Canadian entrepreneur builds successful business from parents basement

eBay have released another spotlight story, this time on Canadian eBay seller Adrien Lavoie who scaled his sneaker business starting from his parents’ basement.

This isn’t the first, nor will it be the last eBay business born in an interesting place. Earlier in the year, we wrote about how a teen built a £1m company selling a range of components from his bedroom. In this case Adrien built his company from the basement of his parents’ home and thanks to his determination and drive was able to bag himself an eBay Young Entrepreneur Award, and the Micro Multinational Award for eBay Canada.

Adrian believes that his success is all thanks to eBay and his story starts in high school when he worked at a bike shop selling parts on the marketplace. Helping with the listings gave him experience and knowledge of the platform and he continued to sell on the site to support his studies. Eventually, Adrian teamed up with a friend and started experimenting with outdoor inventory such as sports gear, outdoor clothing, and other accessories whilst calling up distributors to develop business relationships as fledgling entrepreneurs. One longboard distributor accepted their call and after successfully gaining loyal customers and a foothold on the marketplace they branched out into skateboard shoes and found their true, instantly successful identity.

The business began to boom and in 2013 Adian was able to move his inventory out of his parents home and into a brick-and-mortar store in Gatineau, Quebec.

“Just try it, There’s always risk and reward. You have to see it as research and development. The more you try it, the better chance you have at success.”
– Adrien Lavoie, Founder, Wooki

Adrien’s eBay store is now over 10 years old and has carried him further than he ever thought possible. Adrian never expected his side hustle to get him this far and his hard work clearly paid off.