Why Branded Resale is Sustainable Fashion's Shining Star

Does your apparel brand have sustainable aspirations? In this episode of WAIR Chats, we interview Jake Disraeli, Founder, and CEO of Treet, on apparel resale, circular fashion, and his previous conundrum of being a sustainably-minded leader at Indiegogo.

‍

Have rising customer acquisition costs got you down? Check out Treet's free eBook on driving increased sales from existing shoppers here: https://resources.treet.co/ebook-driving-more-sales?utm_source=wair&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ebookpromo

Connect with our guest

Treet

Website:

https://www.treet.co/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/shoptreet

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/treetshop/

Transcript

Greg: Welcome to the WAIR chats podcast, a series where we dive into conversations surrounding all facets of eCommerce and the people working to make it a more sustainable and productive industry for all. My name is Greg Moore, the founder, and CEO of WAIR and your host for today's podcast. The fashion industry is one of the largest polluters and biggest drivers of wasted goods on the planet. Join us as we talk with Jacob Disraeli, who went from Indiegogo as a leading hype man to fashion's branded resale king.

Hi, everybody. My name is Greg Moore. I am the CEO and co-founder of WAIR, and I'm here with Jake today, who is the CEO and co-founder of Treet. Jake, welcome.‍

Jake: Hey, thanks so much, Greg. Good to be here.‍

Greg: Yeah, of course, man. So, look, before we get started, we'd like to talk a lot about eCommerce, eCommerce enablement, and even from, like, the vendor side, like how do we approach brands and talk about sort of our WAIR, if you will. And so, before we get into all that, I'd love to get to know a little bit more about you. I mean, what were you doing before Treet? And what kind of brought you to this type of moment for yourself?‍

Jake: Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Greg. So, right before Treet, I was at Indiegogo for actually for the past four years running the launch and sales teams at Indiegogo, the global crowdfunding platform. Which was a lot of fun, and we actually did a lot of similar things to what we're doing at Treet, which is like launching brands on a platform and helping them raise money through pre-orders at that time. Now we're doing it through resale orders with Treet. And even while I was at Indiegogo and before, I've always had a deep obsession with eCommerce and Shopify, the Shopify environment. And so, have started a couple of my own DTC Shopify brands, everything from like cardboard furniture to travel towels, and also with like the blend of things that overlap with sustainability. And so, I studied entrepreneurship in environmental studies in college. And so, I'm like one of the rare breeds of people that actually studied what they actually ended up doing, startups in sustainability and like environmentalism. And so, even the DTC brands that we launched were like something you do with recycled products or items that could be recycled or made with recycled materials. And left Indiegogo to eventually, actually, initially, it was going to be my own circular men's fashion brand that was tech-focused to kind of incorporate what we were going to do a little bit with Treet. And eventually, like, the kind of classic aha moment was like, "Oh, we're building this awesome tech, or we're thinking about building this awesome tech. Let's just build the tech to enable any brand to do what we're trying to do and like create a bigger impact overall. And also, just a bigger business for us that we can be proud of." That kind of like led us to build Treet.

Greg: That is really cool. I mean, so, so many questions.‍

Jake: We may just sit here for the entire day.‍

Greg: Yeah. Alright, first and foremost, with Indiegogo, because that's awesome, what is the craziest brand that you helped launch on that one?‍

Jake: Oh, man.‍

Greg: It could be like a, "What are you there trying to do here?"‍

Jake: I mean, there were some really wacky products. It was really fun being on the other side of things and just seeing what got funded. I think the most surprising when we were there was the one that we launched was like a... it was like a peanut butter spreader that spread peanut butter really efficiently. And it raised like 150 grand.‍

Greg: Oh my goodness.‍

Jake: Had thousands of these, basically a holder for putting in peanut butter that had like a nozzle, so you can spread the peanut butter efficiently. We also launched a Pancake Bot which was a 3D printer for pancakes.‍

