Like I said, its been a lot of work, and as you mentioned, I was sleeping on an air mattress, which is not that comfortable. You want to find the right people to believe in where youre going and are really motivated and excited about that. So, I have three kids bikes. Then, also, the dot-com bubble hit, and everyone stopped sponsoring those events. Here, I think that you were alluding to it by hiring the wrong people, maybe not having the right people seated in the right seats. I think that were going to really enjoy the guest that we have today. The only examples we could look to at the time were dating sites. Dont cut corners on that. You have a lot more exposure across the country. We sell a ton of cars at OfferUp. We had a lot of great. We had been married, and we always wanted to have kids. Tell us about the turning page here, going into a new chapter. Nick Huzar: Id say definitely the people. The advent of the mobile revolution transformed the way in which people transact. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. Im sure that all those experiences and lessons with Konnects you were able to apply them here. Net Worth, Salary, House. To achieve this, they need to continue growing consumer awareness, increase seller liquidity (percentage of items that sell), and continue to emphasize ease of use and trust for all users.. Ask Jeff Jordan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (an OfferUp investor), the former president of PayPal and the former president and chief executive officer of OpenTable. OfferUp is one the most exciting e-commerce companies I have come across in a long time, Levchin said in a statement last November. Then once people are hired and we interview for the best, we have what we call our Operating Principles. According to a 2016 OfferUp and ClearVoice survey, OfferUp found that 48% of respondents consider their home to be cluttered with items they do not use, and 62% own more than 10 items they have not used in the past year. "We have been one of the most active investors in marketplace businesses around the world, and rarely have we seen the scale, liquidity, virality and growth that OfferUp has demonstrated in a market this big.". We would find that handful of engineers, and we would pay them. In March 2020, the company raised another $120 million through the acquisition of Letgo. This is just the consumer side of things, but I also started to spend time in local retail stores. How was life growing up there? And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. We raised a little bit of money. Amazing. But if you peeled away the branding, you realized that under the hood, they all kind of functioned the same. He was definitely that. Respondents feel that it is easier to donate than sell, citing the required time investment and amount of work. I used to go to Goodwill stores, and Id realized the cars never stopped. So, when we built out shipping, we said, Why not just enable this so you can continue to do local transactions, but now you dont even need to get in your car. And it opens up the nation for buyers and sellers. The Investment Thesis: A Venture Capitalist Perspective. I think the learning lesson was interesting because we realized that networking is valuable, but its also inefficient. This is so creative. I think an important lesson for people that are building businesses: have an amazing significant other thats understanding because had she said no, we wouldnt be talking right now. I need to show you something. Basically, I had prepared a 12-slide pitch deck to pitch my wife on the idea. He did a lot of back-end database. He was able to figure things out. What an amazing business that youve built with OfferUp. Again, you have to convince people why do they want to come along in this journey, this risk of this fun, proven idea? A few other stats that I think might be interesting about our OfferUp community and usage is, especially with this transaction coming together, well have 20 million users across the U.S. We also have a lot of our top markets where we started to see double-digit growth. In this case, it led you to where you are today. On the promotions bucket, we have what we call 1P ads, and thats simply going into the product, and the seller can decide to increase their visibility and pay either one time or a subscription to dramatically increase the visibility of their listings. We hired. Nicki Minaj Net Worth. Nick Huzar facilitated the design and implementation of a completely new website as the company transitioned from Voicestream to T-Mobile. I think in any business, you have to bring more to the table than an idea, and you have to be able to contribute. Alejandro: Definitely, you learned the sleeping on an air mattress and living in the office. Alejandro: Then, after this, you ended up leaving, and then the company ended up closing down. How deep in the business are you going and understanding the metrics and inputs and the outputs, and we expect that from everybody, whether an executive or somebody on the frontlines of our customer service team. Huzar and van Veelen focused intently on understanding the competitive landscape, consumer behavior and the economic backdrop to design a tech-enabled solution for its customer base. Alejandro: There, you talked about, Arean, your co-founder, and you were mentioning that hes an amazing engineer, and Im sure that there are a lot of people that are listening now that are maybe looking for a tech co-founder. Tell us about the turning page here, going into a new chapter. He and I would sit down and rift on things quite a bit. Thats a nice, easy way to get ahold of me. Follow Zack on Twitter and read his columns in Forbes. : And this led you in your 20s to your first company. Previous to OfferUp Nick cofounded Konnects raising $6M in capital, scaling to over 1M users within 18months. When we could find engineers, we would pay them just a teeny bit, but wed compensate them more with ownership and stock in what we were building. For some people, thats not comfortable, so you need people that can zig and zag with the company as it scales. Nick Eh 30 Net Worth. We have really good features like search alerts and things you can say that will notify people right away. I mentioned the stories of our origin; I still feel like were very much in the early days. I can work with engineers, and tie into databases, and be functional. It was event networking, but