As co-founder of Proto, I focused on building something that merged innovation, sustainability, and cultural authenticity in an industry that needed all three. We raised $5M and assembled a dream team pulled from Nike, Adidas, Yeezy, and Vice. People who brought both creative vision and operational muscle.
We created something raw and real. Materials sourced from across the Americas, designs shaped by the hands of those who influenced the culture. Building pipelines that connected communities to the industry they inspired. When the Iris-D dropped, it vanished from shelves before most people even knew it existed. That tension between scarcity and substance... that's what made it work.
Together with Jeff Staple, Jeffrey Alan Henderson, Melody Ehsani, and backing from WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey, we built a collective where "Practice is Perfect." Our process was messy, iterative, beautiful. We stumbled, adjusted, refined. Embraced the imperfections that make things real. We created manufacturing solutions that brought production back to the Americas, putting creation in the hands of the communities that shaped footwear culture from the beginning. A future for fashion where impact and innovation flow in both directions.
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