Reading the headline "<Business I've never heard of> selling for $<N>bn" is become an increasingly common occurrence for me
That said, neither am I. Looks like you can’t even view any merchandise on the website, it’s basically an app-only experience it seems. That’s a huge turn-off for me.
This was probably a good business decision given their key demographic, but it didn't make me feel good about what my role was, especially as (according to the soon-to-be-CTO) I was one of their stronger engineers. It felt weird to have expertise and constantly feel side-lined. There were definitely some challenging years in the middle, but they seem to have turned it around.
Anonymous browsing/guest checkout might be an avenue that we take another look at in the future; but yes - historically we have been focussed on our mobile apps as first-class citizens.
After scrolling a bit more down, I've noticed I can click on what I'm assuming is individual sellers, but that returns 500 internal server error.
And this thing is being sold for a billion dollars.
The disdain some people have for what is not their niche is crazy. Not everything needs to be a SAAS. It's pretty clear this is meant to be used as an app and it looks like you did your best to ignore it.
Not clear at all. I looked up the company, opened the website, and there are some "get the app" buttons, but the website does not indicate that the product is an app-first experience at all.
The submitted article even mentions it as a "shopping site", not an app. And looking at play store reviews, it doesn't look like the app is any better. It's filled with various technical issues and 1 or 2 star reviews.
So excuse me for having this crazy assumption that if something is being sold for over a billion dollars, it should at least somewhat work.
If I were Etsy, I would probably buy it for the community and marketing talent, fire every single dev and start from scratch.
Their app can't even properly show me clothes based on my preferences: https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1400084936372199429
It only goes to show how horrendously bad the original market was.
"Shut up and take my money!" Futurama s06e03 - Attack of the Killer App (2010)
There are so many "niche" businesses out there - that will be enough to bring in millions in revenue - simply because there is such a variety in what people want and need. And we'll never hear of them unless our interests happen to coincide with that particular niche.
Case in point - I've just started working for a company that is an upstart small player in the area of document management for construction companies. You'd think document management was a solved problem and there wouldn't be room for specialists in that area - but no, there are several multi-million dollar businesses that do nothing but. And there's still room for small companies like ours to grow into.
Prior to August 2018, there were no trillion dollar companies, now there are at least 5 (MSFT, AMZN, AAPL, Aramco, Google) and more on the way.
This observation seems more likely to be driven by Aramco not being a public company before 2018 than by Aramco not existing before 2018.
Just because it's a little harder to see something doesn't mean it isn't there.
Their marketing and social media presence is as large as they can get it (I know their former Head of Social media and VP Product). Being successful there is a first step to becoming an influencer. As a second-hand market, they’ve been carried by the environmental trend lately, deservingly so. Their audience is younger, more female and fashion-forward and in that very seeked-after demographic, they have incredible numbers. There are American companies, like Vestiaire Collective, that offer a similar service but Depop is making strides around the world.
There might not be a lot of overlap with your interest, or those of many people in Hacker News — and that’s fine. But, to fin equivalents, saying that TikTok or Tampax are "under the radar" brands says more about your curiosity than it says about a product used by half of the population.
How on earth does Tik Tok or Tampax relate with Depop?
P.S. As a general rule of thumb we try to avoid personal remarks in here when replying to a person. Just to keep the place a bit more civilized.