Our Story

It started with a pair of sneakers.

A childhood obsession, a dream that almost disappeared, and a new direction that became NORTH.

Ryan Sabik holding up a blue-and-white sneaker and a bottle of NORTH cleaner

The kid with the sneakers.

Long before NORTH had a name, it started with an 11-year-old kid in Puerto Rico who was obsessed with sneakers.

My name is Ryan Sabik Figueroa, founder of NORTH. I’m 19 years old, and for as long as I can remember, sneakers have been part of who I am.

Growing up, people knew me as el de las tenis — “the sneaker kid.” I loved getting new pairs, but what fascinated me even more was keeping them clean.

I would take dirty sneakers from my parents and grandparents and clean them with whatever I had available: a toothbrush, water, and soap. I spent hours watching sneaker cleaning and restoration videos, studying transformations and wondering how I could create something of my own.

Eventually, I stopped only watching.

Ryan as a teenager holding up a pair of custom black sneakers during a live video

The first bottle.

Around 11 or 12 years old, I created my first sneaker cleaner.

I called it RJ Sneaker Cleaner.

There was no sophisticated packaging, no big company behind it and no perfect formula from a laboratory. I experimented with different cleaning solutions, put together a simple bottle and brush, and started selling it through my family’s restaurant.

It was small, but it worked.

People bought it. They used it. They came back.

For a kid selling sneaker cleaner for around $10–$15, that meant everything.

More importantly, it showed me that an idea I had in my head could become something real.

The first RJ Sneaker Cleaner bottle, brush and white towel on a white background

The hustle grew.

By around 13, sneakers had become more than a hobby.

I started professionally cleaning, restoring and customizing shoes for other people. What began with my own pairs grew through word of mouth, customers, creative projects and opportunities to work on footwear for different people and artists.

I became known for sneakers.

But as school, life and new interests took over, I slowly stepped away from restoration and from the cleaner I had created.

The dream never completely disappeared.

Early restoration work on a pair of sneakers

Some dreams keep coming back.

Around 15 or 16, I started thinking about that old idea again.

I knew I wanted to build something. I knew footwear was where I belonged. I had also started imagining a future not only cleaning sneakers, but designing them.

I began pursuing footwear and industrial design because the long-term dream was bigger: one day, I wanted to create my own footwear line.

At the same time, I kept coming back to the cleaning brand I had left behind.

I tried new names. I designed packaging. At one point the project was going to be called SBK, inspired by my last name, Sabik.

But something was missing.

It looked like a brand.

It didn’t feel like it had a reason to exist.

SBK premium sneaker cleaning kit packaging label

05The turning point

There was a night when I was sitting in my room trying to figure out what direction all of this was supposed to take.

I knew sneakers were my passion. I knew I wanted to build something meaningful. And I knew my faith had to be more than something separate from the work I was creating.

I prayed and asked God for wisdom and direction.

In the background, a sermon was playing. During it, I heard a verse from Deuteronomy 2:3:

“You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north.”
Deuteronomy 2:3

Those words hit differently.

I felt like I had been circling the same mountain — constantly creating, restarting and questioning where I was going.

That moment changed the direction of the brand.

I stopped trying to force my own plan and decided to turn north.

That is where the name NORTH came from.

Turn North.

Building North.

Having a name and a purpose was only the beginning.

I still needed to turn that vision into something real.

One of the people God placed in that process was my art teacher at Antilles High School, Mr. Hernández.

I told him what I was trying to create and how stuck I felt. He helped me begin translating the idea into an identity — developing the logo, packaging direction and visual language that would eventually become NORTH.

The arrow became more than a graphic.

Its direction toward north represented movement, purpose and choosing a new path.

Part of its visual inspiration also came from a family compass/relic, giving the symbol a connection to my own roots and family story.

NORTH became a way to carry where I came from while pointing toward where I was going.

The part people don’t see.

Building the actual product was not glamorous.

There were countless supplier searches, prototypes, packaging decisions, mistakes and nights where I questioned whether any of it would work.

There were nights without sleep and moments when the process felt impossible.

But eventually, I found the right people, the right components and a way to turn what had existed in my head for years into a physical product.

The kid who once mixed his own sneaker cleaner now had a finished NORTH Shoe Care Kit.

Two people packing NORTH Shoe Care Kit boxes at a home dining table

From my room to store shelves.

By 17, NORTH had reached store shelves across Puerto Rico.

The product was carried through six retail locations in places including Salinas, San Juan, Río Grande, Aibonito, Juana Díaz and Ponce.

For me, that was bigger than simply getting a product into stores.

It was proof that the childhood idea I had once walked away from had survived.

Something that started with a toothbrush, sneakers and curiosity had become a real Puerto Rican brand.

01Salinas
02San Juan
03Río Grande
04Aibonito
05Juana Díaz
06Ponce

The NORTH Shoe Care Kit displayed in a glass case at a retail store counter

More than clean shoes.

NORTH exists to help people take care of the things they wear, wherever life takes them.

But the mission has always been bigger than shoe care.

Every NORTH kit carries part of the testimony behind the brand because I want the product to point beyond itself.

Faith is the reason NORTH found its direction.

The idea of cleaning also carries a deeper meaning for me. One of the most powerful examples of humility in Scripture is Jesus washing the feet of others.

NORTH is not trying to turn shoe cleaning into something it isn’t. But that image reminds me that something as simple as caring for what is in front of you can represent service, discipline and humility.

My hope is that NORTH can encourage people to take care of what they have, move with purpose, and — when life feels like it is going in circles — remember that sometimes it is time to change direction.

This is only the beginning.

Sneakers were the beginning, but they were never the end of the dream.

I’m continuing to pursue footwear design with the goal of eventually building my own footwear line under my family name, Sabik.

NORTH is part of that journey.

At 19, I’m still learning, still designing, still building and still figuring things out.

What I do know is that the dream I had as a kid is no longer something sitting in a notebook.

I’m living it.

And I’m grateful to God for every person, every lesson and every turn that brought NORTH here.

Turn North.

Ryan Sabik holding up a blue-and-white sneaker and a bottle of sneaker cleaner in front of a patterned wall

Ryan Sabik Figueroa

Founder, NORTH

Puerto Rico

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