We recently connected with BJ Durel and have shared our conversation below.

BJ, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

First and foremost I’m a father to 5 amazing kids. Our two oldest are adopted from Foster Care. I also own a soccer training company in Cincinnati, OH. My love for soccer and the foster agency created the idea of a Footy Gold tournament to raise money for the kids in foster care. During the process of chairing this event, creating it, getting sponsors, making calls, etc. I reached out to a major branded training equipment company to donate to the cause – it fit in line with what their website claimed. We spoke for several months and had a plan that they were going to donate money to the agency and prices to the kids. 10 days before the event that company completely ghosted us and we never heard from them again. The agency reps were mad, I was mad, and frustrated that they would promise so much and get so many people excited and then just ghost everyone. Determined to get equipment and prices for the kids I researched their manufacturers and suppliers to see what I could do. And that is how TEKKRS was born.

BJ, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up playing multiple sports from a young age in Broussard, LA. My dad was my coach in baseball and my assistant coach in soccer. My parents always encouraged me to try new things and to always give my all in everything. That still resonates with me today. In the 90’s we moved up to Cincinnati, OH where I started to focus more on soccer and all the sports I did outside of soccer I did to make me a better all around athlete for soccer. This led me to have opportunities to play overseas and college.

My passion for the game and for players led me to start Durel Football, LLC which has a training academy attached to it. I’m lucky enough to train some of the most talented players in the Cincinnati market, and do summer work with my programs with some of the best players in OH, KY, IN, and beyond.

Over my years of training players I would buy training tools from different sports equipment companies. I would either leave the shopping cart because it was too expensive or the reviews weren’t great. When I did buy products they would break after a couple weeks of use. I only had two options: 1) buy overpriced training items, or, 2) buy cheap products that lasted three weeks. I wanted to fix that.

TEKKRS was created out of frustration and to be honest, anger. I was working with an international sports equipment brand to donate to a non-profit event I was chairing to raise money for kids in Foster Care. We had been communicated for months. The foster agency was excited and I was too about what this company had agreed to donate for the kids. Ten days before the event this companies reps completely ghosted us and stopped returning calls and emails. Needless to say the marketing and excitement around this company helping was destroyed and it made a lot of people really upset. I wanted to do something to help so I started looking into what it would take to get products delivered. I called manufacturers, suppliers, stores, anyone and everyone. It was too late to have things in time for the event.

That’s when I had the idea of TEKKRS. I wanted to build a company that would make quality products for a good price. Fill that gap between ‘too expensive’ and ‘cheap’. That’s what we’ve been able to!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Very few things in life are easy. Being an entrepreneur is not one of those things! When starting TEKKRS I had no idea what I was doing. Trial by fire would be a nice way of putting it. I was doing this in my spare time and I had no investors helping financially or mentoring me. Truly learning as I went. The first couple of weeks I spent time looking up manufactures, learning as much as I could without jumping in blind. Lots of YouTube and reading on Google. I would call companies like Dicks Sporting Goods and SKLZ and act as reps to learn where they get products and where their manufacturing came from.

I started waking up at 2:00am to connect with manufacturing overseas, starting looking on manufacturing sites and messaging back and forth for hours into the mid-morning hours. Seven days a week I’d stay up late enough (10:30ish) to allows the overseas employees time to arrive to work to send them my questions and then I’d wake up early enough (2:00ish) to get their replies and start conversations. That went on for about a year, seven days a week.

What most people don’t know is that I was working (and still am) full time for an employer in Cincinnati. So I would work my business 2-6am, get the kids ready for school, work my ‘job’ 8-5, spend the evenings with the kids, my business 9-10:30pm, and do it all over again. There were plenty of times where I was so exhausted I couldn’t tell what was up and what was down. Days where I just wanted to quit and give up. The critics telling me that I’m crazy and that I’ll never be able to compete on a large scale and I should just quit. More fuel for my fire! Now I’m at a point where I’m working my business 4-6ish, periodically through the day, and seldomly in the evenings.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

With Durel Football my academy has only had organic growth. I’ve never bought ads on social media, I’ve never spammed emails, and I’ve never paid for followers or clients. It’s all been word of mouth. And I one-hundred precent believe it’s because of my authenticity, honesty, and my respect for the players I work with.

I work with players as young as ten and I train players who are professionals in the sport being paid to play a game they love. Even though I spend most of the year working with players on a small or individual scale, I’m most known for my summer camps. My camps are intense and they are truly one of a kind. So much so, that Nike took notice and has been a sponsor of Durel Football for the last three years.

The reputation of DFA (Durel Football Academy) has grown locally and even extended beyond the US border because of how we work with and treat out players. We make it very clear when we open registration to the summer programs that they are not for everyone. Our unspoken moto is that ‘we’ll push you to the absolute edge everyday, and then we’ll push you a bit farther’. We train the complete athlete: fitness, technical, tactical, and mental. We do this over a 6-9 week period meeting several times a week. We let it be know that they are there to train and compete. Every drill, every challenge, every game they are there to win – no excuses.

The environment that we’ve build is not for everyone and we make that very clear. But, for those who done come and compete. At the end of the program they have elevated themselves to an entirely different level. And it’s very noticeable. I pride DFA knowing that our reputation is so strong that we have had over 80 college coaches in two years come and scout players for scholarships. This was completely unheard of prior to DFA’s programs. This is why players travel from multiple states away (and Canada) to stay in hotels or host families and attend.

DFA’s growth has come solely on reputation alone. Players and families trust us to make them better and we respect them enough not to coddle and baby them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.durelfootball.com and www.tekkrs.com
• Instagram: DurelFootballAcademy and TEKKRS_Gear
• Facebook: Durel Football Academy and TEKKRS (both business) / BJ Durel (personal)
• Linkedin: William (BJ) Durel
• Twitter: @DurelFootball