Greg: Oh, wow.‍

Jake: Because it created... and we actually sent one to the office, and we create, like, we would create mockups of people's faces and like the Indiegogo logo, and we'd print pancakes in that vein. But honestly, a lot of it was like electric e-bikes, electric scooters, mobility, kind of the classic things like phone chargers. And so, like 90% of the things that we launched were like within a couple of different realms of items, like a lot of that sort of stuff. And then, the 10 to 15% of wacky, weird things that nobody could guess would actually pop. That's absolutely absurd.‍

Greg: Yeah. That's so much fun. Now, did you have to...? I mean, obviously, it's a similar playbook for everything because it's all platform based. But when you got the wacky ones, you're like, "Oh, we have to take this whole other go-to-market strategy for this thing because it's like totally off the cuff.‍

Jake: I mean, it depends on how hands-on we were. With some big campaigners, like with big companies, we'd actually get pretty hands-on with working with our marketing team. Maybe we'd be the agency or working with a marketing agency that is helping launch them. And so, it just depends on like that sort of like level of involvement. Sometimes the wacky ones we didn't even know existed until they started popping off.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: And so, that was rare, but that's what would happen. That's what happened to like the peanut butter spreaders. Nobody even talked to this campaigner. And on Indiegogo, like anybody can launch a cloud campaign.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: The team really likes to get involved and help you actually launch the products, but oftentimes things like that, they just pop off, and then you get involved later on. Like, "Okay, this is how you really get the most out of the campaign. This is how you get your current backers to build community and get their... like build referral network and referral campaign. This is how you use the Indiegogo Pixel to run Facebook ads and all things like that," that sometimes come in afterward. Yeah.

‍Greg: That's really cool. Like, you've probably heard about this, but back in the day, Google and this had to be like 12 years ago or something. But they had this huge screen with all the searches that were coming through. And then, they'd rank the searches on a per-day basis, and so they sit at the top. I just imagine this for Indiegogo, like maybe it's been like two columns. One is just like, "What's the bubble-up list of who's going to get traction?" And the other ones, "What's the craziest idea that bubbles to the top?"‍

Jake: Yeah. I mean, that's how we would pass our time basically, of like... I mean, from a sales standpoint, obviously, work here's like, "What are the best biggest campaigns? Who's generating the most revenue?" And then we have a weekly stand-up or someone to present just a project that nobody has ever heard of.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: And the cool thing about the company is there's a lot of really passionate people about like comic books, or graphic novels, or like nonprofits. And these other types of campaigns that weren't raising a million dollars, but it's still like really meaningful. And those ones get less attention on the front page but are also still really interesting, cool campaigns that people can help work on and help push and help support, like internally at the company, which is cool.‍

Greg: That's awesome. That's really cool. That's a really fun sort of backing to a lot of the experience and your current path and vision. So, that's cool.‍

Jake: Yeah, yeah, I mean, part of it was also like there... I will say there were some really cool, helpful, interesting products that came through Indiegogo and crowdfunding, and that will always be the case. And then there's always just the 10-in-1 pocket knife that maybe shouldn't exist. And then there's a lot of. I would say, like, I wouldn't call it junk, but there's just random stuff out there, just a lot of consumerism. And so, I had, like, it was this weird dissonance of like working with a company to create a lot more things in the world, and also me feeling internally, especially with my background in environmentalism and loving the outdoors of like, "Does this thing really needs to be created? Is this a necessary thing that we need to produce in China?" And also, like, "This is not made to ever be broken apart or repaired or recycled or upcycled. It's like a single-use thing." And so, like, helped stir in me, like my next thing had to be something back in the space of contributing to a greater good type thing.‍

Greg: That's a really hard juxtaposition where you're trying to figure out, like, I mean, consumerism is consumerism, capitalism is capital, you can build whatever you want. And if people want it, great. But is it actually helping the world? Because it does require materials. It does require probably oil and all sorts of things...‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: ... to produce it and everything else. And then landfills if it is a single-use item or something that gets thrown away?‍

Jake: There's kind of always that back and forth of, "Am I creating something meaningful, useful? Or is it just creating something that can just be used and then thrown away?" And especially being a business, right, like even when you're in business, you have to care about the bottom line and sales and generate revenue. And sometimes, that takes precedence over the environment or the greater good.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: So, kind of a constant balance trying to think about those things.‍

