Marcus Rashford, Ed Sheeran and Ariane Grande are just some of the high-profile celebs walking around with a pair of Matthew Burgess' custom trainers on their feet.
The young entrepreneur got into customising trainers at 17 years old, while he was at college in Manchester, and charged £25 for his first pair of sneakers to a classmate.
Last year, a pair that his company, MattB Customs, customised sold for £10,000 at auction, and he's collaborated with the likes of Stella McCartney, Google and Netflix.
Matt is now a world-renowned bespoke sneaker designer and his slick creations have featured at London Fashion Week. But how did the youngster do it?
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At the age of 16, Matt left Walkden High School with just three GCSEs in graphic design, media studies and physical education.
"Because I failed my GSCEs, my parents were worried that I wasn't very smart, and I think I was worried as well," Matt told Manchester Evening News.
"That's why I was so frantically trying to grab onto things I knew I was good at, because I was thinking I was a bit sh**."
Matt, from Boothstown, tried his hand at gaming on YouTube and selling clothes online, but neither businesses really took off.
"I grew up in an area where there's some really wealthy people, but some who are really deprived. I've seen really high wealth and I was right in the middle," he said.
"I had a friend who used to take me to United games and had private parking. I've had friends who I wasn't able to go to theirs for tea.
"I've never not had stuff, but my mum and dad were also not able to buy me something straight away.
"CoD (Call of Duty) and Fifa used to come out about October, but I had to wait until December to get it for Christmas, so it was always, 'how can I make enough money to be able to buy it when it came out?'
"Things like that are what made me feel like I had to go and get it. Two months as a kid is a long time to wait, so when you're 14, 15, 16, all you're Googling is how to make money."
A local artist inspired him to customise his trainers at home, and he quickly became the talk of the college campus when fellow students noticed.
"Pendleton is a big college, you've got like 3,000 - 4,000 people there. So I kept wearing this army camouflage and loads of people would ask," he said.
Some were suspicious that Matt's trainers were fake, but the unique design and colourway was just his own handy work.
Once the requests for customisations came in, Matt created an Instagram account called MattB Customs and a website to take orders.
The formula was simple: classmates would buy their trainers from traditional retail stores and then hand them over to Matt to customise with a bespoke design for a fee.
"The first person I did it for, I did it for £25 and it took me like six hours," he said. "A new pair of shoes at that time were like £60, for a girl it was like £40.
"So I thought, I'm gonna make them a new shoe, 'so what would they pay for me to rework it?'
"I realised I wanted to work on new trainers because I was getting some really smelly shoes. When you heat gun on a smelly shoe it amplifies it even more, so I was in my bedroom at home smelling people's feet."
Matt was earning around £200 a week at the age of 17 by customising sneakers for punters at the Trafford Centre.
Then he started studying graphic design at Sheffield Hallam University and roped in his friends to help, and it ramped up even more.
In the last few years, Matt has built an elite clientele, which includes multimillionaires and famous faces like Paul Pogba and AJ Tracey.
But he's managed to keep things very modest and down-to-earth, running what is essentially a local family business in Salford.
His younger brother, mum and dad are all on the payroll, with his parents handling the financial and admin tasks and his sibling studying to become a graphic designer.
He's also employed friends from university and high school, and is now hoping to create apprenticeship schemes for young people in the area who aren't looking to go to university.
"Being an artist it's hard to create money, and I've been able to create a way for artists to get money and me still benefit and nobody get f****d over," he said.
Matt is incredibly proud of himself for being able to earn a living from his business and pay family and friends' wages too.
Do you have a small business success story to share? Get in touch. Email nia.dalton@reachplc.com.
