• Val Zapata has sold millions in sneakers and streetwear via live shows on Whatnot.
• Her business, The Shoe Game Co., evolved from a hobby to a full-time venture during the pandemic.
• Zapata sources deals online, builds networks, and educates buyers to maximize sales.

In the last two years, Val Zapata has sold millions of dollars worth of sneakers and streetwear by hosting live shows on the marketplace Whatnot. Business Insider verified her sales by looking at her company’s Whatnot seller dashboard.

Her business, The Shoe Game Co., started as a hobby before evolving into a side hustle and, eventually, a full-time gig.

She’s been flipping shoes with her dad since she was a teen.

“We don’t come from a wealthy home. The reality was, my dad just did what he could,” said Zapata, who was born in Colombia and grew up in New York and Texas. “But when we wanted something, he would do anything to figure it out. He would be like, ‘OK, you want one of these sneakers? Let’s buy five of them, sell them, collect that $30 or $40 or $50 profit, and then we’ll buy you your pair.'”

As she grew older, she directed less time toward her sneaker hobby and more toward her career. She skipped college and started working as a life insurance broker.

Sneakers didn’t reappear on her radar until the Covid pandemic when work became stressful and her girlfriend encouraged her to reconnect with her childhood hobby as a way to decompress.

Turning a hobby into a side hustle by finding deals online

Zapata didn’t build a seven-figure business overnight. She started by browsing sites like Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp for deals.

She likens Facebook Marketplace to “an online garage sale,” and says that OfferUp is “like the magic cheat code.”

The typical seller on these types of platforms is a regular person looking to make some extra cash on an item that’s been sitting around the house for years, she explained. That means they’re willing to negotiate, and there’s an opportunity for collectors and resellers who truly know their niche to score deals.

In her industry, for example, “you would find these really, really high-end sneakers — like, $1,000 sneakers — on there for $150,” she said, noting that, with shoes, it’s important to verify something is what the seller says it is. Zapata learned this lesson the hard way by purchasing 50 pairs of fake Yeezys and swallowing about $2,500. It was early in her reselling career and “so much money at the time.”

She gradually built a network of trusted buyers and sellers in the industry. Whenever she met another reseller, she would ask for their Instagram handle.

“Then, I would watch his story and figure out who he was doing business with,” said Zapata. “So I built a little tiny network through all my local resellers, and that grew to me learning about trade shows.”

An early piece of advice she heard from another reseller stuck with her: “Connections over profits. Grow your connections so people will always sell to you.”

You never know who you’ll meet if you put yourself out there on social media and attend events and trade shows. Zapata says the best deals she scored came from a “random” event in Boston in early 2024. It was a relatively mellow scene, except for one seller with a megaphone. “He’s the only person who’s excited, and he’s like, ‘I’ve got shoes for sale. Everything’s got to go.'”

His shoes had price tags, but Zapata decided to try her hand at negotiating.

“I’m like, ‘Listen, I’m just going to shoot you some offers,'” recalled Zapata, who picked up a shoe with a $600 tag on it and offered $150. The seller countered with $160. She took the deal and moved on to a second sneaker, which she negotiated down to $80. “He either had no context, or he just didn’t care. I look at my team and I’m like, ‘Grab everything we could possibly take, put it against the wall, and then we will negotiate,’ because I could see that people were starting to realize what was happening.”

She walked away with about 450 pairs of shoes, she said, “and we nearly quadrupled our money on that deal, which never happens in sneakers.”

It was a once-in-a-blue-moon deal that wouldn’t have been possible if Zapata didn’t know her niche as well as she does.

The market changes constantly. She stays up-to-date on what’s popular by attending events, paying attention to what people are wearing, and observing what her favorite sellers are buying and avoiding.

“We try to find a medium where we find what’s popular right now — for example, Yeezy GAP is popular right now, AntiSocialSocialClub and Supreme will always be popular in the streetwear — and then we try to find more everyday brands that people also love, like your Nikes and Adidas. The things that are always tried and true,” said Zapata, whose company has expanded into streetwear.

For a while, however, she says she stuck to what she knew best, which were retro Jordan sneakers: “We didn’t veer off. I didn’t sell the Nike SB until maybe six months ago because I didn’t understand what a Nike SB really was. So we stayed within our frame of what we knew and what our customer liked.”

Sourcing the product is half the battle. She then has to sell, which she predominantly does through live shows on Whatnot. She’s found that the more she can educate her buyers, the more successful she is.

“Holly might come on and say, ‘I love that pink sneaker,’ and bid. But if I tell Holly, not only is this a really cool pink sneaker, but this is a 2020 collectible from Kobe Bryant, Holly might be willing to pay a little bit more,” explained Zapata, who starts every product at a dollar during a live show. The highest bidder takes it home. “But if I don’t know and don’t share, then they’re just consumers bidding and trying to get a good deal. So I learned very early on that I have to bring knowledge to them.”