I bought fake Jordans on eBay. Paid $300 for counterfeits. That experience made me so angry that I built an entire company to make sure it never happened to anyone else.
Every single sneaker that passes through GOAT is authenticated by hand. Every one. People think we're a marketplace. We're actually a trust company that happens to sell shoes.
We merged with Flight Club. A digital-first marketplace merging with the most legendary physical sneaker consignment store in the world. Online meets offline. That was the power move.
A pair of Air Jordan 1 OGs can sell for $5,000. A fake pair sells for $200. The price gap between real and fake is so large that authentication isn't just a feature — it's the entire value proposition.
Sneaker culture used to be niche. Now it's a $6 billion resale market. We didn't create the culture. We just built the infrastructure it needed.
Daishin and I failed at our previous startup — a food delivery app. We were two years too early. With GOAT, the timing was perfect. Sometimes the only difference between failure and a unicorn is timing.