Greg: Fair, fair, and totally true. So, and then... so, okay, so then you move on and you start running your own eCommerce stores. Like, was the driver there that you want wanted to learn about the space because, eventually, you wanted to be more ingrained in this? Or was it like, "Let's just do some side projects and just like make some money on this?"‍

Jake: Yeah. I mean, I was actually doing those things, either before Indiegogo or even while I was at Indiegogo. And there were just like this... at different phases; the first one was we really tried to build this business, and it didn't end up work panning out. The second one was a side project. We had wanted to build a brand wanted to produce a product. It was a travel towel company made out of fabric towels like recycled plastic water bottles. And I did it with my brother, and we had a great time doing it and selling hundreds of towels. And honestly, part of it was we have the excuse of being outdoors and going on like waterfowl hunting adventures and doing photo shoots and this and that. So, it was a great side hobby and also built an even deeper appreciation for how difficult that is to build an email brand. It's not the sort of thing where, if you build it, they will come. And understanding all the different eCommerce enablement solutions that we were using, the different tech providers, like the Shopify app landscape, if you will. And so, that really did help as we transitioned into Treet, just having like that, that intimate knowledge of what it was like to really manage an ongoing Shopify store.

‍Greg: Totally, totally. So, when you were... I'll pick on this a little bit, and then I'm going to jump over to Treet because I just love what you're doing there too. But when you were building out the stores and building out the community for those stores, like what were some of the biggest surprises that you start moving on and everything's fine, and then all of a sudden, "Oh, I didn't think about that,"? And I'm kind of looking at this from the guise of like other eCommerce companies that are getting into growth phases or into the beginning phases. What are some tips and tricks for them in that sense?‍

Jake: Yeah, I mean, for us, like, there's a couple of things. I will put the buckets of logistics and operations on one side and then marketing on the other. And then like where those meet in the middle is sort of magic, right? And so, for us, just figuring out logistics and what fulfillment partners to use and the costs of that, I think we were surprised by how expensive it was going to be for us to not do our own fulfillment and do it with 3PL. But also like how convenient those options were, especially as a side project. And so, one of the big decisions we made was to go with 3PL, which is more of a personal decision for us based on our time.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: So, that was like the first big decision. And it also cut deep into our margins as we were launching the business early on. And so, if we were to do it again, we would honestly probably start in-house, just doing the fulfillment on our own as we got ramped up. Because we just, we were in that trap of, "If we build it, they will come." So, we actually thought we're just, we're going to literally run out of inventory immediately. We're so excited to build a pre-launch community. And that's what we've done at Indiegogo, and that's what I would preach is to like sell before you can have the item and build that pre-launch community, build the hype. And so, when you launch, you have a lot of momentum. And we did that. But we launched and we sold out on day 1, and then day 2 or 3 was kind of like crickets. And so, we built a system; we, like, over-constructed a system that wasn't really... we had to like grow into it over time.‍

Greg: Yeah, yeah.‍

Jake: And we never really got to the point where it was actually efficient; it was actually justifying the cost. We ended up actually pulling out of the 3PL and doing one-off fulfillment. And that was actually fine for a while. Like every other day, we'd literally go to the post office.‍

Greg: That's awesome.‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: I'll never forget. So, my dad started his business right before I went to college. And it was an equal opportunity employment mediation counseling. But he would build these like pamphlets, like these, like pretty big booklets for his classes beforehand. And I'll never forget before a class, I mean, he's just going to the post office with just these like stacks of books to be sent out. And I'm just like, "Man." I mean, this is back in the day.‍

Jake: Yeah, yeah.‍

Greg: Right? But I was like, "There has to be a better way," and he's like, "Not one that's cost-efficient." And, but it kind of goes to that same point, right? Like the volume is, it really needs to be there to utilize some of these tools out there to help to create an easier life essentially for the company.

‍Jake: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think there are just a lot of questions you have to ask yourself to see, like, "Is a 3 PL the right decision for me right now? Is it worth the time? Is it worth the cost?

