Everyone remembers their first sale differently. Mine was a cuban link chain to a guy in Nasr City who paid cash on delivery and asked if I had "the thicker one." I didn't. I told him next week. There was no next week stock, I just said it.
That was 2019. ICE was a name, an Instagram page and whatever I could afford to order. The look I was selling, iced out, heavy, hip hop, didn't really have a home in Egypt yet. You could find it on rappers in videos and nowhere in a store. That gap was the whole idea.
What nobody tells you
You don't start a brand. You start a to do list that never ends. Photos, captions, replies, packaging, the courier who doesn't show, the customer who wants a refund because the chain "looked bigger in the picture." I did all of it, usually in the same day, sometimes in the same hour.
I also learned early that the product is maybe 30 percent of it. The rest is how it's shown. A chain on a white table is a chain. The same chain on a guy in a black hoodie under a street light at midnight is a lifestyle. I didn't know the word for that yet but I knew which one sold.
The thicker one
I did order the thicker one. It became one of the best sellers for two years. The guy from Nasr City never came back for it. I think about that sometimes.
If you're starting something right now, start it ugly. Fix it in public. Nobody is watching as closely as you think, and the ones who are will respect it more.