About ASTRO 9

ASTRO 9 was created in West Des Moines, Iowa, by 18-year-old Grady Walston.  

Grady started designing his own shirts and wearing them to school in the fall of 2023 during his senior year at Valley High School.  It all started with a shirt with a homemade vinyl patch. On the back is said “Mental Health Matters,” and on the front it showed an astronaut with a sticky note that read:

When the pressure to be a 10 is out of this world…”

 ( just try to be a 9…)

Entrepreneurship found him.

After having sold about a dozen that day, and over 400 shirts within the first two months, he took his proceeds and hired an attorney to file for an LLC and obtain an official Trademark for his brand. He doubled sales again, hitting the 1,000 shirt milestone by June of 2024 and found himself cast on a reality television show with other entrepreneurs from around the country, filming “The Blox” in July of 2024, with creator and producer Wes Bergmann. (MTV, Real World/TheChallenge). It was during this live-in business accelerator and incubator where the connections and opportunities really started to present themselves!

It didn't take long to realize there could be a greater purpose in the Astro 9 patch. Grady decided he wanted to do something impactful. Each shirt would have something to support mental health awareness and a portion of the proceeds would be donated to help local youth emergency service. 

Outside of ASTRO 9, Grady is a 5X State Champion Soccer Player and a National Runner Up. Soccer has been his life from a very early age. Now, ASTRO 9 is a close second.  He will be playing college soccer this fall  and studying entrepreneurship and business, while continuing to build his brand while simultaneously raising awareness and funds for a great cause!