In five short years, it’s gone from a niche bookmark on a sneakerhead’s browser to being one of the most influential businesses in fashion. StockX is the place you go to find (or sell) the world’s most lusted after-sneakers and a whole lot more besides. It has exclusive drops to end all exclusive drops, and it’s grown so much that when hackers recently targeted the site, a reported 6.8m users may have been affected.

But how did it get that big in the first place? How does a second-hand sneaker shop get valued at $1 billion? To answer that question, you have to travel back to 2015.

Back then, a sneakerhead who wanted to offload a particularly coveted pair of trainers had limited options. The platforms for selling second-hand goods were outdated, unhelpful and, most importantly, easy for scammers to manipulate. Sneaker pricing expert Josh Luber found himself frustrated with the lack of ease and transparency in the resale industry, as did venture capitalist Dan Gilbert, who’d been watching his son pawn shoes on eBay with middling success.

The pair saw an opportunity to apply stock market mechanics to the resale market. Alongside businessman Greg Schwartz, they came up with StockX.

The site was an immediate hit, in no small part due to the fact that Gilbert was owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, one of America’s biggest basketball teams. “It meant that some of the organic relationships which came through helped us launch in a pretty big way,” says Derek Morrison, StockX’s director of Europe.

Early investors included Eminem and Mark Wahlberg; everyone from Lebron James to high-end jeweller Ben Baller have since released items through the site (billed as ‘IPOs’, Initial Product Offerings, due to the fact that customers’ bids set the price). Morrison joined last year, when StockX expanded into Europe. Fast forward to 2019, StockX is a billion-dollar company, one that is eyeing further expansion. Not bad for a shoe shop.