Senior Javier Valladares has started his own successful clothing company called Foot Journals. Valladares started his company mainly on Instagram, but then designed clothes to sell on his website www.footjournals.com. Even at his young age, Valladares has already had two successful companies in the past four years: DSMG and Crash Company.
Valladares’ first company was Dope Sound Music Group which originated when he was in 7th grade. Valladares and a friend embarked upon a musical journey that came to a shreking stop in the middle of Valladares freshman year.
“My first company was a music group created when I was in the 7th grade. Both me and a good friend named Joseph wanted to construct a group where artists produced and created music for everyone to hear,” Valladares said. “The group was very popular in middle school and basically ended in the middle of freshmen year. Everyone kind of went their own way.”
Valladares then created his second company named Crash Course, a clothing company he started during his sophomore year at Santaluces.
“The creation of Crash Company was inspired by a show named How To Make it in America,” Valladares said. “I made shirts with one main logo in the front and people really loved it. I sold about 70+ shirts for $20 each. But I decided to end it my sophomore year.”
Now the business genius is swimming in profits with Foot Journals.
Initially he started the Instagram page as a high quality soccer photography page where photographers throughout the world sent him their images to be uploaded onto his page.
“I started mainly because I saw it as a opportunity to show off the beautiful game through a photographer’s perspective,” said Valladares.
Valladares started the company last summer. This was around the time when he began to study other soccer accounts and their content to see where he could be different from them.
“Instagram is a community filled with various types of pages and I took notice that sports accounts were very popular. I spent a lot of time looking around Instagram seeing the quality, images, and videos published and I looked to see what I could do different, Valladares said. “I started using photoshop to edit high quality photos that attracted 13,000 followers in just five months.”
Valladares currently only sells one-off pieces of clothing inspired by the icons, moments, fans, stadiums and just about everything that makes the beautiful game.
“It’s all still very young so I can’t really say it’s been absolutely successful, but I did sell out completely on my first line of t-shirts all on online,” Valladares said.
Valladares’ signature piece is the “I feel like Pogba” design, a reference to the famous French soccer player.
“I sold out the first ‘I feel like Pogba’ shirts in minutes after posting them on my website,” Valladares said. “The customers went crazy for them and ever since then, business has been booming.
Senior Rich Zephirin who plays on the Chiefs soccer team loves Valladares’ company. Zephirin noticed the brand when many students around the school had his shirt on and he has loved the idea ever sense.
“I really love the product he makes,” Zephirin said. “As a soccer fan his company is really exciting because it’s all about soccer.”
It is astonishing that Valladares has successfully operated three business before graduating from high school. Valladares wonders where his creative mind will take him in the future. He plans to major in business or marketing and will start at Palm Beach State College in the fall.
“Foot Journals is taking me to new heights that my previous companies did not,” Valladares said. “I can’t wait to see where it takes me.”
