Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Day.
Hi Christopher, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Dream building has been my lifelong passion. I grew up in the small town of McCamey, Texas, and was adopted, loved, and raised by a hard-working, blue-collar oil field family.
It was apparent from the beginning that I didn’t fit in. When my siblings were watching TV or playing video games, I was designing new products, and business ideas, and developing plans to get to the next stage in life.
At 7 years old, the Tandy Leather Company came to my elementary school to do a presentation on their products… showing us how we can make cool craft projects, like key fobs, leather wallets, coin purses, etc.
It was then that I knew what I was supposed to do. I went home with my catalog from Tandy Leather Co and studied it for months… I remember making lists of the tools I’d need, the materials it would require, and all the necessary hardware to create my handmade leather items. Mom and Dad could see that I had taken a real interest in this, so they purchased the $20 starter kit… and a business was born.
I began making simple things like keychains and bracelets, walking door to door, selling them to the little old ladies in the neighborhood for only 25 cents each. This taught me that it’s possible to create something from near nothing and that people will pay for it…and if you smile, use your manners and be a good boy, they buy a lot more.
At first, it was hard. I was embarrassed to knock on the doors or to talk to them when they’d answer. The Boy Scouts of America helped me with this. Those annual popcorn and candle fundraisers forced me to open my mouth and speak to people. My mother and father always believed that being a scout was an honorable position. We were taught morals, responsibility, faith, and respect, These are the things that truly make success in business and in life.
As an adult, I had a very hard time. Most of my adult life was spent in Federal Prison. Being an entrepreneur is all about taking calculated risks, weighing the outcomes, then making decisions to move in a certain direction. In my early days, sometimes I would choose the not-so-legal ways of doing things. Because of that, I had many years to sit, read, and ponder how I’d one day get back out here and create something positive… something amazing… something my parents could be proud of.
On December 27th, 2019, I was put on a bus headed for San Antonio. I was released out into the “wild”, homeless, jobless, penniless, and with no friends or family around… many many miles from any Home id known. When I was about 10 yrs old, My older brother told me a story of a man in Las Vegas that used to paint the cosmos with a can of spray paint, right out on the street corner… and that he made really good money doing it.
So, as an act of desperation, I walked into a Walmart with $3 and bought a can of white spray paint, a can of black spray paint, and a piece of poster board. in the parking lot, I tore the poster board in half and created two very similar images of a mountainscape with a moon, using the bag they came in as a texturing tool.
The paintings sold for $15 each. I turned back around, went back into the store, and spent the first 15 on more paint and poster board. The remaining $15 went to food and a pair of socks. After that, I realized that I knew how to fish. This little venture turned into Alamo City Spray, San Antonio’s downtown artist collective hosting up to 17 LIVE working artists. Since then, we have launched several small business ventures in the San Antonio area.
On October 6th, I received a call that my biological father had passed away. We had met and gained somewhat of a relationship in his last years. He had two other children after me, with his next wife. My father owned a small toy distribution business, here in San Antonio, for over 30 yrs. Before he passed, he mentioned that my siblings had no interest in the company, and looked down on it.
After he passed, my brother and sister came to me with a milk crate full of old handwritten invoice booklets. No business contacts, no money, no inventory, no legal documentation… just a crate full of old invoice booklets. “Here’s the business Dad always wanted you to have”, was what they told me… and I was THANKFUL.
It was then that I realized why I had spent all those years in the places that I had… why I had studied for years on end, written over 100 business plans, why I had spent my entire life building, failing, trying again, failing, having little success, failing again and getting back up… it was all training. Without the knowledge and experience I had gained in those awful places and times, I wouldn’t have known what to do with that milk crate.
Starting from Zero Dollars and Zero Cents, I visited every account I could make out, plotted them on google maps, and built a real business route. Now, after all the paperwork, planning, legal documentation, and a ton of man-hours, Reality Check Toys is the largest toy distribution company in all of the greater San Antonio Area, currently serving over 300 local businesses, and growing.
Sometimes life hands us lemons, but it’s up to us to figure out how to make the lemonade. Today is July 2nd, 2022.
Only 2 and a half years from homelessness, my lovely lady, Denise Martinez, and I own or control 9 different businesses, two of which are nonprofit organizations designed to strengthen our city in multiple ways, and we are developing a series of grant and entrepreneurship programs that will be released in the near very future.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road to success has certainly been bumpy.
Over the years, I’ve started, built, grown, and destroyed probably 20 businesses. I think one of my biggest hurdles in life was a lack of education and an atmosphere for growth. No one around me knew how to be successful.
We were simply taught the old paradigm, that in order to be successful, you must go to school, get good grades, so you can get into a good college, you can get a good job, where you can work and make someone else rich, for the rest of your life.
That wasn’t appealing to me at all. Mindset has always been the biggest hurdle.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a multi-faceted creative.
The companies that I’ve built, launched, grown, and operated have been in many fields, such as mycology, e-commerce, retail sales, product manufacturing, social media management, and marketing, cannabis extraction and distillation, performance art, residential construction, personal fitness, logistics, B2B sales and marketing, and real estate investments.
All in all, I just want to live life, however, I choose to, each day, and make a little money doing it.
What’s next?
Looking forward, both my personal and professional paths are taking great strides of positivity and growth.
As of this year, I’ve moved to a strategy of business acquisitions and real estate investments, San Antonio is a beautiful city that has given my family a life that it could have never had anywhere else.
I am currently interested in building a team of Go-Getters, hard-hitters, and move-makers, that are willing to join me in building an empire. Let’s shape our world together!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://reycallefoundation.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alamocityspray/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristopherDay1980
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisDay2022
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-cBYt38bM9uOSm46YgroMg
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/chrisday1980/
