He was able to figure things out. I think the learning lesson was interesting because we realized that networking is valuable, but its also inefficient. This is a BETA experience. Tell us about the early days, and also how you incubated the concept of the idea. Previous to OfferUp Nick cofounded Konnects raising $6M in capital, scaling to over 1M users within 18months. People were throwing money everywhere. If you want me to do your fundraising for you, click here. OfferUp has a very visual interface so the quality of your photos can impact how many offers you receive. Arean van Veelen (left) and Nick Huzar (right) are the co-founders of OfferUp. So, thats the time in history when I graduated. The first thing in my mind was not, Hey, theres something here. Again, you have to convince people why do they want to come along in this journey, this risk of this fun, proven idea? 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. . At the time, I think we were the first app to do that. This is just the consumer side of things, but I also started to spend time in local retail stores. While consumer commerce continues to evolve in specific areas, its rare to have a company completely redefine the marketplace experience from start to finish. Neighborly: we have a no asshole policy. We would find that handful of engineers, and we would pay them. They have too many, and theyre just on a wall, and no one really thinks about them. Most recently, Nick Huzar was the co-founded of Konnects Inc. I designed the app. 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. There were thousands of them. You want to find the right people to believe in where youre going and are really motivated and excited about that. There are two areas in which OfferUp generates revenue. Now, in terms of the business itself, how big is the platform, or can you talk to us about the number of employees or users that are using this so that people get a sense of the operation? Huzar wanted to change that, so the company partnered with the non-partisan Civic Alliance to offer voting information to all OfferUp employees and, via a link in its app, to millions of customers . Prior to OfferUp, Huzar worked at Microsoft and T-Mobile and founded several start-ups. What would you say was the most painful and the biggest lesson, at the same time, for you? In the early 2000s, Craigslist disrupted the classified advertising market by converting newspaper readers to online users and thereby decimating the print media advertising model. Im sure this was an incredible MBA experience for you in real life. I was just a sponge. He has founded many companies which are doing very well. 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 fact, short story, I took out a bunch of student loan debts to buy my first computer, which back then was $2,200. Huzar attributed the high level of engagement to OfferUps focus on a secure, frictionless user experience, an image-driven platform and the creation of a community built on personal connectivity. I think the learning lesson was interesting because we realized that networking is valuable, but its also inefficient. Nick Huzar is CEO and Co-Founder of OfferUp. I think for anybody thats building a company, it feels good when you fill that role, and then 90 days later, you realize you made a huge mistake. I grew up in a suburb about 20 minutes south of Seattle. 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. Im sure that all those experiences and lessons with Konnects you were able to apply them here. Today, we offer that via shipping. Within a year, year and a half, I was loving the internet. According to Jordan, as a mobile-first platform, OfferUp emerged as a disruptor by providing an improved user interface, frictionless experience and on-demand transactions from anywhere. Again, because were always focusing on removing friction. : Yeah. But I kept thinking to myself, Man, because of these devices, can we re-imagine what local commerce actually is? I started to uncover things like 25% of U.S. households with a two-car garage cant park in their garage. Nick Huzar: Yeah. Id say our vision, as you think long-term, is really to help people to connect and prosper. Im thinking to myself, Chill me now. Net Worth: $250,000 - $499,999. I can work with engineers, and tie into databases, and be functional. I feel like I build things and sculpt things, and that works well for me. The first year, thats what we did. We started very early, way before Friendster, way before Myspace. 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. As new fathers, they needed to sell their old belongings to make room for their newborns, but felt limited by the existing online options. I knew I was passionate about computers. Its not necessarily just aboutyoull find the most talented people you can, but you want to make sure theyre also rowing the same direction for the rest of the company. 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. Conclusion OfferUp revenue model may have been complex to understand, but it is definitely an effective one. Vance Lile, a Vancouver, Washington resident, owns an antique reselling businesses that he uses as a second source of income. We had a lot of great. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. He definitely did that, and I feel like I did that. We raised a little bit of money. I think thats a great idea. He and I threw in $800 the first event. Well, Nick, thank you so much for being on the DealMakers show. I think I was making $27,000 a year back then. For years, Craigslist has been the go-to website to buy and sell used items online. