Kanye West is no stranger to the strength of a creative partnership, launching his music career under the mentorship and guidance of JAY-Z and eventually parting ways to build fame in his own right. A decade and a few Grammys later, West found himself on the other side of the table, bringing Virgil Abloh onto his team as fashion adviser and creative director. And just as West did before him, Abloh would too go his own way, eventually establishing one of the hottest brands of the moment, Off-White™.

While West and Abloh have both had success in their most recent design ventures, both creatives faced a bit of fumbling with their first attempts—West with his failed Pastelle label and A.P.C. joint project, and Abloh with a video titled “A TEAM WITH NO SPORT” that featured PYREX VISION clothing. Yet, as Abloh pointed out in a lecture to Columbia University in February, these initial setbacks were integral to future success. “The only way to get to the end means is to start your domino effect which is basically put out bad work. It was an idea called PYREX VISION… the aftereffect of this (video) is that Off-White™ doesn’t exist without it,” Abloh said.

While it’s hard to pinpoint an inflection point where Abloh gained enough momentum to forge his own path, a huge domino fell when his album design work on Watch the Throne earned a Grammy nomination in 2012. “After a monster hit like that, Kanye had more clout than ever, and Virgil was able to leverage his new fame to launch his Off-White™ label in Milan two years later,” says Adam Padilla, co-founder of Brandfire, creative branding agency.

Although Abloh has now gained notoriety in his own right, the two designers stood in very different positions only a few years ago. While West launched his fashion career from the throne of self-proclaimed god and future president, Abloh has built his name and career simultaneously, down-up from more humble beginnings. As a result, the two designers have adopted different yet similar strategies in building their brands. Now, with last week’s official announcement of Virgil Abloh’s design project for Nike, which strongly mirrors the disruptive adidas YEEZY collaboration, a daunting question looms: will the pupil surpass the mentor?