The pitch is, why is value sitting, and why is it sitting all around us, and why cant we see it. Theres got to be a better way. Again, given my artistic bent, I taught myself Photoshop. What if we can unlock all that value, but focusing on removing as much friction and bringing trust into that local experience? I think just given the fact that I had just come off of another startup, I had no income because I had just quit. Nick Huzar - Founder, President & Chief Product Officer and CEO We came up with those three because we looked around the company at the time. It was more, Can you do the work? That was my first big venture out on my own raising money, building out a team, everything associated with building a company. OfferUp is that type of company and it has been rewarded by a fiercely loyal and engaged user base, and explosive growth. 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. Thats something I definitely advise people to not do just given how much I learned through that. For years, Craigslist has been the go-to website to buy and sell used items online. Then, the shipping business, we take a little over 12% of transactions there, but that was a business we launched in 2018. Founded in 2011, the peer-to-peer commerce marketplace generated more transactions in less than five years than EBay North America had generated in its first 10 years. I just wanted them to believe it actually worked. OfferUp was created in 2011 by Nick Huzar, former co-founder and CTO of Konnects, Inc., and Arean van Veelen. Youve probably thought about this very well at the beginning, and now as youre looking at pushing other markets, how do you guys think about liquidity in the marketplace? Between he and I, we were able to build the first website, the first mobile app. We hired. 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. This is a BETA experience. I think the learning lesson was interesting because we realized that networking is valuable, but its also inefficient. But there are other dimensions to that. Particularly, the browsing experience when you first open up the app. 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. Sure, there are plenty of challenges. While consumer commerce continues to evolve in specific areas, its rare to have a company completely redefine the marketplace experience from start to finish. Earlier in his Career Nick held positions at T-Mobile and Microsoft. Alejandro: There we go. Unsure about a selling price? They created OfferUp to create a simpler and more trusted way to buy and sell locally one in which users leverage the power and ease of their smart phone to take photos and then list and sell items in a more seamless way. That was my first big venture out on my own raising money, building out a team, everything associated with building a company. There are so many things that you can influence and help drive. In this episode, we hear how she became a sponge for product design, figured out how to make accessible yet high-end jewelry, and how she even relocated to China for the better part of a year to personally see to her brand's manufacturing. Within a year, year and a half, I was loving the internet. In fact, this chair Im sitting inin my office is from OfferUp. Sometimes Nicholas goes by various nicknames including John N Huzar, Nicholas J Huzar, Nicholas John Huzar, Nick Huzar and Nick J Huzar. That is a combined net worth with his wife, model/actress Vanessa . To ensure a more trustworthy transaction, the marketplace has a verified identification system (which requires state-issued identification and Facebook profile), user profiles, buyer and seller ratings and in-app messaging. I kept thinking about that moment in the doorway, and I kept looking at my iPhone, which is the second-gen iPhone, and at this time, theres no Android phone even on the scene. That would have just ended it for me. Nick Huzar, CEO of OfferUp at a Startup Grind event. How is your office laid out? : While I was out of college, within that first year, the whole dot-com scene was happening, and it was big. We have markets like LA and Phoenix, for example, where over 18% of the adult population is now using OfferUp on a monthly basis. Dunlap joins OfferUp at an exciting time for the company. Im sure this was an incredible MBA experience for you in real life. The latest stats around storage and commerce, Two of OfferUps most important Operating Principles, : Alrighty. How will you associate putting paint on a canvas with perhaps building and scaling a business? An example of that is, can I take complex problems and distill them 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. Read More: Michael Joseph Jackson The First Son of King of Pop-Short Biography Awards and Nominations. PDF Nick Huzar, CEO, OfferUp - Attorney General of California The founders furnished the companys headquarters with a Yoda statue and Stormtrooper suit that they purchased from the OfferUp app. Nicki Minaj Net Worth. Why is this problem existing? Thats been the whole focal point of the business since Day One. For me, the most basic way, when I started an offer up, I came up with a design. I know that OfferUp was also a result of doing a pivot. If youre not intentional, culture is just going to take the form that its going to take for better or worse. I left, and I had a co-founder and an investor that ran it for another year. Its not engineering for the