DECLUTTERING 2.0
VarageSale, the startup you likely haven’t heard of, is part-Pinterest, part-Craigslist,
Tami Zuckerman wasn’t satisfied selling her used items and antiques on traditional classified sites such as Craigslist and Kijiji.
The text-based interface was ungainly, she said. Waiting for an anonymous man from across town to pick up an old bureau also felt “creepy” and potentially unsafe.
The elementary school teacher, looking to rid her house of clutter while on leave during her pregnancy, then turned to Facebook but found the process “disorganized and kind of clunky.”
There had to be a middle way. So she asked her husband and company co-founder Carl Mercier, a programmer, to build an interface geared to host online swap meets. Thus, VarageSale was born.
The social media platform is just one of 100-plus Toronto-based startups riding a wave of popularity and, in many cases, venture capital funding, which rose more than 20 per cent in Canada in the first half of 2015, according to OMERS Ventures, a pension-backed investment firm.
VarageSale — part Pinterest, part Etsy, with a dash of Instagram — provides a photo-heavy platform for people to post, buy and sell anything from baby apparel to auto parts to retro hair dryers.
Would-be buyers as well as vendors sign up free to local communities, from Clarington, Ont., to New Orleans, via their Facebook accounts — a form of screening.
“Sure, it’s all about the great deals and people love buying and selling,” Zuckerman said. “But there’s also neighbours communicating, and that makes for a social experience as well as a marketing experience.”
The app and online listings marketplace has snowballed from its launch at a Montreal kitchen table into a Toronto-based startup success in less than four years.
This spring, VarageSale — virtual garage sale — received a $34-million cash injection led by Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. That round of financing, which also saw investment from Floodgate, Real Ventures, iNovia Capital and Version One Ventures, arrived less than a year after initial financial backing from Sequoia in July 2014.
This year alone, the number of employees grew 400 per cent to 80. The company touts listings in about 60 Ontario communities. It’s active in 43 U.S. states as well as in the U.K., Italy and Australia, though the focus remains on North America.
Still, VarageSale isn’t drawing a profit, or any revenue, Zuckerman said. In the interest of expanding its territory, the company has held off monetizing through user fees, banner ads or taking a cut of sales.
“We’re laser focused on growth right now,” she told the Star. “It’s a distraction to even have meetings about monetizing.”
VarageSale currently has millions of members viewing billions of items per month, though the startup doesn’t publicize more specific metrics.
More than 90 per cent of VarageSale’s traffic is driven via smartphones and tablets. Fifty per cent of those mobile users tap into the app at least once a day, according to the company.
Despite its meteoric rise, VarageSale’s downtown headquarters have the laid-back vibe of a stereotypical startup. A low-slung hammock sways in the “Napa Garden,” couched between red sofas and fake fireplaces. A record player rests on an ergonomic work station near a convoy of scooters. Pool, speed chess and — of course — Ping-Pong are staple break-time activities.
Zuckerman’s minimalist office, sitting to one side of the high-ceilinged, pot-lit space, sports four screens and just one visible sheet of paper. The digital decor, along with a purple wall dotted with white hearts, seems fitting for a tech startup dedicated to being “at the heart of every community,” according to one of the mottos adorning the corporation’s walls.
Stewarding those communities are local moderators who can vet new members or even post messages about a lost dog or neighbourhood fundraising effort, a counterforce to the cold anonymity of conventional classifieds.
While that personal touch adds to the sense of compassion and community embodied in VarageSale’s workspace, another company value stands out in bold cursive: “We are in it to win it.”