• Ava Vickers' recovery from labrum surgery was anything but smooth, but her road to recovery also became one of self-discovery.
• After her second surgery, she decided it was time to start a clothing brand with her own slogan inspired by her journey.
• Vickers’ first business ventures led to others with a mind toward helping aspiring college athletes.

After months of playing through an injury, Ava Vickers and the Indiana volleyball medical staff decided she had to get labrum surgery to make a full recovery.

Her recovery was anything but smooth. Ten months after her surgery, she needed a second surgery, which did more than delay her return to the volleyball court.

The injury turned Vickers into an entrepreneur.

As Vickers began recovering from her second surgery, she realized it was a great time to start her business career. In June 2025, she launched her first company, Project You.

“I was always waiting for the perfect timing [to start Project You,] but I had this realization that there's never ever going to be a perfect time,” Vickers says. “Having all the emotions of going through injury was a push I needed to actually start it.”

Project You is a clothing line grounded in making the customer feel and look their best. The brand sells several crew-neck sweatshirts and hoodies with its signature quote, “You are the best project you will ever work on.” Since the original release in 2025, Vickers’ business has introduced six renditions of the sweatshirts in various colors.

To launch Project You, Vickers had to learn manufacturing, how to run a business, and how to develop a brand concept. Designing the product was easy, she says, but the technical aspects of running a business proved more difficult.

“I think that the best way to learn anything is by actually doing it,” Vickers says. “You can take as many business classes as you want, but I'm the kind of person where I felt like I was going to get the most experience with physically going through it.”

That was exactly what Vickers did with Project You. That experience led her to accept another opportunity off-court in 2023 when she became an athlete representative for Empower Athlete.

Current and former college athletes work with Empower Athlete to support the next generation through the recruiting process and transition to college athletics. The company’s goal is to provide potential collegiate athletes with information about how to navigate the process by connecting them with both former and current college athletes.

Athlete partners serve as representatives, providing recruiting and mental health advice for high school athletes looking to play at the next level.

“Being able to give back and share my experience and help the next generation of athletes become not only collegiate athletes but also just strong and empowered women has been really neat,” Vickers says.

During her own recruiting process, the Fishers, Indiana, native initially said she wanted to go farther away from home for college. But when she toured Indiana’s campus and spoke with the coaches, something clicked, and she had a sneaking suspicion she would be staying at home for the following four years.

“When I talked with the IU coaches here and [saw] stuff on campus and met everyone, I knew for sure that this was going to be home,” Vickers says.

Due to her club volleyball team, Municana Volleyball, Vickers was connected to the coaching staff fairly early in the recruiting process. The Indiana coaches would come to the tournaments where Municana competed.

Her recruiting process and experience dealing with injury gave her a valuable perspective that strengthened her eventual partnership with Empower Athlete. She’s now an athlete representative, a brand ambassador, and co-owner of the company. As an athlete representative, she’s the company’s specialist in setbacks, injuries, and doubt.

As a part of her ownership in both Empower Athlete and Project You, Vickers has leaned into social media branding for her personal and the Project You accounts. With the advancement of NIL, she’s had to learn to differentiate herself from her companies.

On the Project You account, Vickers posts promotional content and images of merchandise for sale. On her personal social media accounts, Vickers will post the shots that didn’t make the final cut or videos of her celebrating the small moments of her business. Still, its not always easy to separate where Vickers ends and her businesses begin.

“My businesses are a big part of my personal brand, but I definitely have my separate social accounts for the businesses,” Vickers says. “I try to keep my personal account myself-focused.”

A lot of Vickers’ social media brand is fashion and creativity. She says t`he creativity that goes into designing the product is her favorite part of being a business owner, and it’s come more naturally to her since the launch of Project You.

“I've always loved taking pictures and showing off fashion and all of that stuff,” Vickers says. “All throughout high school, I loved posting it, but I don't think I felt comfortable enough or as confident stepping into it until I broke down the walls and understood that it was a huge part of me.”

A big part of Vickers’ message within her social media and Project You is to be confident. For her that came with the life experience gained and risks taken since starting university. She’s always enjoyed fashion, but she grew more comfortable in expressing it when she got to Indiana.

After learning and growing throughout her collegiate career, injury and two surgeries, Vickers wishes she had been more okay with the chaos the life of an athlete brings. She said she wishes she would’ve embraced the craziness of it all and allowed herself to enjoy the moments while they were happening, which is why she’s grateful for her injury and everything that’s come with it.

“It's been a crazy journey when it comes to my shoulder,” Vickers says. “But it's nothing that I would ever change… [There are] so many things that I've learned through it.”