He couldn't afford the player exclusives, so he learned to make his own. Everything since follows from that.

1. Age 4

   The brother's sneakers

   Watching his 14-year-old brother wear the latest kicks, a four-year-old starts drawing his own designs. His mother — an artist — mails his sketches to Nike. Nothing comes back. The drawings keep coming anyway.

2. Age 11

   First restorations

   He starts bringing shoes back to life. Sculpture, painting, welding, automotive work — every medium ends up feeding the same obsession.

3. 2006

   Orchard Street

   NYC's Orchard Street Dunk projects hit him like scripture. Years later he rebuilds both on vintage 2003 donors — the “Poorman Orchard Streets.”

4. Before the customs

   The portraits

   Before ever painting a shoe, he sells hand-drawn sneaker portraits for $500 to $1,000. If he could paint a portrait of a shoe, why not use the shoe as the canvas?

5. 2009

   First customs

   Friends, family, forum members. The side income quietly passes his day-job pay.

6. 2012

   The leap

   His father is diagnosed with colon cancer. Jake quits his job the same day and goes all-in as an artist. Late that year, as a joke on a friend's orange Dunk, he paints white stripes and a W — the crew calls it the Whataburger shoe.

7. Sep 2013

   The LeBron break

   Through a mutual friend, he delivers the LeBron X “Championship” customs. LeBron posts them that night and wears them at Heat media day.

8. Nov 2013

   The Sports Illustrated cover

   LeBron wears the pair on the cover of Sports Illustrated Kids. His father lived to see it.

9. 2014

   The prolific year

   The Penny 1 “All-Star,” Wale's LV Don 4s, the Jeter 11s, Kobe 9s. Nice Kicks tours the sneaker room. Sneaker News puts him in its first print magazine. His father passes.

10. Jun 2015

    Canonized

    Complex and Sole Collector rank the 50 greatest custom sneakers of all time. Nine are his — including #1.

11. Oct 2015

    The Whataburger tweet

    Whataburger's account finds the 2012 joke Dunk and posts it. Three years of obscurity, then a Texas icon overnight.

12. 2017

    The joke becomes a client

    Whataburger commissions official AJ1 customs. The Monarch × Air Max 90 “ultimate dad shoe” goes viral. Post Malone gets his “Rockstar” Blazers.

13. Apr 2018

    18 pairs, 18 hours

    The Spurs clinch, and the equipment room calls: fifteen pairs of Fiesta throwbacks by Friday. The crew delivers eighteen — Manu, Danny Green, and Rudy Gay wanted theirs too. That same year, two years of work on a tricentennial art shoe points toward a museum.

14. 2019

    Brands at the door

    Corona commissions twelve Texas Jordan 3s for March Madness. The corporate era begins — activations, events, employee customs.

15. Jan 2021

    For Kobe and Gigi

    On the first anniversary, a tribute pair. Some shoes aren't commissions.

16. Sep 2022

    Manu in the living room

    Ginóbili asks for the shoes he'll wear into the Hall of Fame — and comes to Jake's house to design them together. Argentina's colors, four title years, Olympic gold, the induction date.

17. Oct 2022

    The waitlist

    A year booked out, turning work away, thinking about how one pair at a time could become something bigger.

18. Mar 2024

    The Cutback

    The answer ships: Dank & Co's first original silhouette. Drop one, “FastBreakin' Fiesta,” puts on for the hometown with a spur on the tongue — and sells out. Drop two, “Mockingbird,” follows. Whataburger raffles a twelfth-anniversary AJ3 the same month.

19. Sep 2024

    Beyond sneakers

    American-flag gloves for Lexi Thompson at the Solheim Cup. Objects, not just shoes.