11 ms·

Depop is an excellent example of using lots of domain expertise in an area that investors etc would write off as a “lifestyle business” or “not likely to achiev

by numair 5y ago

Depop is an excellent example of using lots of domain expertise in an area that investors etc would write off as a “lifestyle business” or “not likely to achieve a high ROI” to create what is now a billion-dollar exit. The founders of Depop have been in the fashion, and fashion retail, business for a long time. They started Retrosuperfuture, which was a cult hit in the sunglasses business (they probably did a lot more, but I never really bothered investigating). The knowledge and expertise they got from that cult hit — along with the credibility and the network among fashion’s “cool kids,” particularly in Milan — gave them a bit of an “unfair advantage” when they went after the at-that-time-already-getting-crowded used clothes business. They also executed pretty well in building exactly what their users wanted. If you don’t get this business, how it is worth this much money, who they are, etc — no, you’re not some sort of genius humble-bragging that you’re blissfully unaware of such petty little things. You’re just demonstrating that you feel compelled to comment on things you don’t understand and dismiss them because they don’t fit into your myopic worldview of “what’s important.” Fashion is an industry, and one of the largest in the world; anyone who cares about global commerce / the environment / etc should be paying attention to that industry, and to the “circular” trend that remains in its infancy. I hope the combined company continues to innovate, and that this isn’t just some sort of depressing market consolidation play. This space has a LOT of room for growth.

k-mcgrady 5y ago
I'm surprised anyone would write this off. It's a trendy eBay for a specific niche (used/"vintage" clothes). If you can get it to scale (obviously not easy) it seems like it's an easy win and easy to monetise. On the surface a much better investment opportunity than a lot of the stuff we see on HN.
- jazzkingrt 5y ago
  I've used depop a fair amount, I think it's a big leg up over eBay because of it draws some useful features from social media. The feed allows you to follow and discover sellers whose style suits you, and stay informed of their offerings. You can see who they follow, and so on.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    I took a quick look through it. I didn't really get it though. If it's used clothes, why are there people selling large quantities like a business? That doesn't seem like a compatible idea? The prices seemed lower than average new retail prices by a bit, but not much. There's no obvious way to signal clothes were purchased from depop as far as I could tell... The only conclusion I can draw is that the used aspect has to be a sort of gimmick used to define the store brand, but in reality most of the money is made on niche sellers doing original products chasing a very long tail of fashion. Am I terribly wrong?
    - presentation 5y ago
      I live in Japan, thrift stores here sell rare stuff you literally can’t find new in stores, and have scouts who scour the planet for rare finds and ship them back to sell from stores. Sometimes clothes are altered to combine or remix classic styles, too. Prices can match or exceed new goods. And people happily pay for it, there are probably as many used clothes stores as there are for new ones. I’d imagine businesses like this can sell a large catalog on sites like Depop. I think you’re thinking of used clothes like other used goods - a budget, subpar alternative - but think of it more like, achieving a look from a different era, or collecting something unique, and then it makes more sense.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - scsilver 5y ago
        Yeah they are more like classic cars or relics/jewlry. I wonder if a time piece related site could do well, or if the buyer base is too small.
nr2x 5y ago
Website looked like it had some cool stuff. Hard to find good streetwear.
intricatedetail 5y ago
Why exit is thought of as a success? It's kind of like a pump and dump scheme. Does it mean founders suddenly lose their vision and abandon their customers to become an actual product for shareholders?
- tinco 5y ago
  It is a success because it is a concrete milestone that shows the founders have fulfilled their roles to satisfaction. An exit is not the only success, you could also simply transition into being a successful private company, but then there's no clear finish line. Now it is clear, no can argue the founders success, it's written in black and white and made public for all to see, they achieved an undeniably great thing. Customers are always a product for shareholders, that doesn't suddenly change when a company is sold to other shareholders. And anyway, it could be a good thing, obviously Etsy has great experience with taking care of their customers and their partners and with running a huge business. Who says anyone was abandoned?
  - Judgmentality 5y ago
    > Now it is clear, no can argue the founders success, it's written in black and white and made public for all to see, they achieved an undeniably great thing. No one can argue the founders' successful profit. I know nothing about this company and have no opinion on it one way or the other, but I know companies that are borderline fraudulent (and I am aware that is a strong claim) that are going public via SPACs and the founders are getting rich despite not having a product or paying customers.
- arkitaip 5y ago
  They have exactly 1.63B reasons to sell. You don't get to judge them with zero insight into their business and visions for their lives.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Also, I would openly laugh at anyone who claims that they’d personally turn down 1.63B to keep their business pure. That is an overwhelming amount of money, in the “none of your descendants needs to work” range. I’d sell out for much, much less money.
spoonjim 5y ago
I don’t dislike fashion because I’m a humble bragging genius. I dislike it because I think it’s bad for the world. It preys on and fuels women’s insecurities to sell them throwaway products made by borderline-enslaved Cambodians. A guy making $1.63 billion doesn’t change that — the mentality that “it makes money so it’s good” is precisely the sick mentality behind this whole blight upon the world. I know you are right that there is more growth in this industry, but that growth is going to make the world a worse place.
- tmhrtly 5y ago
  I know it's not exactly the be-all-end-all solution to the problem, but it does feel like good quality used marketplaces for fashion (like Depop) could help to counter that flow of 'throwaway products'. In addition, in the long run having a more liquid market for potential resale might encourage people to buy better, longer lasting clothes at the offset (but that might be a pipe dream on my part).
- flatline 5y ago
  That's a pretty cynical take. Much the same could be said of any industry that relies on manufacturing and marketing. I think there's value in society at large - we are social creatures and relating to each other, mimicking each other, and other forms of communication are deeply tied to how we get along as human beings. I'm not saying fashion is itself necessarily useful at large, and it certainly has the issues you described, but it's at least a byproduct of other things that are highly useful.
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    Perhaps much of the same should be said of other industries.
- akarma 5y ago
  > It preys on and fuels women’s insecurities to sell them throwaway products made by borderline-enslaved Cambodians. It sounds like you've never used Depop or learned about it before writing this comment. Depop is the exact opposite. It's a solution to what you're framing as a problem. Depop is a way to recycle clothing rather than throwing it out and buying more - it is actually a reaction to the exact fast fashion you're complaining about.
AznHisoka 5y ago
Nothing against the business, but if one were to start a lifestyle business, I can't think of a worse one than a marketplace, where you have to deal with refunds, inventory, legal issues, tons of advertising, upfront losses, etc. You're probably better off actually selling your stuff in these marketplaces, if you wanted a lifestyle business. When I think of lifestyle businesses, I think of Pinboard, or Appointment Reminder, or a Depop/Poshmark/Etsy storefront.
krrrh 5y ago
I'd never visited the site but it looks very nicely executed, especially at creating a consistent vibe out of user-uploaded photos, which isn't easy. A neat thing about businesses like this is that it takes a skillset that a lot of underemployed people have (cool hunting in thrift stores), and gives them a path to making part of their living out of it aside from the ancillary benefits of that come with being fashionable and cool. It also provides access to wider markets and price discovery for vintage shops in the same way that abehbooks did for used bookstores a decade or two ago, or eBay did for junk sellers at flea markets. The inevitable downside is that it further compresses globo youth culture and makes it harder to develop a scene, but that horse left the gate a long time ago.
jonplackett 5y ago
If they can just get the search to work properly I’d use it a lot more!
bsder 5y ago
> “lifestyle business” or “not likely to achieve a high ROI” to create what is now a billion-dollar exit. Why would you believe this? Fad businesses chasing the tweens and 20-somethings is ABSOLUTELY the kind of business that VCs salivate over. And fashion rises and falls in cycles. Have we forgotten fashion darlings like ModCloth? The key to the fashion business is knowing when to cash out.

