. But I saw kids my age checking out multiple pairs and winning raffle after raffle with it. That stuck with me. If they're doing it, I can too.

Then high school went on, like high school does. I met a girl, and naturally my priorities shifted. Girlfriends aren't cheap, and I didn't have the budget for both shoes and a relationship, so I picked the latter. Old Skool Vans and Sanuks got me through for a while. Reselling drifted to the back burner, more dream than plan.

Then technology caught up. iPhones, iPads, the internet at everyone's fingertips. Release info that used to travel by word of mouth was suddenly everywhere. I kept following it, more out of passion than ambition, chasing the idea of owning every colorway in a collection. Before I knew it, years had passed and I was graduating, heading off to Creighton University, a place I'd never even seen. As a surfer leaving the islands, that was its own kind of sick-to-your-stomach moment. But I pushed through, thinking about what was next.

knektions

Then in 2015, Yeezys flooded the scene. Turtledoves, PB's, 750s, the whole run of 350s. I had to have a pair. That's when the Vine video came back to me, and a small fire lit up again. I remembered exactly how those early raffle losses felt, and I knew there was a better way.

I started researching sneaker bots for real this time. There wasn't anything reliable yet, just sketchy guys selling checkout links or paying people to hand over raffle wins. I struck out on the Yeezys. But I decided I was going to actually figure this out instead of wishing for it.

As the bot landscape matured, Twitter became my best friend for finding what was actually working, and that's how I found cook groups. Those groups changed everything: release info, like-minded people, real strategy. Eventually I bought my first bot, ProjectDestroyer. It wasn't easy, but I learned fast, and it paid off. I was botting Supreme primarily, occasionally Footlocker and Champs, picking up pieces here and there and moving them on the platforms that were just starting to take off: StockX, GOAT, Grailed, eBay.

Then it hit me. Why not build my own thing, the way John built Truest? I took the idea of connections, tweaked it with my own initials, and knektions was born. I was the connect, the plug, if you want to call it that, linking people to the things they couldn't find on their own. It was my own identity, and I stuck with it, building the name out across every reselling app and social platform I could touch. Felt like a real entrepreneur, even back in business school.

Ten Boxes a Day

Summer came, like it always does, and I went home to surf. I asked one of my roommates to grab my deliveries off the porch and stack them in my room while I was gone. They started piling up, probably ten boxes a day showing up for him to haul inside. Eventually he asked me what the hell I was actually doing. So I told him.

His eyes went wide. He wanted in.

Maybe it wasn't even about the money for him at first. Maybe it was just the "in" to things most people couldn't get their hands on. Didn't matter to me either way. I was glad for the support and the help splitting the overhead. So he started working with me, and we went after limited releases together.

Where We Are Now

Fast forward to today. My business partner, Wunsch, and I are still at it. We've built a business reselling everything from sneakers and apparel to accessories, lifestyle items, and collectibles, and we're proud of what we've put together. Countless hours, dollars, and more than a few emotional moments figuring out our angle, and we're still evolving even now. We don't bot anymore. But we're always looking for the next thing worth chasing.

That's the part I actually love about all of this: the trial and the tribulations. Along the way we've made real friends, built real resources, and found a community that helps us curate exactly what we're looking for instead of doing it alone.

Why Asset Arbitrage, Why Now

That whole arc, the write-up, the bus rides to Footlocker, the bots, the ten boxes a day, is the reason Asset Arbitrage exists as a podcast. Every market we talk about on the show (sneakers, trading cards, tickets, watches, collectibles) runs on the exact same mechanic I stumbled into at fifteen without knowing what to call it: information asymmetry. Knowing something, or getting somewhere, before everyone else does.

knektions started as a name I gave myself to sound legitimate. Now it's the hub for everything that grew out of that first pair of Jordan 4s: the podcast, the archive of notable pieces that have passed through our hands, the storefronts, and the community of people who think about markets the same way we do.

So stop searching and start finding.

Figure out what actually drives you, and go after it. It always starts with one idea, and maybe, just maybe, that idea turns into something a lot bigger down the road.