this led to your real first experience, which was Konnects Inc. Tell us about this. (Source: Mary Meeker/KPCB, 2016 Internet Trends Report). If you look at commerce in general in the U.S., about 85% of it is still not online today. : I think businesses are about people, so when I think about it and when I think about the investors and the team. In the first year, I think the hard part was, I had convinced a brilliant engineer that I worked with and connected to co-found OfferUp with me. The way we separated those out was intentional, where we came up with core values fairly early in our evolution, and what we didnt want to do is what I think a lot of companies do. Again, were only in the United States. We hired too quickly, and we didnt know what we wanted. Alejandro: What ended up being the business model of the business? I think they were all great people in their own right, but for what we were trying to build, probably not. Arean van Veelen (left) and Nick Huzar (right) are the co-founders of OfferUp. I think were probably one of the top places in the country in terms of units. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at [emailprotected]. We dont have to send out our phone numbers and our emails anymore, and we can make it much more secure. How did venture capitalists view the investment opportunity? A few other stats that I think might be interesting about our OfferUp community and usage is, especially with this transaction coming together, well have 20 million users across the U.S. We also have a lot of our top markets where we started to see double-digit growth. It was extremely expensive back then. They had a bunch of theme parks, but they had no online ticketing. The other one is payments. There are plenty of things that you just dont sign up for that you have to address as somebody thats running a business, but I think of companies as the ultimate creative experience. We give them promotions and analytics. I was fortunate to sit next to engineers who taught me how to code. I came up with a logo. And I didnt tell my parents, and then my mom found out about it because they wouldnt buy me one. We could leverage chat. We came up with those three because we looked around the company at the time. : Yeah. We started very early, way before Friendster, way before Myspace. I would design. Im happy to chat. He figured that out on his own. Probably just not the best advisors and folks around the table. See How I Can Help You With Your Fundraising Efforts. Even though we have these amazing giant tech companies, we still think theres a huge opportunity in local, and thats going to be our focus and continue to be our focus. We said, Who are the people that are striving here, and why? You look at driven, for example. How do you guys make money for the people that are listening? Nick Huzar: By the way, he would hate it if I called him an engineer because he is definitely more than that. What are your core values at OfferUp? I think in any business, you have to bring more to the table than an idea, and you have to be able to contribute. Sure, there are plenty of challenges. Nick Huzar is the Founder, President & Chief Product Officer and CEO at OfferUp. I have a trampoline that I purchased. Ultimately, they decided to close it down. So, that was some of the initial sketches that we did. We said, Who are the people that are striving here, and why? You look at driven, for example. Zack Friedman is the founder of Make Lemonade, a personal finance platform that offers free and unbiased financial advice, including to the over 40 million borrowers looking to manage,repayand save money on their student loans. Nick Huzar: Yeah. Successful minimalist websites are a rarity, but Drudge Report (which generates more than 750 million page views per month) and Craigslist are two that have bucked the trend. But if you peeled away the branding, you realized that under the hood, they all kind of functioned the same. We learned through that experience. I didnt get halfway through it, and my wife said, This is the biggest idea youve ever had. Its not engineering for the sake of engineering. Thats been a big part of it. Again, because were always focusing on removing friction. Nick Huzar is CEO and Co-Founder of OfferUp. : Got it. Nick Huzar played a vital role in assisting the CEO with fundraising efforts which attracted over $6 million in investment. My parents threw me into a bunch of things as a kid. You may opt-out by. I think the learning lesson was interesting because we realized that networking is valuable, but its also inefficient. So, good stuff. I had a father who worked at Boeing his whole life. An example of that is, can I take complex problems and distill them down? To give you an idea of scale, weve been installed about 90 million times. Id say as hard as it is, the people are everything. Ive got to go get a job. Im out there interviewing for a job and spending a bunch of time on that, but I think like any good ideas, for entrepreneurs that are out there, I believe that if you cant get it out of your head, you should listen to that voice. Nick Hanauer Net Worth. What would you say really made him such an amazing tech co-founder? I think they were all great people in their own right, but for what we were trying to build, probably not. He is a founder that has done it multiple times. Why I definitely appreciate him is, he definitely thinks a lot like an engineer, but he also has a great business mind. I know that OfferUp was also a result of doing a pivot. Founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark, Craigslist is the local classified advertisements website that generates over 50 billion page views per month all without an iOS or Android app. Theres a handful of operating principles that we use, and then for people that are on the interview loop, we ask them to ask some questions to probe for those, and we also bring those principles into our performance reviews. He bagged this fortune because of his hard work and his excellent gaming skills. So, we found a handful of people that were willing to actually do that at that time. The other one is payments. Buyers can then message sellers to meet, and then pay for items through the app or in person. The company has raised $380 million from top tier investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, GGV Capital, Tiger Global Management, Warburg Pincus, T. Rowe Price, and Allen & Company to name