What’s Supreme? It’s an American skateboarding shop and clothing brand established in New York City in 1994. Every Thursday, the company has a “drop”. Depending on the season, a drop usually contains a couple of tops, bottoms (clothing), and some accessories.
Why should you care? Well, Supreme’s weekly drops are extremely limited in quantity, thus creating a big secondary market. This allows many people to make money from Supreme. They buy the most hyped item that will is the hardest to get a hold of, and then flip it for a profit on the secondary market.
What’s wrong with that? Some may consider selling on Supreme to be bad for our culture, but I disagree. Supreme is a culture in and of itself. Being involved in Supreme, I’ve learned many valuable lessons. Most of the things that I've learned from selling Supreme are essential skills for the future.
One business skill I’ve learned through selling Supreme is how to use my money wisely. Not every item sold by Supreme resells. Therefore, each week I have to analyze the popularity of each item and determine which ones will sell. Throughout this process, I’ve learned how to use my money wisely and only spend on items with predicted value.
This has happened to me personally many times. For example, just a couple of months ago, I was debating on whether to get a $148 hoodie; however, after doing some research, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't a good buy. This is the process one must go through every week in order to spend his/her money wisely.
A second business skill I’ve learned is how to make deals with people. After buying Supreme, I have to find buyers and convince them to buy my items. This has taught me how to talk to people interested in a product and how to negotiate with them.
This skill of negotiating may seem easy but it’s definitely not. The only way to become the best at making deals is through practice. This is the reason I think it's so important to learn at a young age. The more experience you get, the better you'll be.
Recently I went to the city with my friend in order to sell a Supreme hoodie that I had with me. I happened to spot a pedestrian searching through the Supreme hoodies at a resale shop nearby, and I knew he would be my target.
I instantly went over to him and struck up a normal conversation. We then slowly started talking about Supreme, and I brought up how I had a Supreme hoodie I was looking to sell. He seemed very interested, so I continued to talk him about the product, eventually convincing him that he needed it.
We took a minute or so to negotiate the price, and then we made the deal. If I had never learned the art of negotiation, I wouldn’t have been able to sell my hoodie. These are the types of skills I learn constantly by selling Supreme.
Another category of skill sets that I've learned is coding. Many people code their own bots so they can buy Supreme at the fastest speed possible. These bots are computer software programs where you input what you want and the bot gets it for you in seconds.
Through learning how to code a bot, you learn a lot of coding skills which are very important, in my opinion. Coding is the future and not many people know how to do it. This is another way that Supreme’s popularity is helping teenagers prepare for life in the workplace.
My good friend Gabe Cohen actually coded a bot himself. The bot is called “loop aio.” You can find them on twitter where every so often they release copies. His bot facilitates the use of Supreme, as well as many other websites.
One reason why I got into Supreme is because I'm a big skateboarder myself. As I mentioned above, Supreme happens to be a skateboarding brand. They sell clothing, accessories, and (most importantly) skateboarding gear, which can include boards wheels and tools.
Another reason I got into Supreme is because I always had a love for limited edition items. My whole life I've tried to get items that other people couldn't get, like baseball cards, collectibles, and now Supreme.
Selling Supreme has helped me a lot in my teenage years. Since I make my own money, I’m able to buy things that my parents necessarily won’t. Whether its expensive clothing or shoes, most of it comes out of my own pocket.
An example of something I've bought with money I made from Supreme is a new phone. I really wanted a new phone last year; however, my parents didn't want to pay for it. They weren't willing to spend $700 on a new phone for me, so I bought one with my own hard earned money.
Some may say that selling Supreme is a waste of time, but I disagree 100%. People can say that kids have no need to make money, that kids should wait until they’re older to worry about that kind of thing. Those people are wrong. I think by selling Supreme at a young age, you can learn valuable business skill (as well as computer skills) that can be put to good use when you get older.
I've had many people tell me that I’m addicted to Supreme, but, again, I disagree. “Addicted” has a bad connotation. Rather, I’d say that I have a great thirst to make money and I'm willing to get started at a young age. As I said before, I think it’s very important that teenagers understand the concept of working for money as well as the concept of money itself. Selling Supreme teaches that. So who could object?