by numair 5y ago

k-mcgrady 5y ago

I'm surprised anyone would write this off. It's a trendy eBay for a specific niche (used/"vintage" clothes). If you can get it to scale (obviously not easy) it seems like it's an easy win and easy to monetise. On the surface a much better investment opportunity than a lot of the stuff we see on HN.

jazzkingrt 5y ago
I've used depop a fair amount, I think it's a big leg up over eBay because of it draws some useful features from social media. The feed allows you to follow and discover sellers whose style suits you, and stay informed of their offerings. You can see who they follow, and so on.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I took a quick look through it. I didn't really get it though. If it's used clothes, why are there people selling large quantities like a business? That doesn't seem like a compatible idea? The prices seemed lower than average new retail prices by a bit, but not much. There's no obvious way to signal clothes were purchased from depop as far as I could tell... The only conclusion I can draw is that the used aspect has to be a sort of gimmick used to define the store brand, but in reality most of the money is made on niche sellers doing original products chasing a very long tail of fashion. Am I terribly wrong?
  - presentation 5y ago
    I live in Japan, thrift stores here sell rare stuff you literally can’t find new in stores, and have scouts who scour the planet for rare finds and ship them back to sell from stores. Sometimes clothes are altered to combine or remix classic styles, too. Prices can match or exceed new goods. And people happily pay for it, there are probably as many used clothes stores as there are for new ones. I’d imagine businesses like this can sell a large catalog on sites like Depop. I think you’re thinking of used clothes like other used goods - a budget, subpar alternative - but think of it more like, achieving a look from a different era, or collecting something unique, and then it makes more sense.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - scsilver 5y ago
      Yeah they are more like classic cars or relics/jewlry. I wonder if a time piece related site could do well, or if the buyer base is too small.

