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SALT LAKE CITY — As the old adage goes, a jack of all trades is the master of none, but one Salt Lake City resident seems to defy that stereotype.
Kenny Sanders, 31, is a professional BMX rider, an entrepreneur, a musician and a popular YouTuber. His current project, “The BMX University,” is set to be released some time in mid-January.
The BMX University is a website that will feature Sanders, as well as other world-renowned, professional BMX riders, in instructional videos that teach riders a myriad of different tips and tricks for BMX riding.
“I’m going... to do a digitized product so people can come on to a website and subscribe for $89 a month, which will give them full access to everything,” Sanders said. “All these videos… will teach kids the basics from doing anything with BMX freestyle to the basics of safety, the basics of stretching, the basics of how to work on your bike if it breaks.”
Born in Ephraim, Sanders grew up watching his father run his own business, Christiansen Furniture, and developed a quick interest in entrepreneurship. It was also at the age of 12 that Sanders watched a movie about BMX riders, which inspired him to purchase his own BMX bike and start practicing tricks and going off homemade jumps.
After graduating high school early and finding a sponsor, Sanders moved to Salt Lake City to pursue a career in professional BMX riding. Now, Sanders hopes to inspire future riders to not only learn new tricks but to acquire an entrepreneurial mindset.
“What I want to do with this BMX University is change the mindsets of the future generation of BMX riders to have more of an entrepreneurial mindset. When they’re riding, I can teach them life lessons,” Sanders said. “When they’re learning tricks, they’re probably going to crash five to ten times before they actually get the trick, and that’s how life is. If you start a business, if you do anything, you’re gonna fail a couple times before you actually learn how to do it.”
And Sanders would certainly know. In 2010, he founded a company called NotSocks that sells a type of sock for those who don’t like wearing socks, which Sanders doesn’t.
After going sockless for several years, Kenny realized he was ruining his shoes and started looking for a solution.
“I went and bought a sewing machine and started cutting up socks and sewing the sock material around the insole of my shoes and so that way I’m still standing on the sock and protecting my shoes but I’m not actually wearing the socks,” Sanders said.
After some trial and error, Sanders created the NotSocks product and began a business around the concept. According to Sanders, it soon became a trend, and Utah is still the company’s No. 1 clientele base, though the company has since grown enormously.
“One of the biggest things for me is to just jump right in and start,” Sanders said. “It’s just like learning a trick on BMX. The first couple times you try a trick on BMX, you’re going to crash. Then you try it again and you’re going to crash, and you try it again and then you’re going to crash. It’s the same thing with almost anything in life, you’ve gotta just dive in and try it, you might not be doing it as well as you want… but eventually, it’s gonna stick.”
And this is all something Sanders wants to teach his students at his new website. The university will start with three different topics and 12 different videos for each topic and will continuously add new topics each month. Sanders also plans on bringing in other professional BMX riders to teach their own characteristic tricks.
During the launch, "The BMX University" will be taking pre-orders for 50 percent off the listing price for the month of January and interested parties can visit the website to join the emailing list to stay in-the-know on the release date. They can also visit The BMX Facebook page or Sander's Instagram account.
Sanders also hopes to use some of the revenue to start a charity that will buy complete bikes and then gift them to kids in need who genuinely want to be riding BMX but can’t afford the bike. According to Sanders, those kids will also receive a free six-month subscription to The BMX University.
“Back in my BMX career, I came across so many kids who come from broken homes or when they go home there’s abuse or stuff they don’t want to be around,” Sanders said. “But when they get on a bike that’s their main focus, it’s their outlet, it’s their happiness, it’s their therapy. A lot of kids who are in these unfortunate situations they’re obviously not able to pay for a sport like this... and so that’s where I want to come in and I want to help them out.”
Liesl is a web reporter at KSL.com and a student at Brigham Young University. You can email her at lnielsen@ksl.com.