‍Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: "Do I expect to be growing? Do I actually have data that shows that I'm growing in a way to make it effective? And then also, which 3PL do I go with?"‍

Greg: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. The other thing that you brought up that I thought was really interesting, I'm actually talking to a founder right now about starting their own eCommerce brand, and she has been so focused on product, product, product, product, and like getting it perfectly right, right?‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: And almost at the demise of community, or sort of that pre-launch in a sense. Like, how do you recommend balancing those two things, right? Like, you have to build a community, again, for that early-stage launch, but you don't necessarily have a product yet. So, therefore, you can't film and like do all the stuff that you will need. How do you balance those things out?‍

Jake: Oh, man. I have a lot to say here because that was basically all Indiegogo. Like, the number 1 way to build a successful Indiegogo campaign, which is literally just it's a launch. And so, if you think about Indiegogo, just as you're launching something, you can take all of those methods that you're doing for that launch and apply them to any launch. So, I also worked at a marketing launch agency, part-time running sales for them that was focused on Indiegogo campaigns and other launches. And we use the same practices, and it's like always comes down to community building.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: And pre-launch marketing and list building. And so, like you can do a lot without a product. You can do so much to build your community. They might be able to... not be able to have videos, but they can do prototypes.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: Like, can have pictures. They can do mockups and prototypes and show the item in action. They can create a launch page with their different value props or the different value props that they think they should have. And the most important part of that phase is actually making sure you're building the right product. And so, being able to, like, if you have money, run ads against different versions of your product with different communities to understand also what your ad spend, or ROAS is going to be. Start building that community. Funnel them into a private VIP Facebook group of passionate people around that space, and like have them help you co-create the product with you. And those are the same people that are the most excited to buy from you on day 1. And so, I would say you can't afford not to incorporate customer feedback as you're building. And you can build that initial community of those early adopters. They're not going to care that you don't have a product right now. They want to be a part of that journey to help like create the right product for them. And the more that you can involve them in that process, the higher likelihood they're going to actually buy from you on day 1.‍

Greg: I love that. I mean, I couldn't agree more. And I think that, like we did a lot of that with WAIR especially. And even with Fit 3D back in the day when we were starting our business. So, it was kind of build the groundswell and the need, have constant conversations with your early customers or early adopters to really understand what you're building to solve that problem, and then start integrating that into the roadmap and into the launch initiatives. So, I love that.‍

Jake: Yeah, absolutely.‍

Greg: Awesome. Alright. Well, well, let's switch gears, right? Let's hop over to the nitty gritty of why we're here in a sense. But so you had mentioned at the very beginning, which I loved, right, that you have an education in what you're currently doing, which, as you said, is pretty rare. And so, when you were thinking about environmentalism and like how we can start to do things to essentially improve the environment, improve the earth, in a sense, especially from a landfilling perspective, which I think is kind of a big focus, how did you kind of come across Treet and the vision behind Treet in that sense?‍

Jake: Yeah. So, I mean, it was an ongoing process of just like thinking about things and how things are built. And what things are contributing to what waste and what energy. And deciding that fashion was where I wanted to land. Partly because I like fashion, I like secondhand fashion. And also, just partly because fashion is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases in the world.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: It's debated whether it's like second, third, or fourth. It doesn't really matter; it's one of the biggest.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: Fashion waste is a huge, huge, huge problem. And when it comes to like circularity and secondhand, there's this shining star of like there's something out there that can actually help with this, and it's trending. So, brands are going to want to do this. And it's really good for keeping items out of landfills, like buying a used product reduces its footprint by 82%. Like displaces the need to create a new product. And so, more people are buying secondhand, which means, like, the secondhand community is growing at this insane pace; it's growing like 11 times faster than retail.