a few. We made a lot of mistakes hiring. Well continue to obsess over liquidity. : When I was in college, I was pretty fortunate that I lived in a fraternity, and the majority of the people living there were getting MIS degrees, which is Management Information Systems, basically a business major with an influence in computer science. OfferUp is the largest mobile marketplace in the USA. I was leading projects for Paramount Parks. So, I think its a founders job to be intentional about the type of culture that theyre going to build as a company and bring that into everything they do from promotions to recruiting. Ive been interviewing, but I also have this idea I want to run by you. The pitch, to be clear, had nothing to do with used goods, and it still doesnt to this day. I think it was good. So, another great learning lesson I had is, find partners and co-founders that are very different than you and can complement the areas youre not that strong in. I was fortunate to sit next to engineers who taught me how to code. I know that OfferUp was also a result of doing a pivot. : So, you got the blessing from the boss-in-house. We sell a ton of cars at OfferUp. Please subscribe to unlock this content. He began acting in theater at the age of 7 and released his debut single in 2002. How much money have you guys raised to date that is probably disclosed? I think just given the fact that I had just come off of another startup, I had no income because I had just quit. We could make it a visual experience, this kind of geo-aware. I would build out the website. Thats equally as important. Nick Huzar: Today, years and years later, we try to figure out how can we help buyers and sellers be more successful? Alejandro: Ive heard you talk about core values a few times and how that ties into culture. Thats been the whole focal point of the business since Day One. Neighborly: we have a no asshole policy. Is that right? If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. This is so creative. The pitch is, why is value sitting, and why is it sitting all around us, and why cant we see it. She is a rapper, singer, and songwriter from Trinidad & Tobago. . northern state university softball roster. Like I said, its been a lot of work, and as you mentioned, I was sleeping on an air mattress, which is not that comfortable. OfferUp has raised over $221 million from some of the smartest minds in technology and finance, including one of its most recent investors, Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and co-founder and chief executive officer of Affirm. Also, I spent a lot of my time in a private art class most of my life, which again, as we talked about, building up companies, and I think theres a lot of creativity involved in that, so thats been part of who I am. I think an important lesson for people that are building businesses: have an amazing significant other thats understanding because had she said no, we wouldnt be talking right now. You add all these things up, and I kept thinking to myself, I think while there are existing solutions for this problem, I dont think theyre meeting the needs of people, clearly. But Id say the first year working there, there were about 25 people in that company. What is in the retail store down the street, and why dont people know that those things exist in there. Get a custom action plan and all the help that you need to start raising more capital. I think that also ties nicely into culture and the intention about that. Okay, great. We were finding that theyre able to sell cars way faster by signing up for this program. I started to buy and sell things locally. Just enter your email below. I could code that. His name is Arean, and hes very talented, and I think in the first year, it was just he and I coding. I look forward to it. California Weighs $360,000 in Reparations to Eligible Black Residents. Nicholas Jerry Jonas is an American singer, songwriter, and actor from Dallas. He has founded many companies which are doing very well. I could design all the apps, but Im not a great back-end engineer at all. Between he and I, we were able to build the first website, the first mobile app. We would find that handful of engineers, and we would pay them. Those are our overall what we look for in people before they even come into the halls of OfferUp. What would you say was the most painful and the biggest lesson, at the same time, for you? Tell us about the early days, and also how you incubated the concept of the idea. OfferUp has a very visual interface so the quality of your photos can impact how many offers you receive. So, when we built out shipping, we said, Why not just enable this so you can continue to do local transactions, but now you dont even need to get in your car. And it opens up the nation for buyers and sellers. Im sure that all those experiences and lessons with Konnects you were able to apply them here. The company has raised $380 million from top tier investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, GGV Capital, Tiger Global Management, Warburg Pincus, T. Rowe Price, and Allen & Company to name a few. Particularly, the browsing experience when you first open up the app. Can I communicate succinctly? Nick Huzar Net Worth. Im sure this was an incredible MBA experience for you in real life. : As I mentioned earlier, with some of the founding stories, Id say liquidity [28:19] is the number one metric that we spend a lot of time focusing on because we want to make sure that were creating the best experience for buyers and sellers. My parents threw me into a bunch of things as a kid. That was a lot of work. He is becoming more successful day by day and will soon surpass his current net worth. Ive got to go get a job. Im out there interviewing for a job and spending a bunch of time on that, but I think like any good ideas, for entrepreneurs that are out there, I believe that if you cant get it out of your head, you should listen to that voice. We only raised about $100,000 our first year, but we didnt have an office space. I could design all the apps, but Im not a great back-end engineer at all. Hes seen the ups, the downs, and obviously, now, hes seen a lot of traction. Id say a good healthy portion of my house, probably over half of my house are things I bought from OfferUp. Well continue to obsess over liquidity. I just wanted them to believe it actually worked. Nick Huzar: Thank you so much for having me.