OfferUp CEO: Unicorns Are About Vanity. ‘Valuation Is Not Important To Us’

Many are calling Nick Huzar’s startup, OfferUp, the Puget Sound region’s only “unicorn,” a title bestowed on a privately held startup worth more than $1 billion. Initially, unicorns were rare. Now, there are dozens around the country, primarily in Silicon Valley.

Huzar doesn’t like being called a unicorn.

“Valuation is not important to us,” Huzar told the Puget Sound Business Journal. “When I think of unicorns, it’s kind of a vanity thing. We’re more focused on the company.”

The Bellevue-based second hand goods startup recently raised $119 million on a valuation of more than $1 billion from private equity behemoth Warburg Pincus. The company started out of Huzar’s need to convert a room in his house to a nursery. Now, it’s a formidable challenger to Craigslist and Ebay.

Nearly six years ago, Huzar – OfferUp co-founder and CEO – wanted to sell the thousands of dollars in furniture taking up space in the room that would become his daughter’s nursery.

“It was a daunting task,” Huzar said. “I just keep thinking to myself ‘there’s got to be a better way.’”

The platforms available at the time made selling too much of a hassle, he said. So, he got together with OfferUp co-founder Arean van Veelen and set out to create a new platform that could make buying and selling as simple as snapping a photo on a phone.

“We wanted to create a frictionless way to buy and sell,” Huzar said. “We really figured out the secret sauce.”

OfferUp’s mobile app – which the company said reaches as many people as Snapchat – allows a customer to upload a photo of an item they want to sell and post it for potential buyers to see. Similar to Craigslist, the buyer and seller meet in person to make the sale.

But unlike Craigslist, OfferUp customers never give out phone numbers or email. The platform is chat-based, has built in maps and allows customers to use debit and credit cards for a fee. Plus, the company does more to verify identities than competitors. A customer can scan an ID and take a selfie to verify they are who they say they are.

Customers sold more than $3 billion worth of items on OfferUp’s platform last year. Now, the company is projecting it will facilitate more than $14 billion worth of goods trading hands this year — a 366 percent increase.

For comparison, that figure — the gross merchandise volume, or GMV — at online juggernaut eBay was $82 billion in 2015.

EBay has existed since 1995, while OfferUp started in mid-2011. The platform launched in early 2015. Since then, OfferUp has become the Seattle area’s most valuable privately held startup.

Source: Puget Sound Business Journal, Ashley Stewart
Photo: OfferUp co-founders Arean van Veelen (left) and Nick Huzar. OfferUp is quite possibly the Seattle area’s only “unicorn.” (OfferUp)