‍Greg: Is it really?‍

Jake: Yeah, it's going to more than 2x in the next four years.‍

Greg: Okay.‍

Jake: And so, it's this massive, massive opportunity for us to like do shopping better. And for us, it was like, "How can we...?" The hack is going through the brands. The brands have the most, like the best view of who's buying their items and who has their items that can be resold. And we use a ton of that really rich data to be like, "Okay, brand; you can tell your customers, they're going to resell their items anyway, they're going to be doing that. Let's have them sell it with you and create new secondhand shoppers and people that even haven't shopped secondhand or sold secondhand that are now suddenly doing it because they're doing it through a trustworthy brand. And we're making it so easy for them to do it." They can do it from their order history. We pull in stock photos and original pricing descriptions. Kind of make it like a no-brainer for the brands and for their customers. So, that was... I mean, I kind of answered a different question to that. But that was like... it was all about fashion waste, and deciding that that was where we wanted to create our impact, and then just doubling down on that. And we've been really focused on the extension of life. So, just like making sure... our real mission is just making sure every item that can be resold is resold and lives its longest life possible until its end of life. And we're already starting to talk about different end-of-life solutions. And we just launched a resale recycling program with Tentree in early August.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: But where we are starting to tear at the end of life with resale. And so, like, that's where a lot of the magic happens too, is like, "Okay, let's make sure every item lives its longest life. And then when it's actually time for this item to like go away, let's make sure that it's upcycled or recycled or re-materialized or broken down, or whatever it is, so it can like go back into to being produced for another product." ‍

Greg: Yeah. There are two things that you said there that I think are really, really interesting. I mean, one is trust, right? If you're buying a secondhand product from any one of the hundreds of marketplaces out there to buy secondhand products, like, I mean, it's just the same thing as we see with Amazon, right? Like, we don't know if the reviews are true or not. We don't know if the product is actually through the vendor or not. But if these things are trusted by the consumer because they're on the brand side, and you know that they're only going to sell their own stuff, if that's the case, you've ticked that box, which I think then makes it very palatable, in a sense, which is a great idea. I love that concept.‍

Jake: Absolutely. I think that's a big piece of why brands have found success with it, and their customers really liked it. It just feels like a more elevated secondhand shopping experience than going on a marketplace like Poshmark, where there are millions and millions of people. And you scroll through and it kind of feels like a sales rack like a loss or something like that. And versus you're on the brand site like you see the photos, you see size guides and product descriptions, you just like feel like it's a more elevated experience. It's just way easier to navigate and find items that you're looking for in the right size, etc.‍

Greg: Totally, totally. And I think the other thing that I really gravitated towards was the true end of life of a product, right? I mean, at the end of the day, everything produced will eventually get thrown away, right? It's going to end up in a landfill. But the reality is, as you mentioned, like can we extend that life? And I'll never forget I was at a PI apparel event in Milan...‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: And I met these guys from I believe the Netherlands in there. And they had this jean company called Honestly. And they were doing some of the most amazing stuff with recycled clothing, where they would take the threads... they have these donation centers all over Europe, people can drop in their old jeans in there. They would take the stuff out. They'd basically tear out the fibers of everything, and then they'd rebuild them back up into their jeans. And then, when they rebuilt them up into their jeans, they really thought about, "Alright, the rivets, for example, can't be replaced, right?"‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: "So, let's not use rivets. let's use threads that can then be replaced." I mean, they just put so much mental thought into how to create a second life for these products that would just end dead.‍

Jake: The inception of the product is where it really starts. So, actually thinking about the materials that go into the item and making sure those items can be recycled afterward or safely like upcycled or whatever it is. But almost the easy part and like the low lift part, is an extension of life. And so, that's where brands can have an easy win to be more sustainable and more emphasis on being 'more circular'; it doesn't make you a circular brand. But you can extend life. And I think about WAIR the same way, in terms of what are these really great, impactful things that a brand can do from a sustainability perspective that also don't take years to change their supply chain or things to change around. It's like what is the checklist of things that they can do to create the biggest impact now? I think size guides and making sure that people are getting the right sizes the first time reduces returns and all of the packaging and the waste and all the emissions that are in the shipping space. The same thing; it's like there are probably five different things from carbon offsetting, the better size guides, resale, and probably a few more. Maybe we need to create a sustainability stack or something like that. But you need to do as like the... as like, this is what we shouldn't be doing at the very minimum to reduce our impact, reduce our carbon emissions. And then let's also, at the same time, think about what are the rivets that go into our jeans, the materials? And start using more eco-friendly materials? What is the water production of our denim?‍

Greg: Yeah, wash.‍

Jake: Yeah. All that stuff.

