I built a stock market for sneakers. Literally. Bid, ask, price history, market cap — all the mechanics of a stock exchange, but for Jordans. People thought it was a joke until we hit $1 billion in GMV.
I was an IBM consultant who collected sneakers. I started a blog called Campless that tracked resale prices. That blog became the data engine behind StockX. Never underestimate a side project.
Dan Gilbert — the Cavaliers owner — invested early. He said: you're building the NASDAQ of things. That phrase stuck. We're not an e-commerce company. We're a marketplace with price transparency. Big difference.
Every item on StockX is authenticated. Every single one. We built authentication centers around the world. Counterfeits are the cancer of resale. We're the chemotherapy.
We expanded from sneakers to streetwear, electronics, collectibles, and trading cards. Anything with a resale market and a counterfeiting problem. That's a surprisingly large number of things.
A pair of Travis Scott Air Jordan 1s sold for $2,000 on StockX. Retail was $175. We didn't create that demand. We just made it transparent. Before StockX, that same pair sold for $2,000 on Instagram — with zero buyer protection.