sake of engineering. With Nick Huzar leadership, Konnects growth exploded growing from 1,500 members to over 1 million within 18 months. We dont have to send out our phone numbers and our emails anymore, and we can make it much more secure. I knew I was passionate about computers. Nick Saban is the highest-paid college football coach in the world, and his salary matches his reputation . As of March 2023,Nicki Minaj has an estimated net worth of over $100 million. I feel like if you get those things rightsure, there are plenty of other challenges, but theyre going to be a lot easier to navigate if you have the right people on the bus. OfferUp CEO: Reinventing Commerce | PYMNTS.com Nick Huzar: By the way, he would hate it if I called him an engineer because he is definitely more than that. So, Im sure he thinks what Im doing is a little crazy to him. 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. So, to jump into another startup was the last thing in my mind. We were never going to beat and become something like a Facebook. Together, they oversee over 100 OfferUp employees. We dont have to send out our phone numbers and our emails anymore, and we can make it much more secure. They had a bunch of theme parks, but they had no online ticketing. Nicki also makes millions through her endorsements deals for big brands like Pepsi. Nick Huzar is CEO and Co-Founder of OfferUp. Bloomberg Business of Sports lets you follow the money in the world of sports, reporting on trades, salaries, endorsements, contracts and collective bargaining. Nick Huzar: Today, years and years later, we try to figure out how can we help buyers and sellers be more successful? 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? We could leverage chat. Also. Then he got the idea for. Will Others Follow? Its not engineering for the sake of engineering. We could make it a visual experience, this kind of geo-aware. We give them promotions and analytics. We raised a little bit of money. 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. Van Veelen. 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? The boss, obviously, in your life. Nick Kyrgios Net Worth - Sportskeeda So, that was some of the initial sketches that we did. I would design. So without further ado, Id like to welcome our guest today, Nick Huzar, welcome to the show. I told her; I said, Look. But if you peeled away the branding, you realized that under the hood, they all kind of functioned the same. Once down to its last $350, this fast-growing startup is now - GeekWire I mentioned the stories of our origin; I still feel like were very much in the early days. Van Veelen sees the mobile trend continuing in 2017. Get a custom action plan and all the help that you need to start raising more capital. Just enter your email below. The pitch is, why is value sitting, and why is it sitting all around us, and why cant we see it. Nicholas J Huzar, 43 - Wentzville, MO - Has Court or Arrest Records is the queen taller than the king in chess; all inclusive wedding venues under $5,000; david meade obituary Alejandro: Got it. We only raised about $100,000 our first year, but we didnt have an office space. 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. The shoes Im wearing are from OfferUp. I kept thinking about that moment in the doorway, and I kept looking at my iPhone, which is the second-gen iPhone, and at this time, theres no Android phone even on the scene. He figured that out on his own. Probably just not the best advisors and folks around the table. 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. 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? And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Or, diving deep. OfferUp CEO Nick Huzar says the surge in eCommerce demand has created a "seller's market" in recommerce and one that includes a larger variety of seller types. Jonas formed a band with his older brothers, Joe, and Kevin, known as the Jonas Brothers. "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. We sell a ton of cars at OfferUp. : So, you got the blessing from the boss-in-house. Thats been a big part of it. 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. : 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. One is core values, and the other is operating principles. : It was great. Tell us about the turning page here, going into a new chapter. Nick Huzar played a vital role in assisting the CEO with fundraising efforts which attracted over $6 million in investment. Thats a growth mindset whether theyre at OfferUp or in their own lives, theyre not happy with the status quo. Thats equally as important. Im happy to chat. He set that up. OfferUp Founder Nick Huzar Sent This Message to All Employees and Sure, there are plenty of challenges. We expect people to dive deep into things like that. Nick Huzar: During my Konnects experience? Nicki Minaj Net Worth 2023: Age, Height, Weight, Husband, Kids, Bio Youve got a job. Thats probably one of my biggest painful lessons from back then. I think that were going to really enjoy the guest that we have today. Earlier in his Career Nick held positions at T-Mobile and Microsoft. In fact, short story, I took out a bunch of student loan debts to buy my first computer, which back then was $2,200. He bagged this fortune because of his hard work and his excellent gaming skills. Theyre constantly in this process of bettering themselves.