Camping is sort of a right of passage for sneaker collectors. These footwear fanatics, commonly known as sneakerheads, are known for camping out in front of stores to make sure they get the latest and the greatest in collectable shoes.
Sneakerheads are known to spends hours, even days, camping out in line in front of shoe stores to get the newest Jordans or
Yeezyes. A new startup, Campless, wants to minimize the time sneakerheads camp out on sidewalks, and it's moving to Detroit.
"Our motto is 'know more, camp less,'" says Josh Luber, CEO of
Campless. "The more information you have the less time you can spend camping outside of a store."
The 3-year-old startup's software platform serves as a Kelly Blue Book for the secondary sneaker market. It collects, analyzes and distributes data about the industry. It launched in Philadelphia while Luber worked for IBM and built up a following of consumers, businesses, and financial experts. Its current customer base includes the likes of Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
And Luber built that up while working full-time for IBM. He attracted attention from a variety of major corporate partners who wanted to help him scale the Campless business model. He choose to take an investment from
Detroit Venture Partners, the venture capital arm of the Quicken Loans family of companies, this summer.
The investment prompted Luber to move Campless to the former Compuware Building in downtown Detroit. Today all of Campless’s eight employees have made the move and Luber has left his job at IBM to lead the company full-time.
"At some point it was obvious that we have something here and I needed to do this full-time," Luber says. "It all just really worked out well. It just made a lot of sense."
Source: Josh Luber, CEO of Campless
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.