“I went to jail for the first time when I was 14 and have basically been going in-and-out since.” Opportunities come in all shapes and forms. For Cole Richman, it arrived as a pair of Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG “Smoke Grey.”

A born and bred Angelino, Richman experienced the anxieties that often consume many young people and resorted to alcohol as a way to fit in around his peers. From one experience to another, Richman always found himself landing in prison until May of 2020.

It’s at this time that he was released back into the world. But as the events of COVID were only just taking place, Richman was going from one prison to another. “The world shut down,” he told HYPEBEAST, adding, “I remember driving home from prison seeing no one on the road thinking, ‘What the heck is this?’

In a way this standstill provided him with the biggest spark to his long battle with recovery. “One thing I have to think about is myself, because there are no jobs. Let me be present and start working on myself. That set the groundwork for me to even be able to start doing shoes,” he added.

Having no home to go to, Richman checked into a halfway house in West LA where his roommate introduced him to the world of online sneakers. After using his $200 USD state check given to him and all inmates returning back into the world on a pair of Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG “Smoke Grey”, he quickly flipped them and bought a pair of YEEZYs, flipped those — causing a domino effect.

Richman now runs his own sneaker boutique called Bottom Bunk on Melrose Avenue. Although there are dozens of similar shops on the block, what separates his is the purpose behind the brand. As someone who got his second lease on life through a pair of sneakers, Richman aims to address the challenges former inmates face by hiring them and helping reintegrate them back into society.

HYPEBEAST caught up with the visionary sneakerhead for the latest installment of Sole Mates.

HYPEBEAST: Who or what got you into shoes?

Cole Richman: I can’t remember the name of the store, but when my parents had just gotten divorced, I had lived in Santa Monica for a real short period and a new shoe store had opened up. It wasn’t a Foot Locker, it was a local brand. They had a big block party for the opening and there was a person on the roof who had a big trash bag filled with fake dollars. I remember as a kid watching him throw it off and watching people scramble to see what they can get from these tickets.

I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, look how much these people are pushing each other over for these, they must be really important.’ I walked through with my mom and saw the Fire Red Jordan IV’s and just thinking, ‘I have to have these.’ So she got me those and it became one of our regular trips for shopping. I also got my first pair of Andre Agassi shoes there thinking they were the dopest things ever.

Basically, when I got back to LA, I started getting into trouble in school and coming down to Melrose to hang out at Fat Beats and Sportie LA.

What do you think is different about sneaker culture than its affiliate industries, such as fashion?

In the past, there was a stigma about it.

It was kind of tied to the bad boy and that was something that I was trying to put myself in line with that. Today, it’s so inclusive because it’s so elevated, right? People are retro-ing Jordan 1’s with King Kong — I’m like, who would’ve ever thought? I see something like this and I get excited. This is different. I get the same silhouette that I was attached to as a kid and now as an adult, and it’s more inclusive to include everything, where I can wear some pink and navy.

“I’d always be the first person to get in my own way, because I felt like I wasn’t getting it fast enough.”

Can you describe your experience through the jail system?

I’ve struggled with drugs and alcohol since the first time I took a drink, which was when I was about 11 years old. I went to jail for the first time when I was 14 and have basically been going in and out since. I’d always have these brief stints of recovery. For example, when I was 20, I got out of prison and for the first time I stayed sober for about six years, but then I relapsed because I felt uncomfortable, fearful, all the things I think most 25-26-year-olds feel.

I felt all my friends were partying and I wanted to do that and get back into the culture; go to music shows and felt uncomfortable because I was sober, so I thought, if I took this drink, maybe I’d fit in here more again. It did temporarily. I found myself going to prison for eight years when I was 27 years old. At 27, eight years felt like I was going to be in there for the rest of my life.

What were some things you meditated on that have led to where you are now?

I’ve always been a dreamer. Going to jail at 14 and spending so much time worrying about what’s going to happen in the future, I would always create these super big ideas about the things I was going to create and what I was going to be able to do. But when I came home, I’d always be the first person to get in my own way, because I felt like I wasn’t getting it fast enough. Which would always turn me back to the streets.

This time, the biggest difference was I got really lucky in a sense that COVID had started. A friend of mine owns a gold company and he said I got a job for you as soon as you come home. So I was like, ‘alright I’m going to get into sales, let’s do this. It’ll be perfect.’

“There are no jobs. Let me be present and start working on myself.”

COVID happens in March, I get released in May and the world shut down. I remember driving home from prison seeing no one on the road thinking, what the heck is this?’

Parole wasn’t letting us go to the office and I didn’t have a place to go. When I finally got my parole officer, he was like ‘you have to do a halfway house anyways, you should find one.’ I went to a treatment center in West LA and because the world had stopped it felt good to be there. What it did for me, which I had never had the opportunity before was to get my mental health right.