‍Greg: I love that. I mean, I think that's when you talk to a lot of the larger brands that are out there. They have these innovation groups that are really looking like 5, 7, or 10 years in the future, right? And a lot of times, they'll forget that some of these problems can be solved today.‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: And I think when they have that mindset, the challenge is that then basically for the next seven years, you're doing exactly what you're doing, you're creating no better than or no positive impact. And then, hopefully, your moonshot idea actually works, right? And I love the concept. I mean, I think you and I talked about this last week a little bit, but the concept of having like, "Here's your sustainability stack. And here are all the different things that you can do. And like this is going to have this little impact. This is going to have this little impact. This is going to have this little impact. And if you deploy all of it, here's the collective impact that that can have. And you could do it like that." And then you keep your innovation team focusing on the future-facing initiatives that are those moonshot concepts. Like, I love that as a concept of like incrementalism leading to innovation, in a sense, which is so powerful.‍

Jake: No, absolutely. There's like a saying that gets tossed around in this space law, which is progress over perfection. Just like improve. Do these little things. Over time, that leads to a really significant impact overall.‍

Greg: Yeah. Totally agreed. So, as you guys are building, what are some of the ways that you have used to get the word out, right? How are you attracting customers or prospects to you guys so that you can have your mission discussions and your sales consultations?‍

Jake: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a combination of like we have a sales team that is reaching out to the brands that we think would be great partners with Treet. And those are brands that like have high-quality items. We're focused on apparel, apparel, accessories, bags, footwear, etc. And so the hunt for great brands that we can work with. And a lot of brands come to us. Especially because we've launched with great brands, we're building our repertoire. We power resale for over 50 brands. Some of the best, well, we think, some of the best brands. Like, in the kid's space brands like Rylee and Cru, Quincy Mae, and Doppel. In the men's space, like Pistol, Pistol Lake, and Cuts and Helm. And then a ton in the women's fashion space, like also Boyish Jeans for sustainable denim, Lindsey, and the list goes on and on. And a lot of brands follow what other brands are doing and like, "Oh, hey, you have this recent program. It says 'powered by Treet' on it, or it has Treet in the URL. Like, let's have a conversation with these guys." And that's been really helpful is just like getting out there fast. The fact that we can launch a site in under a day, we can watch the entire user experience and fully integrated, fully granted experience for granted.‍

Greg: That's cool. I don't know it's that fast.‍

Jake: Yeah, yeah. It's we spent a year building a platform that we can stand up in a day. And so, because we can do that, we launch a lot of brands every month. And because we watch a lot of brands, other brands see that and their customers see that. And now, their customers are asking them about Treet too and about resale. So, probably the coolest thing that's happened in the last year is brands are coming to us and saying, "Hey, our customers have been asking for this." And then we're like, "Okay, that's great. This happened like a year ago, but happy to know." Yeah, yeah. That's been really fulfilling.‍

Greg: Makes total sense. I think we always sort of want it faster. But sometimes, we'll forget about the evolution required to get to where we are. It's like, "Oh, if I would have just done this and this, but maybe this could have been..." it seems like it just had its...‍

Jake: Had to learn those lessons, had to go that path, had to build the education, and yeah, totally. Yeah, I agree. I feel we're always like faster, faster, faster, like grow. But things do take a natural progression. Sometimes you can only go so fast.‍

