Every month we feature members from the Everything Marketplaces community to help highlight their story, marketplace journey, and share more about what's ahead. In this member feature we highlight Martin Hunt, who’s the Co-founder & CEO of Garage. Garage is a marketplace for buying & selling emergency vehicles, equipment, and more.
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So what’s your background briefly and what led to the idea for starting Garage?

Before moving to NYC to go to college at Columbia, I was a firefighter in Delaware and witnessed firsthand how painful it was to manage buying and selling equipment and vehicles for my community. I grew up in a small town outside of Wilmington, Delaware that, like many towns in America, has tight budgets for equipment.
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In 2023, I got a call from a friend in the fire service who asked if I could help find a better way to manage the process. When I couldn’t find anything, it became clear that there was a need for a streamlined, nationwide marketplace for expensive, hard-to-move equipment like fire trucks. For the marketplace to be successful, we knew we would need to automate previously manual parts of the process– including appraisal, freight and payments. 
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A few months later, my co-founder and I left our jobs (with no product or funding) to build the solution. Shortly after, we applied to and got into Y Combinator and joined as a part of their W24 batch. YC was instrumental in helping us launch and scale the marketplace.
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What were some of the first steps you took to start Garage? What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced?

First, we built an MVP that allowed for the transfer of smaller equipment (think helmets, hose, etc.) and started onboarding our first customers on the supply side. One of the biggest challenges we faced was getting our customers– local governments and fire departments– to trust us despite having no track record. In the earliest days, meeting customers in-person made a huge difference in earning trust while still building a brand and track record.
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What’s the problem that you’re solving for and how has building Garage as a marketplace proven to be a great solution?

Garage serves as a modern alternative to buying and selling via local auctions, Facebook groups, newspaper classifieds, and other outdated methods of trading equipment.
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By handling every step of the sale process– from discovery to delivery– Garage connects buyers and sellers anywhere in the country, and creates a more secure, streamlined experience for buying and selling expensive, difficult-to-move assets.
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While online auction platforms like GovDeals have existed for years, Garage’s end-to-end platform handles freight, warranties, payment processing, and financing all in one place, while offering innovative tools like AI-powered appraisals and virtual inspections, which help eliminate the guesswork of buying and selling expensive assets online.
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In terms of being a great solution, I think our customers can explain it even better than I can and would recommend watching some of the amazing testimonial videos we’ve put together: https://www.shopgarage.com/testimonials
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How have you approached solving the initial cold start problem and getting the flywheel spinning for Garage?

By doing the things that don’t scale. To get the marketplace up and running, we supported customers in ways that we knew wouldn’t scale and it was our competitive edge when customer trust was hardest to gain. In the earliest days, we offered 24/7 support– my phone ringer was always on. This helped us gain insights, and build trust with customers fast.

What’s been your biggest learning so far?

Our biggest learning has been that growth follows when we put customer value first. Whether it’s giving municipal leaders time back, helping towns stretch their budgets further, or even making the equipment-buying process a little more joyful, we’ve learned to approach every decision with a "selfless goals" mentality. If a customer has a smooth transaction and finds success on the platform, that creates outsized value for them — and in turn, for Garage.
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How big does Garage get and what’s needed to get there?

Garage is building the modern marketplace for the $1T municipal and heavy business equipment market. Scaling to this opportunity will require hiring continuing to innovate and expand value creation for our customers. Our ambition is to become the most trusted infrastructure for how America’s most essential equipment is bought and sold.‍
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What’s exciting and ahead for Garage that you can share with us?

We just announced our $13.5M Series A. We plan to now grow our team, expand the marketplace’s capabilities, and continue our mission of serving every town and city in America. We’re actively looking for top talent in the NYC area to join Garage and help us build a better buying and selling experience for America’s civil servants. Check out our careers page if you’re interested in joining!

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Connect with Martin in the Everything Marketplaces community. ‍‍