JAMES REINHART, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THREDUP -
SOLVING (AND SCALING) THE HARD PROBLEM OF SECOND HAND
We’re in a clothing waste crisis, buying more clothes than ever but tossing them out twice as fast. Americans trash 11.3 million tons of textiles annually – a whopping 2,150 garments every second! The fashion industry, especially fast fashion, is also one of the world's biggest polluters, responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. But there’s a growing movement among consumers and retailers to give the unwanted threads clogging our closets a new lease on life. Enter thredUP, one of the largest secondhand apparel marketplaces for women's and kids' clothes, shoes, and accessories. Founded by a cash-strapped Harvard grad student named James Reinhart and his co-founders in 2009, thredUP is today one of the largest online resale sites But it’s also a massive technology and logistics company. With sprawling automated distribution centers and a custom-built, proprietary operating platform, thredUP processes an impressive 100,000 unique items daily. In addition to its consumer-facing marketplace, the company also runs a Resale-as-a-Service (RaaS) program to help brands and retailers participate in the growing secondhand economy. James joins us to share his unconventional founder story and how his lifelong obsession with market failures and solving really hard problems has been a driving force behind thredUP’s growth. He talks about how Gen Z is leading the sustainable resale revolution and why the circular economy will change the way the world shops.
LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE TO LEARN:
- The early days of thredUP, including the decision to pivot from kids’ to women’s resale and the transition from a peer-to-peer marketplace to an operations and logistics business
- How James and his co-founders overcame investor bias when first pitching their startup (back then, used clothes didn’t resonate with male-dominated VCs)
- The importance of sustainability, self-expression, and value to Gen Z, and how the resale economy delivers on all three for this consumer group
- The cutting-edge tech powering thredUP's multi-football-field-sized distribution centers, including AR camera technology and virtual styling tools that can process items at eye-popping speed and scale
- Why RaaS is a natural evolution of thredUP’s business, allowing 40+ brands – like J. Crew, H&M, Madewell, and Kate Spade – to leverage the company’s operations and logistics and participate in the circular economy
- The thinking behind organizational innovations at thredUP, like a four-day work week, weekly “maker days,” and a two-month sabbatical after 3 years for every employee
- Why building a successful startup requires an incredible passion for solving a hard problem and a decade-long (or more!) commitment by founders
- Where we are today in the evolution of the circular fashion economy, where we’ll be in the next decade, and the technology innovations – like coding textile fibers for traceability or digital stamping – we may see in the years ahead
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