Foster Kofi Agyapong, popularly known as “Sneaker Nyame” is the CEO of the SneakerNyame brand. He has had a knack for business right from his teenage years. Growing up with his parents in Asante Akyem Agogo, he was in charge of his mother’s provision shop which usually involved dealing with lots of customers and substantial amounts of money, for a teenage boy his age. He started developing his people and communication skills right from that age.
In his late teens, he moved to Accra to stay with his uncle. This move was to learn trade from his uncle and also further his education. His uncle dealt in sneakers and shoes, and as such he joined him in the venture. His early grasp of the business and how it works built a level of trust between him and his uncle, hence the uncle giving him full autonomy to run the business.
Sneaker Nyame joined twitter in 2018 with the handle “Agenda Nyame”. As a casual twitter user, he only came online to retweet and like the tweets of others. However, he realized a business trend on twitter. He saw sellers advertising their wares and getting positive feedback, the kind of audience and feedback he would have loved for his business. So in 2020, he re-branded and changed his handle to “SneakerNyame”.
The first phase of this re-branding wasn’t an easy one. Posting pictures of his wares and calling on prospective buyers to look his direction. As the smart business man that he was, he realized that the use of “giveaways” was one of the most effective ways of drawing audience and getting engagements on twitter. So he adopted that marketing strategy and run monthly giveaways. Coupling that with his consistent tweets about his business, he slowly started building the relevant audience he desired and by mid 2020, he had over 20K followers on his account.
In December 2020, he embarked on a street donation exercise with his group of friends who he calls “For My Brothers”. This team is made up of Kalyjay popularly known on Twitter as “Gyaigyimi”, Asiedu Fiifi Mends also popularly known as “Mempeasem President”, Seyram and Mohammed Jaabs. This event was to donate food and drinks to street hawkers and beggars around the Accra mall and Shiashie area.
This event was successful and he shared a tweet online to thank his customers since their purchases made it possible. He wrote “I know what it feels like to be hungry so I wouldn’t wish that on anyone”. This tweet drew a lot of attention and praise from the twitter community with people pledging their support for subsequent similar charity works. Now, the “For my brothers” charity event has become an annual one, that has seen lots of people donating and even joining in person to share love on the streets. This event happens on the 25th of December every year.
Sneaker Nyame believes in giving back to the society. Aside business, he uses his platform to help others by soliciting for funds to pay the school fees and medical bills of people who are in dire need of financial support. Many people attest to how this kind gestures have gone a long way in helping them. Sneaker Nyame also recently started an employment search spree where he looks for employment/vacancy opportunities and shares on his TL for his audience to apply if they qualify. In one of his employment tweets, he captioned “We all need to eat”.
Aside being known for his business, he is also recognized and appreciated for the efforts he makes in giving back to the society. Helping individuals where and when necessary, and also using his influence to get the right authorities on board an issue to assist, where necessary.