Greg: Totally, totally. It's funny. We see a very similar, very similar growth pattern where a lot of our opportunity is inbound, right? And it's exactly that that we see by WAIR. And it's funny because we took a really strong stance in the very beginning was like, we don't want to take over the site, or we don't know how to have so much attribution that to you, the shopper forgets that they're on the site that they're shopping at.‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: But at the same time, what we've also found is that when the powered by WAIR logo is there, our usage rate and conversion rate, and success rate actually goes up, right? Because now, these shoppers realize that this isn't just something that was spun up to help them on a willy-nilly basis by brand. This is something that a company dedicates its life towards. And it was really interesting for us to see that transition, not only in the positive view of like us as the customer... or as the vendor, but then also the shoppers. And I was wondering if you guys experienced that same thing.‍

Jake: Honestly, I haven't thought about it like that before. I can see us... I can see that same thing playing out here where the shoppers are on a Treet-powered site and say they know it's a Treet. And oftentimes, they already have now a Treet account, so they're able to log into their same email address. And part of how we've thought about it, especially with why the brands love it, is they see this as like in partnership with Treet. This is a little different than a regular... or I would say even then a WAIR or just another Shopify app, is like a lot of the brands actually want Treet to be a little bit more present because they want us to like take care of things.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: And so, we do support. We do disbursements. We do pay out. Like, anything goes wrong, it's kind of on us. They're not adding a new support muscle to their team. And so, they have a like a little bit of brand distance, like, "Oh, in partnership with Treet. Also, they are just a trusted resale partner who's like a trusted platform." And then maybe that's where it overlaps a little bit with what you're saying is like, "This company dedicates themselves to resale. They're here for you. They're building the best resale tech. It's trustworthy. And by the way, we're working directly with them in partnership. And so, it's very trusted, and it feels like our brand too."‍

Greg: Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. I love that. So, alright, we're kind of coming up on time here. But I have two more questions I want to ask. So, when you think about the future of Treet, and even maybe the future of sustainability and eCommerce, what do you think are some of the biggest roadblocks that your company and the vision behind it are likely to encounter?‍

Jake: Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you. I think just the biggest issue in secondhand is getting more people to participate and making it easy, making it seem like a no-brainer. And so, one of the things that also... we have a lot of sayings, I guess, but the other one is like, "Making secondhand feel firsthand for brands and their customers around the world." And so, like the more that..., the easier that we can make secondhand, the more approachable we can make it, the better, the more people will participate, the bigger impact that we can create in the world. There's a big portion of the population that has never bought a second item, even like how quickly secondhand is growing; there's still a huge percentage of the population that hasn't shopped secondhand or sold anything secondhand. And that's where it's really interesting for us to be like, "How can we get those people?" And there's a little bit of friction with the selling process. And so, our goal is to make it easier and easier, like as quickly as possible and easy and so seamless to sell a product; it's going to be just as easy as selling a product as it is to buy a product.‍

Greg: Yeah.‍

Jake: And so, we're really focused on that selling journey to make that as quick and easy as possible. And that's part of, like, the friction point that we're always working on, trying to speed up our selling process. We're using AI. We get to integrate with the brand, so we will have a lot of benefits from that perspective. And just make that the best experience we can.‍

Greg: That's awesome. I love that. I mean, One of the things I think I appreciate more and more as my tenure in entrepreneurship continues to grow is amazing entrepreneurs have thought through a tremendous amount of their business, right?‍

Greg: Yeah.

‍Jake: It's not just, "I have a product that I want to sell," it's like, "How is this going to impact the shopper? How's it going to impact the customer? How's it going to impact the business?" Right? Like, and then all the different ways. And then, at the same time, there's this adaptability lens that comes through that every single day, you're learning, right? And so, those transitions are always sort of shifting in a sense, but there's always sort of this core north star.‍

Jake: Yeah.‍

Greg: And I just hear that coming through more and more in this conversation. I just, I respect that.‍

Jake: Yeah, yeah. We know what our thing is. We just need to build the things to get there to help towards that. Yeah, yeah. And it's really helpful too, like, from just a team mission standpoint. We're all aligned on what the end goal is. Now, we just have to align on what are those specific KPIs we need to focus on. What features do we need to align on to get us there to get us to the end goal?‍

Greg: Yeah, yeah, totally. Okay, last question. So obviously, work-life balance is really important. And so, and then also, being a CEO is like, it's not a 40-hour week job, right? As is most startup positions, frankly. But what do you do to help to balance things out, such that you can maintain your level of focus when you need to during your work week?‍

