SneakerUp. for just a dollar.
In February 2019, I founded SneakerUp, an e-commerce forum promoting a creative and accessible sneaker culture in India. Lotteries, quizzes, surveys, giveaways and competitions: the objective was to use targeted social media marketing to create a secondary marketplace, for premium, limited-release sneakers. I filmed commercials, created original campaign content, received seed-funding of $50,000 to expand inventory, improve our advertising, and to effectively create fresh demand for a relatively new product-set in India.
After conceptualising the idea, my brother and I got in touch with venture capitalist Varun Jain, Director on the board of NV Group, India. Being a “sneakerhead” himself, he loved our idea and decided to invest in our company. After receiving a strong seed funding from him, we kickstarted our company. We hired a professional developer to create our website, www.sneakerup.com, stocked up on our inventory of three pairs of “Off White Air Jordan 1’s”, which are some of the most exclusive sneakers, or ‘kicks’, available today, and got to creating a buzz around the entire startup. We had our first launch in August, after which we signed an official agreement with a transaction gateway, and now, our first ever “lotto” is up and ready, and anyone can sign up for them on our website.
After launching the website and making the first lotto available to sign up for, we realised we had to lower our customer acquisition cost: and so we come up with the idea of “refer a friend”. Through this simple yet effective marketing strategy, we managed to reduce our acquisition cost to just a dollar per every two customers. Here’s how it works:
A customer who has signed up for a lotto sends a link for the lotto to his friend.
Once his friend receives the link and signs up for the lotto, both him and his friend get an extra, entirely free ticket. Enjoy your free shoes!