Recording of the Everything Marketplaces Group Chat #173 (10/22) with Reham Fagiri, who’s the Co-founder & CEO of AptDeco. AptDeco is a leading marketplace for buying & selling used furniture. They’ve been listed on a16z’s Marketplace 100 as a top 100 marketplace the past few years and have also raised $19M+ in capital from top investors like Initialized Capital.
0:06 Intro
1:19 Reham's background
1:54 The founding story & first steps for starting AptDeco
4:50 How AptDeco solved the cold start problem
7:24 How AptDeco initially constrained markets
7:56 The AptDeco new market launch & expansion playbook
9:45 An overview of AptDeco as a marketplace for buying & selling used furniture
11:04 How AptDeco offers delivery in markets
13:02 How supply has professionalized on AptDeco
15:24 How demand has evolved on AptDeco
16:25 Recent growth for AptDeco
18:16 How AptDeco has built a logistics & resale platform for brands
19:55 How AptDeco leverages data
21:02 How pricing can be a lever for marketplaces
21:55 How AptDeco's transactions fees & pricing has changed
24:16 Key learnings from scaling AptDeco as an operationally complex marketplace
25:25 The fundraising journey for AptDeco
28:47 Group Q&A on experimentation & testing
32:20 Group Q&A on Reham's experience going through Y Combinator
36:49 Group Q&A on how AptDeco is leveraging data & AI
38:58 Parting marketplace advice
Reham on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reham-fagiri-97683b1
AptDeco: https://www.aptdeco.com
Mike (Yoroomie) on Twitter/X: https://www.x.com/yoroomie
You can also find this group chat in audio format as an episode on our Everything Marketplaces podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also connect with marketplace founders & leaders from our group chats in the Everything Marketplaces community.