Founder Focus | D'Wayne Edwards, Pensole
Welcome to our next segment in our new Founder Focus series. Our goal is to chat with the amazing minds we have built relationships with over the last decade, and share their insights with you. We hope you glean some valuable information from our friends who have built amazing companies.
This issue features an interview with D’wayne Edwards, founder of Pensole, client of Scott Davidson, here at White Summers!
D’Wayne Edwards, one of the biggest voices for social impact in our community and a fountain of wisdom, sat down with us and shared his story and his experiences that helped shape one of the biggest names in footwear design education. Take a peek at our recent interview to see for yourself!
SAMANTHA:
Tell us a little bit about your company, Pensole!
D’WAYNE:
Pensole is an academy specializing in footwear design--it’s the school I wish I was able to attend as a teenager and could have hired from when I worked in the industry.
When I was 19 years old, I wasn’t able to go to, or afford, college. All I knew was I wanted to be a footwear designer. All through middle school and high school, I was the guy who was drawing shoes and painting and customizing my sneakers. My biggest fear was walking into a room and someone having the same sneakers.
I eventually started working at Nike. While I was there, kids would figure out my email and randomly email me saying, “Hey, here's my new Jordan design. What do you think?” So, I started to take it upon myself to connect with kids that asked for advice. We technically weren't really allowed to do that, but I did it anyway because I could sympathize with them, because I had been in their shoes. The biggest thing they’re looking for is to start a conversation with a professional and get mentored on what they need to do to get a job. So, I gave them feedback on what they should do to better prepare themselves to become a footwear designer. Once I started doing that, it just became addicting because, like I said, I could sympathize with them.
Eventually I started guiding those kids into internships at Nike and eventually with me. The more I did it, the more I realized there are more and more people who want to be footwear designers. I reached out to Nike and asked them to create a National High School design competition, it was called Future. This competition is actually a nod to my childhood because I won a design competition when I was a teenager. I unfortunately didn't win the prize, a job, but it made me think--what if we level the playing field? What if we didn’t go the traditional route and look at these big design schools for design talent? What if we try to find diamonds in the rough, like I was, and see what could be out there?
We held the competitions for four years. It was a great experience. We ended up finding some amazing talent that still works at Nike to this day.
I ended up taking some time off from Nike. During that time, I partnered with the University of Oregon and I conducted a two-week session in summer of 2010. I brought in 41 students on my own dime just to test this idea of what a footwear design school should or could look like. The response from the students was amazing. I mean, they were working 14-15 hours every day. We had designers from Nike and Adidas come down and guest lecture and mentor the kids. Once it was over, the kids didn't want to leave.
It helped me fall back in love with design again. The corporate structure is very layered, it took the fun out of design. When I was able get away from it to teach and be around young people who were sponges, it made me fall back in love with the idea of designing footwear. But more importantly, I fell in love with sharing the knowledge that I had. That two-week class was really what spearheaded the idea of making Pensole a full-fledged standalone academy, because honestly, I didn't want to go back to work. I wanted this to be my work for the rest of my time in the industry.
SAMANTHA:
What is the structure of Pensole? How did that two-week workshop translate into a school for designers?
D’WAYNE:
First of all, it is free for all students to attend. Students just have to be accepted into the program. With my childhood experiences of not being able to afford college, I knew I wanted to remove that barrier.
The premise is that the companies pay for the student’s tuition and housing because they're the beneficiary of the talent in the end. Why wouldn't you invest in your future employees that are going to make you millions, if not billions, of dollars? I think that's a fair trade.
I always wanted it to have a connection to industry because I wanted kids to truly understand what it took to work at a company. I wanted to give them a taste of the real-world experience using real projects, on real timelines. We’re very focused on results and mentorship, with the goal for the students to finish and to get placed.
Lastly, I wanted Pensole to be the school for the industry. Ironically, for the first nine years we didn't do anything with Nike or Jordan. We leveled the playing field for the rest of the industry. I just wanted the rest of the brands to understand that we can work together.
SAMANTHA:
As an entrepreneur who works very closely with people who are wanting to get their foot in the door of an industry, what is some advice that you have for early-stage entrepreneurs?
D’WAYNE:
Well, my first piece of advice is, don't do it if you're not willing to lose everything. If you're not willing to lose everything, it could end up being a really expensive hobby. I see a lot of entrepreneurs, especially creatives, that have a lot of really good ideas, but those ideas may not be a business.
If you are willing to take the plunge, I would really recommend doing your homework on whatever lane you're going into. Are you first, second, third? Is it a hybrid of multiple industries that you're finding a new path that you can pave? Is what you're creating new and better? Ask someone who has done business what they think. From an entrepreneurial level, you really need to tap into people who will tell you the truth. Never underestimate the power of mentorship.
The last thing I would add is, I see a lot of entrepreneurs ask for money too soon. A lot of times having money is actually a bad idea. What I mean by that is, when you’re broke, you get creative--you get creative real fast with almost everything in your life. When you're broke, that's the most creative period of your life as an entrepreneur. You have to figure it out, right? You have to be resourceful. I don't think entrepreneurs are resourceful enough. A lot of times when an entrepreneur gets money too soon, they haven’t had a chance to too really flush out the absolute purest version of their idea to see if it will really work or not.
