Born in the region of Cracolândia, in downtown São Paulo, Igor Morais, founder of the Kings Sneakers network, is the portrait of an entrepreneur who won by insistence and vision of opportunity.
Inspired by his father, a northeastern who left Maranhão to try life in Sao Paulo and ended up setting up a small network of newsstands, Igor found out that his way would go away from formal employment.
At 15, he decided to start a business of his own, even without any money in his pocket. He borrowed $ 300 for a friend and promised to return double in a month. With the value, he bought CDs in the city center and resold at the Rock Gallery – on the same day, had already turned the initial investment into R $ 600.
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“I was a survivor,” he remembers in an interview with From zero to topprogram of Infomoney which tells the history of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs behind the largest companies in the country.
“I was born and grew up in a 20 square meter kitnet with my brothers. My father always said that we would never take a work card, and that was in my mind,” says Morais in an interview with host Mariana Amaro.
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The influence of the family and the first steps in trade
Difficult childhood shaped its entrepreneurial spirit. He reports that his father “played him at the stake early,” as at 10 years he was already working at a record store, and with 12 managed two salespeople.
“While my friends played on the street, I worked. It was painful, but prepared me for life”
Beside her mother, also Maranhão and extremely working, the family was divided between trade and care for children. “My father was bohemian, was in the center bars telling stories and listening to music, but my mother held everything. They were a duo of great tune,” he recalls.
Despite the adversities of the environment – violence, crime and poverty – he points out that parents have always reinforced values such as honesty and effort.
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From the CD store to the desire to sell streetwear
The trajectory as an entrepreneur began with New Records, a CD store specializing in national rap and Black Music, located in the iconic Galeria do Rock. With an accumulated capital of R $ 20,000, the result of the sales of rare CDs, Igor invested everything in a small commercial point in store 34 – a number that considers his lucky amulet.
“I always had a vision focused on desire. I wanted to sell what no one sold, the rare CDs that everyone was looking for. Then I thought: if I will sell music, why not sell the style that accompanies it too?”
The interest in street culture, especially for what rappers used in the United States, made Igor start studying the urban fashion market, still in the 1990s, buying imported magazines and observing trends that did not arrive in Brazil.
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The turn: the sneakers enter the showcase
It was in an outlet, by chance, that Igor had the balcony that would change his life. He saw Nike rare sneakers at low prices, bought with the limit of thousand reais from the credit card and placed the models in the store showcase, among the CDs. He sold everyone on the same day.
“There I understood that I wanted to work with fashion and sneakers,” he says. The challenge was to get inventory, as it did not have direct access to the big brands. He bought it in outlets, resold and reinvested everything. In a short time, half of the store was already occupied by Sneakers.
Persistence caught Nike’s own attention. An brand executive visited his store and, even in the face of improvisation and modest structure, gave Igor an initial credit of $ 5,000. “I told him: my money is told, but I am knowledgeable. He believes in me.” It worked out. Today, Kings Sneakers buys over $ 100 million a year from Nike alone.
The birth of Kings and the expansion plan
The Kings Sneakers brand has emerged as a store specializing in streetwear and urban culture, with a bold proposal: unite fashion, music and authenticity in the same space. “I wanted to put a DJ playing at the store every Saturday. I wanted to create a culture, not only sell product,” explains Igor. The strategy of selling desire and differentiating itself by experience was so well that he soon thought of franchise the business.
“I was born to have a chain of stores, but I had no money. So came the franchise plan”
The idea was structured based on what it observed in the behavior of consumers, the power of music and fashion as an expression of peripheral youth, and the scarcity of segmented stores in Brazil.
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Of CD seller the national reference in urban fashion
Today, Kings Sneakers has over 160 units throughout Brazil and earned more than R $ 350 million in 2024. It is a reference in the urban fashion segment and sports shoes, leading sales of iconic models such as Air Force 1 – the same tennis Igor promised Nike to dominate in the country.
Even with success, he claims to have learned, in recent years, to balance work and personal life.
“Until five years ago, I worked from Sunday to Sunday. Now I understand that I need to live. I get a lot with my family and my children.”
The full story is recorded in the book Nothing comes easypublished by the entrepreneur himself.
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“The obvious is only obvious when you know the answer”
If there is a phrase that summarizes Igor Morais’s philosophy, that’s it. For him, the secret of success is to observe behaviors, identify desires and act fast. “It sounds simple, but it’s not. But for me, it was. I knew who had the rare CDs and who wanted to buy. I just connected the ends. And that’s what the entrepreneur has to do: connect opportunities with courage,” he comments.
And courage never missed the former camelô who made the Rock Gallery his first headquarters. “We got out of nowhere, with a loan of $ 300, and today we have one of the largest networks in Brazil. But what really matters is that all this was built with truth and soul. Because nothing comes easy,” concludes Morais.
