The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 117 — Gotta cop 'em all with Aglet
It's Pokémon Go, but for sneakerheads instead
Good morning, folks! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear! Thank you so much for rocking with me this Friday! Appreciate you.
We’ve got another guest today but before we jump into our conversation let me drop a gentle reminder for everyone to vote in KYW’s Sneaker of the Year bracket. We’re only a few days away from the close of round 2 and there are a few tightly contested matchups here. So let’s get to it, folks!
Now, let’s get to the good part.
Step into the world of Aglet with Ryan Mullins
(via Aglet)
Say hello to Ryan Mullins! He’s the founder of the Aglet App. You may have heard of it — they just raised $4.5 million in funding last week.
It’s hard to classify exactly what the app is. It could be considered a fitness app. It could be considered a fashion app. It could be considered a video game rooted in augmented reality. Really, it’s all of the above.
Here’s the best way to describe it: It’s Pokémon go, but instead of catching Charmanders you’re catching Off-White Jordan 1’s. The concept is simple. Go out and take a walk. Your steps are converted into virtual currency called “Aglet.” That virtual currency is used in-game to buy virtual kicks — joints that you’ll probably pay thousands of dollars for in real life on the resale market.
It’s a fascinating concept! So I hopped on a call with Ryan to talk about it. Here’s our conversation!
This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for brevity.
Sykes: First of all, let me just say, I’m a fan. I found out about you from Keeping Stock. But, I’ve got to say, I am bummed y’all aren’t on Android because I have a Galaxy. My readers are going to roast me for revealing this, by the way.
Ryan: Haha, well, Android is coming soon. We’re trying to get that out. To be honest, it’s already built. We have a full Google stack...but we started with iOS. The challenge is just that with Android you’ve got 10 gazillion different screen sizes and OEM’s and stuff. It’s a good problem to have — we just got bigger, faster than we expected and just didn’t have the time to actually put that out. But it’ll come out Q1 next year.
Sykes: That’s excellent news for me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s introduce you to the people. Tell us a bit about the concept of Aglet and what you all are doing.
Ryan: It’s culture and community. And it comes from a couple different areas — there’s not one typical, like, Marvel origin story that startup founders give. It was a cluster of moments that I just kind of saw. I love gaming and I love where games have gone — how they’ve become social networks and, kind of, malls. It’s where you meet friends now and where you learn about storytelling.
And then seeing over here in the real world, the community and culture that I love in sneaker culture just felt really stale and boring. It’s all just pressing a button on a website or buying bots that do it for you. I’m like, is this really all there is? Where is that experience I remember from back in the day? As great as it is that hyped drops and artificial scarcity helped sneakers grow to this significance, it just seemed that it came at the expense of the soul of sneakers. And I don’t think the answer is to go back to something. It has to be “what do we do with this new stuff to make it fun again?”
Sykes: Preaching to the choir here.
Ryan: Then there was the other side of it, just looking at my time at Adidas, one of my passion projects was seeing how we find new design talent. Who is the next Virgil? Jerry Lorenzo? The next Tinker? When you really look at what kids are doing, they’ve completely redefined media creation. They’re creating entire worlds on, like, Minecraft.
I’m seeing all of these kids interested in the creative directors of these brands. When we were 15, we didn’t know who these people are. We weren’t as in tune as them. They want to be these people. And the great thing about these people is they didn’t go the standard track. I think what kids see in that is a symbol for “I can do it, too.” So how do you bring together all of these passions? We think it’s location based gaming.
It was like, the first time I played Pokemon Go, I said “ as silly as this might seem, I think this might be what commerce looks like in the future.” We can bring together fashion, gaming, community, content creation, all into an experience where reality and the virtual world merge into one. That’s a long-winded way of my thought process of what I wanted to exist. That’s how we got here.
Sykes: Y’all just launched in April. How have people received you so far?
Ryan: It’s been unbelievable. I think what blew me away the most was that we had this hypothesis that most people would think was absurd. Do you really think people are going to walk around their city just to earn fake currency and buy fake shoes? And then you release it and it’s 10 times more than what you projected. We only wanted 5,000 players the first couple of months and we had 50,000. Our players total have taken 8.5 billion total steps. Who would’ve thought the way to get people moving around was virtual sneakers?
Sykes: You guys really tap into this fascinating thing to me. Sneakers are about accessibility today — every weekend we take L’s because everything is so difficult to cop. Like, I’ll never be able to actually own an Off-White Jordan 1. But in Aglet I can have it. You offer a way for people to have these kicks, even if it’s just virtually.
Ryan: That’s that brokenness and lameness that I was talking about. I don’t even try anymore. I just literally don’t even try because I know I’m not going to get them. What’s amazing is the amount of value that consumers create by not getting sneakers. You take an L, screenshot it, share it, and you not getting the sneaker creates as much hype as not getting it.
Sykes: EXACTLY.
Ryan: Attention is the most valuable commodity in the world right now and we give these drops three or four hours of our time per month and we fail every time. That effort should be worth something. And so the idea was that how can you make it that the effort and time that you’re giving is productive, or you earn something for it.