I was blessed to have a cushion when I left Nike. But at the same time, I didn't ask for any money when I started Pensole. I used all of my own money because I knew that if I tried to explain to someone what I wanted to do 10 years ago; they wouldn't have seen my vision, because the concept didn’t exist yet. Sometimes when you're first, it's hard for people to see it because they need to compare it to something else to legitimize it. So, I spent my own money for the first nine years to build Pensole to the point where people wanted to give me money. I was able to do that purely from brand building. If people purchase your product and they're happy with it, they're going to talk about it.
SAMANTHA:
What is it about what you do that makes all of that worth it?
D'WAYNE:
I would do what I do for free. I mean, I would literally do it for free.
SAMANTHA:
What about it makes it compelling to want to do it for free?
D’WAYNE:
When I worked at a company, I was fulfilling the ego stroke. I was designing shoes for the best athletes on the planet, traveling all over the world and shopping all over the world and being able to experience what it's like to be a billionaire through other people. So, I was able to go experience, what I call, the ego side of being a designer.
When I started my business, one of the first things I wrote down was that I wanted people to forget I ever designed shoes. If I could make people forget what I did for twenty-five years, that meant that I'm doing something even better. I'm not designing shoes anymore, I'm designing lives. That has way more impact. It becomes more purposeful. The idea of designing an object that goes into a store or an object for someone who's rich and doesn't really need it, left me with an empty feeling. I wanted to get rid of that feeling and reinvest into people. To me, that's the biggest reward, getting that email, text, or phone call from one of my students saying they got the job. That makes it worth it.
SAMANTHA:
You have had so many accomplishments in your industry--awards left and right--especially this last year.
What would you say has been your biggest personal accomplishment?
D’WAYNE:
Definitely Pensole 1. But I think, with my whole journey up to this point, the part that's the most rewarding is being able to reinvest into my own three daughters.
My youngest is a freshman at the University of Oregon, she's studying sports marketing. She wants to be a sports agent. Being able to share my knowledge with her and introduce her to the people that I know in the industry that can help her get to where she wants to go means everything to me.
My middle daughter is a junior at a Fashion Design School in Savannah, Georgia. I've done design for a little while; I think I know a little bit about it. Giving her the space to do it her way, but being able to have her come bounce ideas off of me is one of the best feelings.
My oldest has her own business. I love being able to help her from an entrepreneur’s point of view, from the pitfalls to the successes. To me, it’s more about the reinvestment into my own family based on the knowledge and experience that I have--that's the most rewarding part, because I feel like I had to go through all of this to give back to them.
SAMANTHA:
Obviously 2020 was a very crazy year, challenging in its own ways. How did you adapt to the climate of 2020 in regard to either COVID-19 or the national movements?
D’WAYNE:
COVID-19 has made everybody adapt. You're either going to adapt or die. I think as a business, this is where your creativity comes in because you probably lost money and you have to figure out a way to not completely lose everything. But for us, it allowed us to tap into our creativity, quite honestly. It allowed us to do the same thing in a new way. It really challenged us to look at the digital side of things faster than what we had planned.
When you embrace the tools that you have, how can you still elevate at a high level with the tools you're given? For us, that's really been the exciting part, almost reimagining Pensole as a virtual school instead of an in-person school. Thinking about what we would want Pensole to look like virtually, starting from zero, has really helped us elevate what we're planning to do. And then when the world officially opens back up, we can also still do what we did in person on top of this new platform that we've created. I think for us, it just helped us be a lot sharper. It allowed us to be more creative and think like we're broke again.
I think as far as the civil unrest that has occurred, it's unfortunate that George Floyd had to die for, quite honestly, America to realize that we're human, too. But for us, it really helped our industry understand the importance of us. We were a direct beneficiary of that because we were, quite honestly, the only Black people in education and design. It just showed that we were authentic from day one and we didn't change. The authenticity just caught up to us ultimately, and it helped elevate us.
Like I said, it's unfortunate that George had to get murdered in order for this to happen. But between him and Breonna, I mean, their lives did not go in vain. I mean, they are amazing martyrs and part of our history that will never be forgotten. It has elevated our programming and our relationships with brands. It's elevated our purpose and what we want to do moving forward. And it has also started holding our industry accountable.
That's the biggest piece, is it's one thing for all these companies to make all these pledges, but they have an expiration date on them. There should be no expiration date. If you truly believe this is what you should be doing, this is the way you should be doing business. The brands that we're working with are committed to not having an end date. This is how you should be doing business moving forward.
SAMANTHA:
I agree. It’s important to make these changes the new standard. So, what are you most excited about moving forward?
D’WAYNE:
I am working on a big project. The entire design industry has a diversity problem. There's about 3-4% representation, industry wide, from advertising to design. It's bad. A part of the reason, at least for our industry, it's so bad is because the brands are looking for talent in the same places, that we're not. If you go to a big design school, you won't find Black people there because we can't afford to go. The industry has woken up to the fact that they’re looking in the wrong place.
What we are working on is probably the highest level of design education for Black people ever created. When we make this happen, it will definitely change our industry. It will give the opportunity for more Black and brown kids to be educated at a high level without the barriers of money, with the full support of corporations. Pretty much what we're doing at Pensole, but 100 times bigger.
I mean, that's what I'm living for. I'm living for that moment to be able to level the playing field. And make things--not easier, because I'm a firm believer that everyone needs to earn everything that they have--but accessible. I want to give people a chance to earn something, to be able to see the reward for the effort and the hard work that is put into it.
SAMANTHA:
I appreciate you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I think that what you're doing deserves a ton of attention, and I respect it a lot. Thank you so much, D’Wayne.
D’WAYNE:
Take care.
Original Post:
By Samantha Gee
White Summers