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. In the last years, as we got more intentional about this, we say, Okay, every review cycle, half of your review is the overall performance in getting the work done. 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. peggy gustafson barnett obituary; human causes of the millennium drought; robert hagg scouting report; competitive edge softball In her 2016 Internet Trends report, Mary Meeker, a senior partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, wrote that OfferUp users spend an average of 25 minutes per day on the OfferUp app, which is the same amount of time users spend on Instagram and Snapchat (and more time than on both Pinterest and Twitter). In fact, the first code that I ever wrote for OfferUp was sitting in a Goodwill parking lot all day, and I was just sitting there starting to code, starting to think about and mapping out how Goodwill works or how Value Village works or how the existing eCommerce players work. : I had, of course, a ton of energy and excitement. Im sure that all those experiences and lessons with Konnects you were able to apply them here. Earlier in his Career Nick held positions at T-Mobile and Microsoft. Nick Huzar is the Founder, President & Chief Product Officer and CEO at OfferUp. Neighborly: we have a no asshole policy. We were never going to beat and become something like a Facebook. He set that up. : 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. I go back to even reflecting on my own decisions. Prior to OfferUp, Huzar worked at Microsoft and T-Mobile and founded several start-ups. I had a father who worked at Boeing his whole life. Youve been at it now for quite a while with OfferUp and also what you did with your previous initiatives, like Konnects. Our belief back then was everyone would have a smartphone, and now everyone will say, Well, duh! But that was one assumption. I had a room full of stuff. Despite these statistics, 68% plan to donate their unneeded items, and more than one in eight people planned to throw them in the trash. So, to jump into another startup was the last thing in my mind. I think in any business, you have to bring more to the table than an idea, and you have to be able to contribute. What if we can unlock all that value, but focusing on removing as much friction and bringing trust into that local experience? What if we can unlock all that value, but focusing on removing as much friction and bringing trust into that local experience? But Id say the first year working there, there were about 25 people in that company. So, we built the first online ticketing for them. I go back to even reflecting on my own decisions. Well continue to obsess over liquidity. We dont have to send out our phone numbers and our emails anymore, and we can make it much more secure. Again, given my artistic bent, I taught myself Photoshop. If you want me to help you with your fundraising, just book a call. OfferUp is hoping technology will simplify the sale process and enable users to monetize the cash hiding in their home. 2022.7.1; prince of wales hospital hong kong address; Tweet; Share +1; Hatena; RSS . We raised a little bit of money. : Very cool. How was life growing up there? I think that also ties nicely into culture and the intention about that. In this technology shift, Huzar and van Veelen saw massive opportunity, particularly as Craigslist did not adapt to the new mobile paradigm. Why is it that way? I didnt get halfway through it, and my wife said, This is the biggest idea youve ever had. 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. How was life growing up there? There are plenty of things that you just dont sign up for that you have to address as somebody thats, : For sure, and especially during the early days when you dont have anything tangible, its like literally all in your own head, and its helping people understand what that canvas looks like. I think that were going to really enjoy the guest that we have today. This is just the consumer side of things, but I also started to spend time in local retail stores. Id say as hard as it is, the people are everything. What do you think? I said, Hey. : What I love about building companies. People were throwing money everywhere. He definitely did that, and I feel like I did that. : It was great. I was fortunate to sit next to engineers who taught me how to code. Or, for BMX, we built their first-ever eCommerce website. If you had the opportunity to go back in time, knowing what you know now, and give your younger self one piece of business advice before launching a company, what would that be and why knowing what you know now? That was a lot of work. OfferUp plans to invest in product innovation and will hire for open roles a stark contrast to many tech startups that are trimming headcount due to . Bestselling Author, The Lemonade Life. They are the two young entrepreneurs behind OfferUp, the mobile-driven local marketplace that is disrupting the way that we buy and sell merchandise. He figured that out on his own. 