Meet Timothy Richards of BVSEXNEVERAVG in Stone Mountain

Today we’d like to introduce you to Timothy Richards.

Timothy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started customizing sneakers in the 7th grade. I always had a love for sneakers and I wanted to stand out from everyone else. Growing up in Hempstead New York we didn’t always have the best clothing and sneakers but my parents taught my brothers and me how to take care of what we had. I didn’t get serious about doing custom work until my senior year in high school after football season was coming to a close and I didn’t get the college offers I’d expected to get. I always had the name KOTD but down the line, the name changed to NEVER AVERAGE, and then to present day BVSEXNEVERAVG with my business partner Demetrius Willams. When I got back into customizing I was doing it for my self-interest until my classmates seen my work and wanted me to do theirs. From that moment on I figured I had a little side hustle going. Back then my work wasn’t as good as it is now, so I was only charging $5-$25 not thinking about my worth or labor.

Coming to an end of my senior year, I was still stressing over what school I was going to attend and I felt like a lot of pressure was on me that I almost joined the Navy. I felt like this because I thought my life had to be in perfect alignment right after high school if college wasn’t my decision. The only thing that really kept me sane was being able to go into my garage and paint shoes. My shoe orders started to pick up a little more around summer time so I had to raise my price to $25-$35 just so I can get more supplies. When shoes weren’t going my way, I decided to add clothing to my trade. Since Demetrius also started his clothing line he was the one that thought me everything I needed to on how to properly use the machines and etc.

Going into August, I was enrolled at Georgia State University and after 1 week, I dropped out. During that short time, I felt so uncomfortable and out of place. I always felt that college was unnecessary especially for a business major and that it only led to a 9-5. Why do that when I have my own business. You see owners of companies with no college background who require workers to degrees, so that was my cue to leave. My parents were very supportive of my decision and I told them I will focus 100% on my business and work and enroll in a fashion school in Atlanta later on.

Since that difficult decision; me and my business partner been working day and night on ideas on how to better develop our separate businesses. Until we had a table at Sneakercon Atlanta, we ended up merging our business together creating BVSEXNEVERAVG because of the productive day of sales we had.

I and Demetrius spent countless nights staying up til 2 am and then having to go to work at 4 am and then going to school just so we can reach our dreams one day. Sales don’t always go the way we want to but we do it because we enjoy creating Art.

Coming into the new year my Dad told me that we need to establish ourselves as a legal business, and then on January 24, 2019, we got our LLC, and later that week we set up our first business bank account.

from the month January till now we had a dramatic rise from 200 followers to 1300 and counting. We also had a rise in sales and mainly been focusing on bettering our material. People normally think we only doing this because we only make money, the truth is we’re doing this spread a message that the “struggle doesn’t last forever’ and “Never be average.” Stop listening to what society sets as standards and be real and be you.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
With most businesses, there will always gonna be some trials and tribulations;
we had people who ask for free stuff instead of supporting;
gone weeks without making a sale;
problems with consistency;
creative differences with the partnership;
trying to figure out how to better market the brand;
but in the end, all of this taught us how to overcome the situation and made us not only better businessmen but people.

Please tell us about BVSEXNEVERAVG.
We specialize in streetwear and customizing/restoring sneakers. We display our art skills into clothing and sneakers.

The thing I’m most proud about is that my father gave us the opportunity to do workshops for the national guard teaching teens (who parents are in the military) entrepreneurship and how to release their inner creativity. I find so much pride in being able to teach others not just for my benefit but for theirs.

We also helped guide a couple of friends with starting their own businesses and even gave them some money to fuel it, the thing that set us apart from others is that we would rather help the community than ourselves. Being African American males means that we need to find more ways to uplift our people. In the upcoming future, we rater become a nonprofit organization to build other recreation centers to get kids off the street and have them do something productive and helpful. Some examples we have done are hosting basketball fun nights and camps at Lenora Park in Gwinnett and big miller grove baptist church.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Growing up in NY playing outside with my brother and friends. You couldn’t keep us from going outside. It was so bad we use to rush through homework. We were all like brothers riding our bikes to the bodega, playing little league together and staying out late playing manhunt (hide and seek on the dark). Till this day, I still go outside and play basketball with the homies.

Pricing:

• sneaker customs $45-$60
• Restorations $35-$50
• Clothing varies: the highest item is a jean jacket costing $55

Contact Info:

• Website:  www.xbxna.com
• Email: bvs3me@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/bvsexavg?igshid=1qvr4waqbp2cf

Image Credit:
Image credit to- Najee White, Kai sims, Nevaeh Whitsell, Demetrius Williams, Moses Brown

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