Meet the ambitious Leeds man who quit engineering job to sell bespoke Nike Air Max trainers after TikTok success

The 25-year-old Moortown man was flying high and sitting comfortably with a £40,000-a-year job in engineering but things, as he found, can change suddenly.

Dan set up a venture with his mates during the Covid years designing and selling shoe storage boxes under the name Sole Cube.

But it wasn’t until he took to TikTok to document his sales of Nike Air Max from his bespoke collection, which had grown significantly as a result of the connections he’d built through Sole Cube, that Dan began to realise the full potential.

As the millions of views racked up, Dan decided to pack his job in to sell sneakers full time under Dan’s Deals and is hoping to expand further with a pop-up store in Leeds this summer.

It seems to have been the right decision, as Dan said that 2025 has already seen him make £100,000 worth of sales, with pairs usually fetching between £200 and £300.

Originally from Harrogate, Dan said that he has loved sneakers, particularly Nike Air Max, from the age of 12 and been collecting and selling them for a number of years.

He and his friends started making storage units for fellow collectors during Covid, but while Sole Cube didn’t quite take off enough for Dan to leave his job, it did catch the attention of some significant figures.

Dan said that he received a message out of the blue from Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson, who had seen an article about how he had started the business from his nan’s bedroom.

Dan said: “His Virgin News team reached out with a message from him saying ‘your creativity is truly inspirational’”

“I was shocked. He’s someone I’ve always looked up to and to have someone at that level take time out to notice someone like me was a proper motivating. It made me set even bigger goals after I received it.”

Spurred on by the encouragement, Dan said it was when he bought a £10 camera and started filming himself as he drove around the country making deliveries for his TikTok page last July that things “went crazy”.

The page “grew and grew and grew” as Dan shared videos of him delivering to customers who had forked out over £1,000 for the trainers.

He explained: “Within a month I had 10,000 followers. I was selling pairs of Air Max and TNs that nobody else was getting.”

Dan’s Deals began to build a “cult following” and his supporters showed the power of community - no matter where or how it’s formed - when they rallied together to provide Christmas hampers for those in need last winter.

He said: “We decided to do a give-back and all my customers chipped in money. We bought a lad an X-Box and got a woman a full Christmas dinner. It was amazing.”

Asked what it is about collecting trainers that Dan and his many customers enjoy so much, he said: “I think it’s a love for the shoes for one but it’s also getting those rare pairs. It’s not a bad thing to put money into as well as they only tend to go up in value.

“It’s like an obsession, the same way people collect watches or cars or Pokémon cards.”

It was then in February that Dan handed in his notice to commit fully to Dan’s Deals as he invested in a new, branded van and took to travelling around the country.

He said: “I was nervous to do it. I had stability and earned a good salary for my age. But I realised dreams aren’t made in the comfort zone.

“I had a vision of what I wanted to do and since I’ve left it’s just grown.”

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That last statement is backed up, as Dan has made £100,000 worth of sales in 2025 alone and since built further connections in the industry.

He has also done collaborations with other sellers and sold to rappers and fighters, which has only further boosted his appeal.

He has also helped develop community groups on Facebook and WhatsApp and hopes to bring everything together - the passion for shoes and community aspect - when he hosts a pop-up store in Leeds in May with DJs.

Looking forward, Dan said: “I’d like to increase my inventory and collaborate with more people and just continue to grow.”

As far as putting one foot in front of the other goes, Dan has done alright up until this point.

Visit the Dan’s Deals website to see what they have in stock or their TikTok page for video content.