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. But I kept thinking to myself, Man, because of these devices, can we re-imagine what local commerce actually is? I started to uncover things like 25% of U.S. households with a two-car garage cant park in their garage. Its not just up and to the right. The latest stats around storage and commerce, Two of OfferUps most important Operating Principles, : Alrighty. It was Driven, Neighborly, and Adaptable. If you look at commerce in general in the U.S., about 85% of it is still not online today. How do you hire? Theyre constantly in this process of bettering themselves. Huzar, 39, serves as chief executive officer and van Veelen, 43, is chief technology officer. It wasnt to be great in search like other marketplaces are. I think I learned a lot of painful learning lessons from doing that. So, we got very intentional about that. You can literally use it for almost anything. In fact, short story, I took out a bunch of student loan debts to buy my first computer, which back then was $2,200. 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. I think they were all great people in their own right, but for what we were trying to build, probably not. northern state university softball roster. I strongly believe OfferUp will surpass Craigslist and all other competitors as the go-to marketplace for the American consumer to buy and sell locally, said Josh Breinlinger, an OfferUp board member and managing director at Jackson Square Ventures, which led OfferUps Series A financing round. One day, she said, Im pregnant. Im like, Im so excited! I go into dad mode, and I open up that door to this room that Im going to turn into her nursery, my soon-to-be daughters nursery. So, that was some of the initial sketches that we did. But if you peeled away the branding, you realized that under the hood, they all kind of functioned the same. Greg Theer of Tacoma, Washington uses OfferUp to sell his unique clock and garden sculpture creations to help fund his sons college tuition. I think just given the fact that I had just come off of another startup, I had no income because I had just quit. I need to understand how these things work. So, I finally bought one, and then I graduated and worked in a startup for one of my fraternity brothers, making half as much as all my friends did. As I move from work or wherever Im at, I just want to be able to open up the app and see and discover things that are all around me. I think you need to do it. As soon as she gave me the blessing, I completely stopped interviewing, and I went all-in on OfferUp. Id say our vision, as you think long-term, is really to help people to connect and prosper. 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. During his time at T-mobile Nick Huzar helped to redevelop the online channel enabling the company to accept over $45 million a month in payments and 8 million customers. Or, for BMX, we built their first-ever eCommerce website. I came up with a logo. Her salary is under review. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. So, Nick, for the folks that are listening, what is the best way for them to reach out and say hi? Here are some pointers from OfferUp co-founder Arean van Veelen to maximize your profit: Who knows OfferUp may even buy one of your items for sale. Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More. I essentially told them, Look. OfferUp was one of the first, truly mobile marketplaces and more and more experiences are going to continue to happen exclusively via smartphones., Top 3 Tips From OfferUp To Convert Your Items To Cash. We had a lot of great business minds on our board, but not tech-minded individuals, which created a challenge. Weve always focused a lot on this excess of sellers and buyers and connecting them. I think that were going to really enjoy the guest that we have today. : So, originally born and raised in the Seattle area. Respondents feel that it is easier to donate than sell, citing the required time investment and amount of work. I came back to my wife after probably four-and-a-half months, at least, and she kept asking, When are you getting your job? One day, I said, You need to come home tomorrow. An example of that is, can I take complex problems and distill them down? And, by the way, I never told the seller that I worked at OfferUp. We sell a ton of cars at OfferUp. Can I communicate succinctly? 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. : When I left Konnect, I had no intention of leading another company. We thought to ourselves, why couldnt you just build a platform that would enable anybody to build basically what is now known as social media? Some users use OfferUp to help grow their small businesses. The other one was the cameras would get better, and we could leverage that. He began acting in theater at the age of 7 and released his debut single in 2002. So, to jump into another startup was the last thing in my mind. Nick Huzar: OfferUp Current Net Worth: Not known Years at Microsoft: 1 Nick Huzar spent time at Microsoft and T-Mobile after graduating from Washington State. 