The event draws a crowd each week, but even on a Wednesday morning, the shop frequently sees a small line form outside before their 11 a.m. We just want to sell things at really good prices.”Įvery weekend, Kicks Boomin offers a selection of “Saturday steals” where they sell products worth hundreds of dollars for less.
You never know what people want, what’s a fad, and what’s going to stick around for a while.
“With our streetwear we want to have something for everybody and not limit it,” says Vu.
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“But since then everyone has seen that we know how to run our small business.””Ī post shared by Kicks Boomin the majority of their products draw on nostalgia for the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sam and Vu don’t limit their selection to any one era or style. “I had a kid and a house, so it was a big risk to open a store with a stranger in the hopes that it would be prosperous,” he says. When his employer got looted and torched during the uprisings after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020, Vu wasn’t sure what to do with his life. During his time as a student at Virginia Commonwealth University, he started thrifting hard to make ends meet and eventually landed a job at the legendary Round Two apparel shop on Broad Street, which helped kickstart the local buy, sell, trade retail movement. “But I called Sam one night, we decided to partner up, and it’s been great since.”Īt 29, Vu is also a fresh face. “It’s very weird for two strangers to meet up and immediately start a business together,” admits Vu. After talking for a few hours, they decided to team up and open a shop together. That summer he met Thomas Vu via Instagram, and the next day the two met up at Sam’s storage unit. To take it to the max, I knew I needed a storefront.” “I was graduating high school at that time and I knew I loved the shoe game. “In 2020, after businesses on Broad Street got looted, that’s where I saw an opportunity to bring a store to Richmond,” Sam remembers. When his sales volume began to strain even the storage unit’s capacity, he knew a physical location would be his next move. Eventually, the amount of merchandise he was moving required a storage unit. I worked through it all, so I'm glad to be where I'm at today.”įor four years, Sam grew his business out of his childhood bedroom. I didn’t want to see her struggling to support me and my brother. “Growing up, I always had a business drive in me,” he says. Sam credits his rapid success to his mother’s struggles as a single parent. Kicks Boomin began in 2016 as a small Instagram handle that gradually evolved into a limited liability company a year later.
During high school, his passion for pumped up kicks transformed into a business.īy thrifting shoes, refurbishing them, and making $20 to $40 dollars per pair, Sam slowly built up a nest egg of earnings to move up in the sneaker scene and start buying and selling brand new shoes as well. His love for sneakers first took root in middle school when conversations about the latest basketball shoe release helped him to fit in. In the two years since, their sneaker and swag shop has become an icon of the bustling Richmond streetwear scene.Īs a descendant of Cambodian refugees that escaped the Khmer Rouge’s genocide and fled to America in the 1980s, Sam may have inherited his elders’ hardscrabble knack for not only surviving, but thriving through hard times. In December 2020, when Alex Sam opened Kicks Boomin on Broad Street with his business partner, Thomas Vu, he achieved just such a feat.
Most don’t move their business into a storefront at the age of 17, however. It’s common for entrepreneurs to spend years hustling before they can afford their first ever brick-and-mortar.
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