Adam Kemp’s first furniture flip was a set of Broyhill Brasilia chairs from the San Luis Obispo Goodwill Outlet. After selling the mid-century modern collection on Facebook Marketplace, Kemp realized that there were other buyers interested in function design, which allowed the concept of Thrifty Beaches Collection to come to life.
Now, he sits in the Thrifty Beaches headquarters at 1019 Broad St. retelling his story of achievement and adversity. The Masters of Business Administration (MBA) freshman, who is also a nationally ranked Division I wrestler, spent the beginning of March celebrating a double triumph: the grand opening of the store in downtown San Luis Obispo and achieving the title for his weight class at the 2024 Pac-12 tournament, naming him the third Cal Poly wrestler to earn the 174 pound Pac-12 title.
As Kemp prepares for the NCAA Wrestling Championships, which will take place in Kansas City on March 21-23, he reflects on the busiest and most impactful two weeks of his career. With Thrifty Beaches’ grand opening on March 2 and the 2024 Pac 12 tournament on March 10, Kemp saw the importance of compartmentalization illustrated in front of him.
“At wrestling practice, when that door closes behind me, I’m not a business owner, I’m just a wrestler,” he said. “I’ve had to be different versions of myself at very different times.”
This is an idea that he refers to as the “Adam Effect”: the ability to separate aspects of life to juggle it all.
Kemp knew he had an entrepreneurial spirit at a young age. As a middle schooler living in the suburbs of Chicago, he had to make quick decisions, like selling his father’s custom Clint Orms belt buckle online to pay rent.
He recalls witnessing his family’s financial struggles firsthand, yet even at a young age, Kemp was certain his situation wasn’t permanent. Like a true businessman, he turned his struggles into opportunities and learned resilience.
Kemp was the wide-eyed kid on your porch who persuaded you to buy candy you didn’t need. He found pride in carrying himself to strangers’ doors and waving fundraising catalogs confidently to grab the attention of potential customers. He knew he had a gift, but at the time it wasn’t clear how far ambition would take him.
Kemp received a wrestling scholarship and transferred to Cal Poly from Fresno State University as a communication studies major in 2021. During this period, he created a routine that revolved around wrestling, studying and DoorDashing. When collecting and selling antiques joined the picture, he realized he would have to sacrifice time and money.
Maria Trott, Kemp’s business partner and girlfriend, remained by his side through this transition, even when his ideas seemed unfeasible.
“He told me he was going to get this big truck. He was like, ‘I’m just going to max out my credit card and use that as my down payment, then with this truck, I’m going to grow a business,’” Trott said.
The pair soon began selling collectibles and clothing items at California vintage fairs. To Kemp, the act of advertising his market never seemed like a job because he found enjoyment in sharing a space with items that could not be replicated. The rarity of the antiques he encountered and sold fueled his fascination for collecting.
“No amount of money could replicate what was behind the glass because time created it,” Kemp said.
As he attended more markets, Kemp created a philosophy for shopping that looked like buying without concern for truck space.
He recalled one instance where he gathered too many items at an Alameda fair and found himself shoving a leather chair into any open trunk space for numerous minutes. Upon entering the parking lot, a stranger approached Kemp and Trott, requesting to buy the chair from them. In the end, the couple was able to hit the road without an excessive amount of items weighing them down, and the chair found a new home.
The wrestler laughs to himself looking back at the moment and views it as a confirmation of his good eye for style.
Kemp and Trott’s lives were altered in 2022 when they decided to expand their audience to Cal Poly students. Large rectangular bins became Thrifty Beaches’ signature feature on Dexter Lawn, where students would dig through the bottom for a $10 steal.
“It was crazier than any vintage fair I had ever done,” Kemp said. “That was when it really sparked for me that the market is here.”
Following their first pop-up event, Kemp noticed groups of vendors lined up on the lawn replicating his idea the very next day.
Communication studies sophomore Hazel Gerson discovered Thrifty Beaches on Cal Poly’s campus last year. On the lawn, she found some of her favorite pieces of clothing, like a cropped Cowboys hoodie and a pair of Carhartt pants, while also discovering a space for community.
“Both of [Kemp’s and Trott’s] energies are just great. I’m a very loyal customer, once I develop those kinds of relationships with a store, it’s nice because it feels like you have a place,” Gerson said.
Thrifty Beaches gradually developed into more than a second-hand business with the creation of unique branding and merchandise specific to its name. Kemp designed, printed and sold a series of clothing items featuring the earth uttering the phrase, “Yo, that’s gas,” which sold out on the first day of its release.
It didn’t strike Kemp that people were wearing his designs around San Luis Obispo until he spotted a customer wearing the hoodie at California Fresh Market while grocery shopping.
“They didn’t even know that I made it,” Kemp said.
At the same time his business was taking off, Kemp was earning wins over nationally ranked wrestlers. As a young boy, he was reluctant to learn the sport but eventually found himself on the mat after being encouraged by his father Lee Kemp, a four-time Gold Medalist in the World Cup of Wrestling and three-time Gold Medalist in the World Championships.
For the first 10 years of his life, Kemp had no clear idea of who his father was due to a separation between his parents. Lee recalls sending a poster of himself to his children during that time, which ended up on Kemp’s wall without him realizing it was his father’s face above his bed.
“In all those three to four years, it was up on his wall. [Adam] said he didn’t even know it was me and he additionally didn’t know anything about wrestling,” Lee said.
Kemp and his sister Mercedes made the move from California to Palatine, Illinois, with their father, where they were first introduced to the Midwest region of the United States and the world of wrestling. When Kemp started attending young adult wrestling events, he was terrified and described the sight as “cage fighting.”
Even so, Kemp was convinced by his father, whom he watched working at wrestling clinics and selling nutritional supplements, to start wrestling at age 12. Lee saw unavoidable potential in his son as a young wrestler and persuaded Kemp to try out for William Fremd High School’s team with an irresistible fifty-dollar bill.
Lee explained that wrestling is unlike any other sport because although team dynamics are involved during practice, wrestlers face their opponent alone when they reach the mat. With the physical demands and mental toughness that come along with wrestling, Kemp struggled to stay committed to the lifestyle.
“I gave him every possible reason he should wrestle,” Lee said. “And finally I said to him a quote from a legend in the sport, Dan Gable. I said, ‘Adam, once you wrestle, everything else in your life is going to be easy.’”
With that motivation, Kemp scored a scholarship to Fresno State University in 2018 where he served the team for two years. After transferring to Cal Poly, he placed fourth at 165 pounds in the Pac-12 Championships, a tournament held by a collegiate athletic conference to determine who will make it to the NCAA National Championships.
Kemp held the top seed at 174 pounds in the 2024 Pac-12 tournament, defeating Cael Valencia from Arizona State University and Tyler Brennan from The University of Arkansas at Little Rock to claim the title. With a 16-3 overall record, Kemp credits his father, girlfriend and God for helping him manage both a business and a wrestling career.
“I feel like I’ve been guided in my life. There’s been so many times where I should have been destroyed but something just opened another door,” he said.
Kemp plans on opening more Thrifty Beaches storefronts and challenging the conventional business model as he does so. Until then, he finds joy inside the doors of his first store where he can be a business owner and on the mat where he is allowed to simply be a wrestler.
