Lincoln East sophomore, River Donner, changes the way we may look at high school success. As a successful business owner of RJD Collective, a vintage clothing business that sells across the world, he knows how to set himself apart. Donner started out as a shoe reseller, and switched to vintage clothing. He has gone through ups and downs with his business and shares what set him apart from his competitors to give us a peek into his success.
Donner started selling shoes in 2022 and vintage clothing in 2024. RJD Collective sells vintage shirts, jackets, and pants, while continuing to grow its streetwear presence. Donner sells clothing primarily through Depop, Instagram, and his storefront, located at Donner’s home. He not only sells to local high school and college students, but to young people in all of the United States, Canada, England, Saudi Arabia, and one of his biggest customers–Japan.
Donner explains his start in the shoe-flipping industry. After having an adoration and fascination with shoes, he understood that he could form a business out of his passion.
“My dad and I went to our old storage container and saw all of my dad’s old shoes and I saw that he could maybe flip these, and could sell them for $20 or $30 on Facebook Marketplace,” Donner said. “Then I would buy a Jordan for $100 and sell it for $150 to make a profit, and continue to buy shoes from there and scale it to buy $10,000 in shoes, and flip it easily.”
After the success in shoes, there began to be problems regarding his account and scams in the toxic shoe industry. The challenges that came with selling shoes caused him to re-evaluate what he wanted to sell. He noticed what he wanted to be known for instead, and this caused him to pivot his focus and the products he would sell.
“A lot of success comes at the cost of your reputation,” Donner said.
Donner began to notice the uprise of vintage clothing around him and it intrigued him. He was introduced to a great vintage community that got him started and successful in reselling.
After time in the shoes business, he learned many difficult lessons on how he wanted to conduct his own brand and business, what he aims to be known for, and what he wants to give his customers. He started to put his face on his brand more and began to work to be known himself for being trustworthy, instead of just RJD Collective.
“I turned my business from a normal brand to a personal brand so people could rely on me with their money and trust me so they could buy off of me with no worry,” Donner said.
The most fascinating thing about Donner’s story is how he was able to recover from his account being taken down and dealing with scams in the shoe business. Donner has gone through the business’s journey with a close buyer, August Nash, who is a freshman at Lincoln Southeast.
“Donner recovered really well and he is one of the best resellers I know,” Nash said. “I think he is successful because of how he persevered through all of the problems that came with selling.”
He still hopes to grow his business and create more business alongside his reselling business. The streetwear industry is what he hopes to get into, with a goal of putting cool clothing into as many hands as possible.
“I want to start a brand that is viewed for its quality rather than its popularity, and that I have quality that can create great pieces,” Donner said.
His purpose is what sets RJD Collective apart from any other vintage or streetwear industry.
“My purpose is to show people how good small brands are and the people who run small brands are just as good or better than the big brands that are usually shown love,” Donner said. “My goal is to be as kind as I can to people. For my business, I want to give everyone a chance to appreciate my business. I give out free things so people will come back to me and want to come back to me and get into the community. The community is great in Nebraska because although there are not very many vendors, they are very good.”
Donner’s success with his business has given a lot to the Lincoln community and teaches others about how to become successful. Donner was able to learn from his hard work and challenges in the reselling industry. This taught him valuable lessons that allowed him to move forward and create a successful business that will continue to grow.