So in Aglet, every time you move that energy — it’s kind of like the Matrix, really — every time you move that energy is captured by the game and given to you. And the dream was how do you make this an experience that a brand like Nike or Adidas or New Balance would say “Ah, there’s the way to make it fair. And productive and healthy. What if it’s like, If I want the J Balvin Jordan 1’s virtually in this game and the top 1,000 steppers get access?
Sykes: That was the first thing that came into my mind when I heard of this. That always felt like a logical step, or maybe even a potential goal, for you all. But what I’m curious about is how all of this has gone over during the pandemic?
Mullins: I’d credit this to being a contrarian a bit. It was definitely something we thought long and hard about because we didn’t want to put people in danger. We weren’t like “Sweet, a pandemic!” We were more like “What do we do with it?” It was that basic, improve “yes, and” strategy. There’s a pandemic. Yes, and what? We were like, kids aren’t in school for now. Parents are at home sitting on their asses. And our game isn’t really social in the sense that it’s encouraging you to go meet up with others. You got to a point where people were sitting on their butts all day and our game encouraged them to just get out a little bit for 30 minutes to an hour. Sweat a little bit. In this dark boring time, people saw it as new and fun.
Sykes: What are your next steps? How do you scale this, say, over the next six months?
Ryan: One of them is avatars because it allows us to scale the product line outside of sneakers. It’ll always be centered by sneakers, but we can grow that. We also want to make the map more alive, kind of more dynamic. You know, being able to place locations, create your own locations or stations. And then there’s being able to design your own product — why doesn’t Michael Sykes have the Aglet Sykes sneaker or whatever? And, maybe you can put that wherever you want. So, a dynamic map, more locations and then just tapping into that creative side.
Sykes: That’s really cool, man.
Ryan: Yeah, ultimately we just have to restore the soul of our culture. Right now, there is no soul of this for these younger kids. They don’t have anything to connect with people other than a letter — did I get a W or an L? We have to change that.
UCLA is back in business
(Photo by Johnathan Kaufman on Unsplash)
No Under Armour, no problem. UCLA quickly picked up the pieces after Under Armour dropped them earlier this year.
Quick background for the folks who don’t remember.
If you recall, UCLA and Under Armour agreed to a massive 15-year, $280 million apparel deal back in 2016.
Just four years later Under Armour activated a force majuere clause in their deal to nix that agreement. They claimed they were “paying for marketing benefits they didn’t receive.”
But UCLA rebounded quickly and they rebounded well. Earlier this week they announced a new deal with Jordan Brand and Nike via Twitter.
Here are some details:
The two sides agreed to a 6-year deal that will start in July of 2021. Officially licensed apparel will drop in the fall, per ESPN.
Jordan Brand is the feature here. They’ll outfit UCLA’s football team and both the women’s and men’s basketball teams.
Nike will outfit the rest of the 22 Varsity teams at the school.
It’s been a long time coming for Nike and UCLA. It’s been decades since the school last wore the swoosh. There had been interest back in 2010 when UCLA’s 11 year Adidas deal was set to expire, but they elected to extend. Now, we’re finally here. Full circle.
It’s not as long, and likely won’t be as lucrative, as the Under Armour’s deal. But going from UA to Jordan Brand and Nike doesn’t seem like a half-bad move.
Iight, this is funny
Apparently, over at Lemkus they were making people who bought the Varsity Maize dunks this week actually wear them joints outside the store to combat resellers.
And, fam, this turned out to be funny as hell.
I can’t decide if I’m for this or against this.
On one hand, I like keeping my kicks on ice sometimes! That’s just me.
On the other? Resellers generally suck. Especially when they buy 30 pairs of a thing. So I can’t be mad.
Either way, the zombie walk my man in that video is hitting has me over here cackling. I could watch this all damn day.
#TheKicksWeWear
Y’ALL KNOW THE VIBRATIONS! LET’S GET INTO IT.
The Better Mike came through with the Volt 720’s SMOKING these joints.
The homie Cortez popped out in this clean ass colorway of the 270 reacts. Sweats is crazy too!
The homie Greer popped out with the Taxi 12’s stunting, per usual.
My guy Peter jumped out in the Bayou Jordan 1’s and I had absolutely no idea these joints were this detailed.
The homie JB came through with the UNC AJIII’s. These joints are classic.
The homie Jarem jumped out repping the Wizards in the USA AJ1 lows.
My guy Parker popped out in the Derek Jeter 11 lows. Joints is CRAZY.
My man Tyler jumped out in the KD6 joints. Classics, y’all.
The homie Adrian popped out in the Cool Greys. Do I need to say anything else?
The homie Pat showed me why the 09 Air Max Total Uptempo joints are so CRAZY. Hope the 2020 joints are just as good.
The homie Cesar popped out in the PRod Dunks in Christmas flavors. INCREDIBLE.
The homie Yosh brought out some joints that I ain’t NEVA EVA seen before. These joints are CRAZY.
Then the homie Innanet James sent us packin with the CPFM VaporMax joints. SO clean, slim. Wow.
SMOKED IT. Again. Week after week, y’all. Damn!
That’s a wrap for Friday, family! Thank you so much for rocking with me today! I so appreciate you and your time and I hope you had a blast! Have a fantastic weekend.
Don’t forget! Vote for the sneaker of the year! Polls close on Sunday night at 8 p.m.!
Until then, fam! As always, peace and love. Be easy. Be well. Be kind.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