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. : Thank you so much for having me. Great investments are built on a solid investment thesis. I was leading projects for Paramount Parks. Hes seen the ups, the downs, and obviously, now, hes seen a lot of traction. He and I would sit down and rift on things quite a bit. We came up with those three because we looked around the company at the time. Today, we offer that via shipping. (Source: Mary Meeker/KPCB, 2016 Internet Trends Report). Thats something I definitely advise people to not do just given how much I learned through that. New OfferUp CEO Aims To Grow Commercial Side Of Local Commerce Platform, COVID Creates A Sellers Market In reCommerce, OfferUp CEO: Reinventing Commerce One Local Seller At A Time, Online marketplace OfferUp raises $120M, acquires top competitor letgo, Mobile marketplace OfferUp adds Hold Offers feature as it battles Craigslist, eBay and Facebook, OfferUp launches new Autos section focused on buying and selling used cars, OfferUp Keys In On Used Car Market With the Launch of OfferUp Autos, OfferUp launches SafeTradeSpots.com in conjunction with AIM Group, OfferUp Expands Its Local Marketplace, Launches Nationwide Shipping. Tell us about the early days, and also how you incubated the concept of the idea. Nicki Minaj Net Worth. So, thats one way to think about it. Get a custom action plan and all the help that you need to start raising more capital. 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. I can design things, and then I can cut them up, and I can make them interactive. We had been married, and we always wanted to have kids. That was the whole idea. I think that also ties nicely into culture and the intention about that. Designer and entrepreneur Melody Ehsani takes us on a journey from her early days working retail, to designing her first shoes and jewelry lines, to collaborating with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jordan brand before taking on a bespoke role at Foot Locker. Take photos of your item from all angles so that buyers can get a feel for the size and dimensions of the item you are selling. One is promotions, and thats simply helping sellers to be more successful. So, there were a series of different changes over a period of time to be explored. Nick Huzar: I had, of course, a ton of energy and excitement. Well continue to obsess over liquidity. He set that up. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. We were not paying ourselves. Its not engineering for the sake of engineering. Nick Viall is a $400 thousand net worth American actor, television personality, and model as of 2020. I used to go to Goodwill stores, and Id realized the cars never stopped. florence nightingale concept 2 via de boleto 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 thats another learning lesson Ive seen over the years where you have people that have these ideas, and they say, Im going to go do this. My response is, Okay. Thats a nice, easy way to get ahold of me. Again, were only in the United States. Nick Huzar: While I was out of college, within that first year, the whole dot-com scene was happening, and it was big. In this case, it led you to where you are today. Youve got a job. Thats probably one of my biggest painful lessons from back then. If youre not intentional, culture is just going to take the form that its going to take for better or worse. It was Driven, Neighborly, and Adaptable. Most days, I feel like I am playing with Legos. How do you guys make money for the people that are listening? That was the idea behind it. He set up our entire first back-end system on AWS. With Nick Huzar leadership, Konnects growth exploded growing from 1,500 members to over 1 million within 18 months. Nick Huzar: In our case, we happen to have two different buckets. Im thinking to myself, Chill me now. If you can imagine five guys sitting down in a room coding with just stuff everywhere, thats what our first office looked like. What are you going to go do? Im going to go hire people to build all this for me. My response is usually, Thats probably not going to work. If you just had the idea, you need to bring more to the table. Together, they oversee over 100 OfferUp employees. This guy that I worked with, he was like, I want to go through a big event together and bring all these different tech companies together in the Seattle area. I played every different sport you can imagine, so that meant I wasnt great in any one thing. "Nick and Arean did a fantastic job rethinking what a smartphone could do to deliver an easier, faster and more enjoyable user experience for both buyers and sellers, which in turn has driven both liquidity and virality in the marketplace," said Justin Sadrian, a managing director at Warburg Pincus, an OfferUp investor. : I think so far, weve raised 260, and then we just announced this latest financing, and well be raising another 120 million. I was just a sponge. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Ultimately, they decided to close it down. The only examples we could look to at the time were dating sites. : What ended up being the business model of the business? How did you develop that love for computers, too? I had a room full of stuff. I had a mother who was a therapist, so I like to think Im a pretty good mix of both of my parents, which happens to, I think, be an advantage given what I work on. Follow Zack on Twitter and read his columns in Forbes. I really just wanted to understand the landscape, but then, with a clean slate, a brand-new slate, how can you do it differently because of the smartphone? Our homes are actually 30% larger than the 1950s, but were having less children. It was barely enough to eat and pay my rent. In fact, this chair Im sitting inin my office is from OfferUp. Van Veelen sees the mobile trend continuing in 2017. His name is Arean, and hes very talented, and I think in the first year, it was just he and I coding. I wont list them all, but thats everything from simplified. Im happy to chat. One day, she said, Im pregnant. Im like, Im so excited! I go into dad mode, and I open up that door to this room that Im going to turn into her nursery, my soon-to-be daughters nursery. 