NHS Doctor and entrepreneur Kola Tytler is the founder of Italian sneaker and streetwear business dropout® and he is currently studying for a Masters of Business Administration at the University of Birmingham. dropout® has a shop location in the very heart of Milan and an e-commerce website available to a global customer base.
Kola's story:
After fulfilling my dream of buying a pair of Jordans (at around age 20), I started learning about the underground sneaker resale market, to then self-teach to code and wrote a sneaker bot (2015). I shortly afterwards met Yiannis (who had launched YEEZY Mafia, a news outlet about sneakers by Kanye West) and Stefano (my right hand man, who later launched Outpump). With Stefano, I later created a software to collect data and run statistical analysis to determine patterns in price changes. HypeAnalyzer was born. We used the growing dataset to create predictive pricing models and a scoring system which would allow products to be comparable. I then used the tool to invest in sneakers, eventually cashing out to finance the biggest share of dropout®.
dropout® pricing and marketing are still largely dictated by HypeAnalyzer algorithms. Output of these include data for pricing, consignment rates (dynamic and affected by things such as volatility and demand, objectively calculated) and discounts. This model, simple yet efficient, can be scaled and reproduced for many other things retail and e-commerce. HypeAnalyzer is covered by commercial patent in Italy (SIAE, D000014993) and dropout® is trademarked at continental level.
After yet another failed exam, in 2018 I was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia. I later on took two monitored IQ tests that got me a Mensa membership (scoring top 1% in the population in both the Cattell II and the Culture fair tests, indicating an IQ of >155 and >132, depending on the scale used). I remain a Mensa member to this date. I was still in uni when I decided to bring to Italy the ultimate sneaker shopping experience, where prices, consignment rates and sales were objectively dictated by an analysis software. My frustration with my studies at the time led to the business being called “dropout”, also a shoutout to Kanye’s “College Dropout”.
The best thing about running my own business is that reward is unimaginable: seeing your idea grow and becoming a viable business is one of the best feeling I experienced (and still feel!). Overcoming challenges allows to grow as persons and give a more positive outlook to life in general.