To the Extreme
Shloime Fellig’s path from Parisian yeshiva to tech-savvy online commerce
![Shloime Fellig](/media/touro-college/communications/images/featured/2013-featured/ShloimeFellig.jpg)
While earning his Psychology degree at Touro’s Lander College of Arts & Sciences (LAS), Shloime Fellig, Miami native and current Brooklyn resident, founded Outgrow.me, which provides a unique platform to sell creations originally endorsed by Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Rockethub. As a result, Outgrow.me is one of the only Web destinations to find, for example, Inna Jam’s spicy Fresno Chili or the revolutionary Ouya free-to-play game console. In essence, Outgrow.me both capitalizes on the growing crowdfunding approach to design and manufacture and offers exciting goods and services that even Amazon doesn’t stock.
Despite its virtual pretense, Outgrow.me still manages to personalize visitors’ browsing. “Part of the experience is to view a full-length video of the designer explaining the product and showing how it works,” he says. “That’s really a differentiating point. Instead of browsing by photo, you really get to see the product in action. That’s what draws people.”
It’s no wonder that convenience serves him well. Despite his relatively young age, Fellig is married, taking up to 20 credits a semester and already boasted a global education before landing at Touro. In lieu of a traditional high school, Fellig spent his youth at prestigious Yeshivas in countries of diverse locations including France and Russia. During that time, he was profoundly influenced by one of his Russian teachers in particular, who he still keeps in touch with half a decade later, and who Fellig calls “a wonderful mentor whose dedication and devotion to his students left a huge impression on me.” At the same time, he developed what he remembers as “a fascination with technology, gadgets and online development.” So, despite working in real estate while attending Touro, Fellig also took courses on how to build websites, “put together [Outgrow.me] on my own, and it’s kind of blown up since then.”
The site has received media attention from BGR.com, Lifehacker.com and Ghacks.net, among others. Fellig is the ultimate modern-day multitasker and thrives on being ahead of the curve. It’s a self-imposed mandate that’s rewarding for him and admired by others, but also one he admits isn’t for everyone. “I’m somebody who does everything to the extreme,” he admits. “If somebody’s easily overwhelmed, that may not be the best thing. I make it look all rosy, but it’s definitely a strenuous experience. On the other hand, people go to college and choose from maybe a handful of opportunities, and you lose out on what you may have a lot of potential to do. That brings me back to Kickstarter, where you can just come up with an idea, work at it and get the support you need to make it a reality. It shows that, sometimes, building something fantastic is closer at reach than one might think. Kind of the same when it came to building [Outgrow.me]. All I had was an idea and access to a free website with interactive tutorials. Things can explode really quickly, and as long as you have the dedication to work all hours of the night and make your passion a priority and, as my wife likes to say, punch today in the face, you should be able to make a lot more happen than you would imagine.”