nr2x 5y ago

Website looked like it had some cool stuff. Hard to find good streetwear.

intricatedetail 5y ago

Why exit is thought of as a success? It's kind of like a pump and dump scheme. Does it mean founders suddenly lose their vision and abandon their customers to become an actual product for shareholders?

tinco 5y ago
It is a success because it is a concrete milestone that shows the founders have fulfilled their roles to satisfaction. An exit is not the only success, you could also simply transition into being a successful private company, but then there's no clear finish line. Now it is clear, no can argue the founders success, it's written in black and white and made public for all to see, they achieved an undeniably great thing. Customers are always a product for shareholders, that doesn't suddenly change when a company is sold to other shareholders. And anyway, it could be a good thing, obviously Etsy has great experience with taking care of their customers and their partners and with running a huge business. Who says anyone was abandoned?
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  > Now it is clear, no can argue the founders success, it's written in black and white and made public for all to see, they achieved an undeniably great thing. No one can argue the founders' successful profit. I know nothing about this company and have no opinion on it one way or the other, but I know companies that are borderline fraudulent (and I am aware that is a strong claim) that are going public via SPACs and the founders are getting rich despite not having a product or paying customers.
arkitaip 5y ago
They have exactly 1.63B reasons to sell. You don't get to judge them with zero insight into their business and visions for their lives.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Also, I would openly laugh at anyone who claims that they’d personally turn down 1.63B to keep their business pure. That is an overwhelming amount of money, in the “none of your descendants needs to work” range. I’d sell out for much, much less money.

spoonjim 5y ago

I don’t dislike fashion because I’m a humble bragging genius. I dislike it because I think it’s bad for the world. It preys on and fuels women’s insecurities to sell them throwaway products made by borderline-enslaved Cambodians. A guy making $1.63 billion doesn’t change that — the mentality that “it makes money so it’s good” is precisely the sick mentality behind this whole blight upon the world. I know you are right that there is more growth in this industry, but that growth is going to make the world a worse place.

tmhrtly 5y ago
I know it's not exactly the be-all-end-all solution to the problem, but it does feel like good quality used marketplaces for fashion (like Depop) could help to counter that flow of 'throwaway products'. In addition, in the long run having a more liquid market for potential resale might encourage people to buy better, longer lasting clothes at the offset (but that might be a pipe dream on my part).
flatline 5y ago
That's a pretty cynical take. Much the same could be said of any industry that relies on manufacturing and marketing. I think there's value in society at large - we are social creatures and relating to each other, mimicking each other, and other forms of communication are deeply tied to how we get along as human beings. I'm not saying fashion is itself necessarily useful at large, and it certainly has the issues you described, but it's at least a byproduct of other things that are highly useful.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  Perhaps much of the same should be said of other industries.
akarma 5y ago
> It preys on and fuels women’s insecurities to sell them throwaway products made by borderline-enslaved Cambodians. It sounds like you've never used Depop or learned about it before writing this comment. Depop is the exact opposite. It's a solution to what you're framing as a problem. Depop is a way to recycle clothing rather than throwing it out and buying more - it is actually a reaction to the exact fast fashion you're complaining about.

AznHisoka 5y ago

Nothing against the business, but if one were to start a lifestyle business, I can't think of a worse one than a marketplace, where you have to deal with refunds, inventory, legal issues, tons of advertising, upfront losses, etc. You're probably better off actually selling your stuff in these marketplaces, if you wanted a lifestyle business. When I think of lifestyle businesses, I think of Pinboard, or Appointment Reminder, or a Depop/Poshmark/Etsy storefront.

krrrh 5y ago

I'd never visited the site but it looks very nicely executed, especially at creating a consistent vibe out of user-uploaded photos, which isn't easy. A neat thing about businesses like this is that it takes a skillset that a lot of underemployed people have (cool hunting in thrift stores), and gives them a path to making part of their living out of it aside from the ancillary benefits of that come with being fashionable and cool. It also provides access to wider markets and price discovery for vintage shops in the same way that abehbooks did for used bookstores a decade or two ago, or eBay did for junk sellers at flea markets. The inevitable downside is that it further compresses globo youth culture and makes it harder to develop a scene, but that horse left the gate a long time ago.

jonplackett 5y ago

If they can just get the search to work properly I’d use it a lot more!

bsder 5y ago

> “lifestyle business” or “not likely to achieve a high ROI” to create what is now a billion-dollar exit. Why would you believe this? Fad businesses chasing the tweens and 20-somethings is ABSOLUTELY the kind of business that VCs salivate over. And fashion rises and falls in cycles. Have we forgotten fashion darlings like ModCloth? The key to the fashion business is knowing when to cash out.