Last week we marked a new chapter in OfferUp’s history, one that I could not be more excited to announce. Todd Dunlap, North America Managing Director of Booking.com, will be the new CEO of OfferUp. I will take on the role of President and Chief Product Officer and will also remain Chairman of the Board.
Ten years ago, as a new father making space in our home for our first child, I had the realization that the accumulation of value was growing all around us, and it was growing at an exponential rate. We had so many things - things of real value that were stuck in our homes, in storage units, in businesses, and retail stores. But there existed no easy way to sell those things and recoup that value or our space. I also realized that the relatively new iPhone might just be the way to unlock that value. So I started obsessing about reducing the friction for in-person transactions and immediately began designing the end-to-end experience that I thought could revolutionize local commerce.
Ten years later, OfferUp is now the largest mobile marketplace in the U.S. Last year we acquired letgo to expand our customer base and bring our vision to more people and cities across the US. Today we are expanding our leadership capacity to scale our business and evolve our strategy to meet the needs of the 1 in 5 Americans that use OfferUp day in and day out.
As a first-time CEO, I have learned millions of lessons along this journey, from building and launching our first product, finding product-market fit, investing in trust and safety, to raising over $387M to propel this dream forward. I have tried, at each stage, to surround myself with people who shared my core values and who could help me grow into a better leader. As a result, OfferUp is now 400 people strong with Bellevue, Miami, and Mexico City teams and others throughout the country. I am proud of our business, our people, and our product, and we are ready to charge full steam ahead into our future. Our business has unprecedented potential.
Some of my most challenging moments as a CEO have been rooted in my desire to build not just a great product but a great company. To me, you cannot create a great company without a great culture. It has not always been smooth or easy to do. We haven’t always gotten it right. However, last year’s accomplishments and external challenges tested our culture, and yet, we came out stronger than ever.
We successfully delivered the most challenging Engineering project we could have ever imagined, with employee happiness scores over 90%. This achievement required an absolute dedication to our values - to being a company that is relentlessly Driven, Neighborly, and Adaptable. If I am proud of anything, it’s our culture.
We have an incredibly diverse team of people from all over the world who come to OfferUp to fulfill our vision of empowering people to connect and prosper. The importance of this may not be evident on the surface but became crystal clear during the pandemic when we realized just how critical we are to the survival of our communities and our local neighborhoods. As a result, 56M people used OfferUp in 2020 to get what they needed from their neighbors when it wasn’t safe to go to stores or when eCommerce giants had supply chain issues. Thanks to OfferUp, the value that I saw locked up inside of my own home ten years ago was now able to be unlocked for our customers and communities in need.
When Todd and I met for the first time, we talked about what excited him about OfferUp. It was the potential, the culture, and the people. I am excited about Todd and the chance to work with a leader of his caliber and experience. I could not have found a better fit for the new CEO or a better leader and mentor to help us realize our future goals.
You will hear more from Todd soon in his own words on this blog after he officially starts on July 1st. In the meantime, I am looking forward to my role as President & CPO and devoting my energy towards building the best platform possible for local commerce. Mostly, I am excited to get back to my roots and think about those same problems that gave me the inspiration for OfferUp in the first place. I want to think about our millions of customers and make their experience even better. We have figured out a lot in the past ten years, but we have only just begun!
Onward,
Nick