Jake: Yeah, I will say, to be like, totally transparent. I think I waver a bit in being really great at work-life balance and not so great. And it's... and finding that like stasis where I'm actually just great all the time is kind of what I'm now trying to find, to be honest. Like, I'll say when I'm best at being present at work and just like happy and healthy in my whole life, and you see, my routine is workout every single morning, at least 20 minutes. So, wake up pretty early to work... like, get a really good night's sleep. I'm pretty anal about being in bed reading by 9:30 or 10:00, so prioritizing that. I know that my body needs that. And so, not every CEO can go like into the wee hours of the morning. I know that that's when I need to get my rest. I wake up pretty early, workout, meditate, drink a giant smoothie. And...‍

Greg: I love the emphasis on "giant."‍

Jake: My wife makes fun of me. Just like every single day, it is like this giant...‍

Greg: Every single day, it's like a big gulp of this smoothie.‍

Jake: Yeah. And I just chug that thing down.‍

Greg: That's awesome.‍

Jake: Yeah. And so, it's like part of that routine of just making sure that it's like a lot of health in the morning, helps me throughout the day. And actually, what I started doing even this week is I noticed that once you start your day, it's like pretty intense. There's so... as a CEO; you are always wearing so many hats. And it's like always a juggle to take one hat, put it on somebody else, take another hat, and then you get like a hat back when somebody goes on vacation.‍

Greg: Yeah, yeah.‍

Jake: And it's really insane. Like you're fundraising, your team building, you're selling, you're working with... like you're having one on ones. And so, it can just be pretty hectic. And so, for the past week, I've also been taking like a midday meditation and doing like a 10-minute breathing exercise to get like back to normal essentially.‍

Greg: Yeah, yeah.‍

Jake: And then also, like, I keep my Saturdays as hopefully like sacred Saturdays.

‍Greg: Okay.‍

Jake: So, ideally, on Saturdays, I try to get outside. And so, like for me to recharge every single Saturday, I try to prioritize like, "I'm going on a hike. I'm going on like a city walk," doing something outside to help recharge because I know that I'll work Sundays, and I just work Sunday. It's just what you do. But Saturdays, like having at least one day of break, has been really necessary to recharge.‍

Greg: That's awesome. Yeah, I think that context-switching. And you hear about... like I was an engineer in my prior life, right? And anytime your context switch, you totally lose focus on whatever you're on. And if you don't create the appropriate bookends to be able to do that, you just lose so much in that transition. So, I love the fact that you're cognitive about taking that time to rebalance everything. I think that's definitely a word for the wise in that sense.‍

Jake: Yeah. But Thanks, Greg. Yeah, I mean, again, the caveat there is like not always that great. Sometimes I am there consistently. Sometimes I fall off. I just need a reminder. And it's helpful to talk to other entrepreneurs and to like remind myself of what they're doing and get these tips and try to integrate them to try to be as best as we can. Because at the end of the day, our mental health is very important, and it like directly correlates to the health of the company.‍

Greg: Totally.‍

Jake: How you're able to problem solve, how you're able to interact with the team, and then move the company forward. And so, if we're failing, our company is going to fail, to be the most dramatic. Yeah, absolutely. And it makes total sense in that regard. Look, Jake, this was awesome, man. Thanks for coming on. I Really appreciate the conversation. I know that we will have many more of these conversations, probably not on camera, but definitely. And I love what you guys are doing, and really happy to be a part of that sustainability push as we move the industry forward. So, thank you for everything that you're doing. I love it.‍

Jake: Likewise, Greg. Great to chat. I will probably chat with you next week. Excited for a lot more our partner stuff in the future.‍

Greg: Awesome. Cool. Thank you, sir. Have a great day.

Why Branded Resale is Sustainable Fashion's Shining Star

Want to be notified of our newest episodes?‍Subscribe to our Podcast!

Want to be notified of our newest episodes?
‍Subscribe to our Podcast!