That was the biggest blessing. The whole world stopped. Pause. I’m in this moment. One thing I have to think about is myself, because there are no jobs. Let me be present and start working on myself. That set the groundwork for me to even be able to start doing shoes. My roommate at my halfway house was basically messing around online, going on SNKRS, waking up early, going on Foot Locker trying to get shoes.

I’d ask him, ‘What are you doing?’ He’s like, ‘getting shoes.’ ‘Online? How?’ Before I went away, that wasn’t how you got shoes. If you wanted a pair, you lined up like everyone else. He explained it to me and I was like that’s super dope. He’s like, ‘yeah, I buy them and flip them if I can, make some money and kill some time.’

Literally the next morning, I woke up and went on SNKRS and got a pair of Jordan 1 Retro High OG “Smoke Grey” and got them and didn’t love them, so I sold them. He showed me a lot, like how to use StockX and Discord. For someone who spent a lot of time in a cell reading and learning, I opened my mind to be able to look at a space differently than before with an adult perspective.

Almost immediately I realized, this is so much like street life and hustling. I prioritized into this skillset that I know I have and know I can start using it for good. At the same time, I was doing outreach at high schools talking with kids about drug and alcohol prevention. I thought it would be great to merge these two things and start helping people.

Was this now a constant thing every week?

Literally when you get released from the state, they give you $200 USD, or whatever money you had on your books, they put on a prepaid card for you. I didn’t know how it worked, so I had a lot of people help me set up a bank account and be able to receive payments. I poured the $2,000 USD stimulus into it and I didn’t pay for my food, so all my money went into shoes. Discord showed me how to get shoes on different drops on different days of the week and how to enter raffles. All this time in the room, I’d sit on my phone entering raffle after raffle.

I started selling in August.

So less than two years you started Bottom Bunk. Can you talk on that progression from when you got out until November 2021?

Once the world started to open back up and I was able to go back outside to Footlocker every morning waiting to see what the releases were for the day, everything started to get a lot faster. I started to be able to get more shoes.

One of my best friends and mentors checked up on me and I told him I was flipping shoes and had even made $3,000 USD that week. He’s like, ‘Really, how can I help?’ I was just like, honestly if I could just have more money it would be great. So he gave me a loan and I paid him back.

Meanwhile, I was observing how all these kids were constantly scrambling for shoes and I just thought, how do we organize this space? So I spoke to my mentor who works in treatment and I said we should open a platform to help so many people. There are all these stores making money and if we get exposure, we can really start impacting people.

My vision was that I wanted to hire all dudes from prison who are coming home and I wanted to give them opportunities. So he was on board.

At that point, I was getting a lot of shoes which was the easy part. But see running a business is always a learning process and we’ve had some road bumps along the way, but we’re applying to be a non-profit so we can start providing more mental health services like housing. When I looked at my life, what actually made me successful was getting my mental health right and having secure housing. For someone coming out of prison, I feel like I have a unique experience to provide something that will be impactful.

There are a lot of sneaker shops across the city and Melrose alone. Apart from your story and initiative, what else do you believe your boutique does differently?

My ability to acquire shoes from hard work and diligence provides us a much better price point than a lot of these stores. Also, we pride ourselves on good customer service. It’s not going to be an exclusive environment where people walk into a store and wait 30 minutes for a person to help you. There’s QR codes to force us to have to engage with you to explain what’s going on.

Secondly, making sure the sure that the accessibility of all sizes are available, because there’s nothing worse than walking into a shoe store, asking for the sneaker you want and finding out they don’t have it. So we do our best to making sure we have a range of sizes on stock and being the first on the block to do so.

I also want to use this top event space to showcase young emerging brands and designers. Supreme is right up the street. Someone gave me the opportunity to get in, so I’d rather find stuff that I’m attached to, like streetwear brands, and bring them in and use this as an opportunity to showcase them.

Melrose has been a bit of an issue. It gets better, than worse, better than worse. My way of trying to impact the community with safety is to invite LA brands in and change the culture to being back to something that’s LA and people from the city are going to want to keep it safe.

What’s the 10-year plan?

Definitely getting our own merchandise, but also I would love for Bottom Bunk to be just as synonymous as Foot Locker, but for resale and be in every state helping their communities for people coming home from prison.

Going back to when you first got out, what in particular was special for you first getting the “Smoke Grey”?

For me, it was the “Smoke Grey” because it was my launching point. Also having been in jail for eight years, I literally hadn’t seen a Jordan in years and it was the first one that I could hold in my hand that was mine.

It’s also the opportunity that came along with it, that inspired change and put me in a position to help people. Without that experience, I wouldn’t be standing here and who knows, I could have been back in prison and went down a dark path.