Reselling Yeezys earns sophomore Ismail Hacking up to a profit of $1200 per pair. Yeezys are sneakers made by Adidas, in collaboration with Kanye West, and when new pairs are released on the Adidas website, they sell out within hours.

“I started buying Yeezys a year and a half ago. Some of my friends liked them, and then I saw you can make money off of them,” Hacking said.

Since his initial interest in the shoes, Hacking has become invested in technology, which he uses to minimize his work while maximizing profit.

“I have a bot that lets me buy the shoes. I paid $300 for the bot, and it basically runs my computer and checks out for me. I don’t really have to do anything,” Hacking said.

Bots are programs that perform automated tasks in a fraction of the regular manual time. They have become popular in the rush to profit off the explosive popularity of brands like Yeezys, Supreme and Nike.

“I often buy a lot, but it depends. One limited pair that came out in November, a yellow pair, I got only two pairs, but I made $800 on both. The week after that, Adidas came out with another pair, and I got 15 total pairs and sold them for $150 more than I bought them for,” Hacking said.

Hacking hopes to use his self-taught entrepreneurial skills in the future to fund his income.  

“I either want to work for Apple or Google, start my own company and then sell it or have an IPO [Initial Public Offering] and retire at like 35,” Hacking said.

Hacking expends almost every social media platform in selling the shoes.

“Some I sell locally, like on Facebook or Instagram. I’m in probably 15 Facebook groups just for shoes in St. Louis, and I sell a lot of them on different apps,” Hacking said.

Hacking has already begun investing in other potential marketable internet trends, including the bitcoin, whose value has dramatically risen in recent months.

“I have a full bitcoin, it’s a cryptocurrency connected to my wallet,” Hacking said. “I invested in it because of the high possibility of increasing my money, like any other investment.”

Hacking is willing to pay steep prices exclusively for the Yeezy brand.

“I would not pay 1K for a phone but I would totally pay that much for a shoe,” Hacking said. “It’s because they’re limited and they’re cool. That’s the only reason. The clout.”

Hacking’s net profit to date could be comparable to having a full time job, but accumulating this amount does not come without it’s losses.

“Sometimes I spend way too much time looking at shoes when I should be with my family. A few days before Christmas my family was going out to dinner with my grandparents, but shoes were coming out at like 7 p.m., and I just pretended that I was sick. I did get the shoes though. I made $200 on each pair I bought,” Hacking said.