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. One is core values, and the other is operating principles. Alejandro: Very nice. Rather than specify a price, sellers can also list their item as not firm on price, which means buyers are able to chat and negotiate with sellers before deciding on a price. Thats been a big part of it. Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here). Little did we know social media was coming. The second promotional area is our auto business. I think I was making $27,000 a year back then. Tell us about the turning page here, going into a new chapter. Nick Huzar is the co-founder and CEO of Offerup which provides an online and mobile C2C marketplace app for people to buy and sell electronics, furniture, and cars. I can design things, and then I can cut them up, and I can make them interactive. Dont cut corners on that. Nicholas Jerry Jonas is an American singer, songwriter, and actor from Dallas. Nick Huzar, CEO of OfferUp at a Startup Grind event. I could design all the apps, but Im not a great back-end engineer at all. But my wife and I moved into a good-sized house. 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. I know that OfferUp was also a result of doing a pivot. But Id say the first year working there, there were about 25 people in that company. I mentioned the stories of our origin; I still feel like were very much in the early days. I told her; I said, Look. Net Worth:$100 MillionAge:39Born:December 8, 1982Gender:FemaleHeight:1.57 m (5 ft 2 in)Country of Origin:Trinidad & TobagoSource of Wealth:Rapper/ActorLast Updated:August 2, 2022. Until now. As youre looking back, and after the time with Konnects, Im sure you had a lot of time to reflect. This is so creative. I think Ive even learned that mistake early on at Konnects, but I think at OfferUp, we definitely made mistakes there too. I'm Nick Huzar, the cofounder of OfferUp, the largest local mobile marketplace in the U.S. On a monthly basis, I would watch billions of dollars worth of second hand goods exchange hands through the marketplace we started over a decade ago in 2011. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. His main source of income is his career as an entrepreneur. Its also a lot of work. 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. We expect people to dive deep into things like that. I knew I was passionate about computers. I had a wife that was working, and I had a daughter on the way. It was barely enough to eat and pay my rent. Please subscribe to unlock this content. Thats interesting. Alejandro: Then, after this, you ended up leaving, and then the company ended up closing down. I think I knew, right out of the gate, what I wanted to do with my life, which was something involved with the internet. Since the smartphone was just starting to really permeate our everyday lives, we wanted to make the most seamless, user-friendly mobile app that makes buying and selling locally easier than ever, van Veelen said. Thats been the whole focal point of the business since Day One. What would you say was the most painful and the biggest lesson, at the same time, for you? I am excited to work with Nick, Arean and the team there to continue to usher in the era of mobile-driven local commerce.. In fact, in the early days, before we had a lot of traction, I used to show up to peoples houses, and I would buy their items, and I would stick them in our very small office that we had. Those are our overall what we look for in people before they even come into the halls of OfferUp. I started to buy and sell things locally. We sell a ton of cars at OfferUp. As of February 2023, Nick Hanauer has an estimated net worth of more than $1.5 billion. Other OfferUp investors include Coatue Management, Tiger Global, T. Rowe Price, Allen & Company, High Line Venture Partners, GGV Capital, Third Kind Capital, Altimeter Capital and Vy Capital, among others. University of Seville Alumni Founded Companies, College of Charleston Alumni Founded Companies, West Coast Companies With Less Than $10M in Revenue (Top 10K), University of Texas Alumni Founded Companies, University of North Florida Alumni Founded Companies, Chapman University Alumni Founded Companies, Colorado State University Alumni Founded Companies, University of Limerick Alumni Founded Companies, University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business Alumni Founded Companies, Florida Institute of Technology Alumni Founded Companies, Total number of current Advisors and Board roles the person has, Number of Organizations that the person founded, The organization associated to the person's primary job, Where the person is located (e.g. I was fortunate to sit next to engineers who taught me how to code. Partner Investments Number of Partner Investments 1 Jobs Number of Current Jobs 1 Amazing. He is becoming more successful day by day and will soon surpass his current net worth. Again, given my artistic bent, I taught myself Photoshop. You can literally use it for almost anything. What do you look for in culture?
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