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Adam Bain loves sneakers — he tweets about them all the time.
So it’s not surprising that Bain, who left his job as the COO of Twitter last November, is joining the board of GOAT, a commerce startup that lets users buy and sell rare sneakers, similar to eBay.
Bain met GOAT’s founders because he was a heavy user of the product himself, and was impressed with their drive. GOAT’s co-founders, Eddy Lu and Daishin Sugano, struck out multiple times on startups before hitting on GOAT. The company has raised more than $37 million in funding, and users are buying and selling millions of dollars worth of sneakers on their app.
“They’ve got hustle and heart, which was sort of the prerequisite for me when building or working with great teams,” Bain said. He’s admittedly unexperienced when it comes to the commerce and marketplaces, but says that he joined the board in part because he wants to learn more about the industry. He hopes to be helpful for GOAT as the company grows and scales.
New Dray's, only in SF. Thank you @Nike and @Money23Green! pic.twitter.com/X0kcLEXUns
— adam bain (@adambain) June 4, 2016
This is Bain’s first board role, and really his first public undertaking since leaving Twitter more than six months back. Bain says he’s in no rush to go back to working full time — he’s enjoying playing tennis! — but GOAT is not the only startup he’s interested in. Bain is also advising a few other early- and mid-stage startups in industries like hardware and digital health.
“For the first time in a long while I’m back to learning mode instead of just doing mode,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
