The Next Great Thing
An exploration into new digital products and experiences — and conversations with the people making them great. What separates a good digital product or experience from being the next great thing in our lives? It’s not just one thing, it’s lots of things — ideas, people, inspiration, distribution, longevity, luck. Host Andrew Greenstein talks with founders, CEOs, product heads, makers, producers, designers, and digital creationists about how they’re coming up with big ideas, pushing creative boundaries, and expanding what’s possible in the digital space. The Next Great Thing podcast is a production of SF AppWorks. Learn more at www.sfappworks.com.
The Next Great Thing
James Reinhart, Co-Founder and CEO, thredUP - Solving (and Scaling) the Hard Problem of Secondhand
We’re in a clothing waste crisis, buying more clothes than ever but tossing them out twice as fast. Americans trash 11.3 million tons of textiles annually – a whopping 2,150 garments every second! The fashion industry, especially fast fashion, is also one of the world's biggest polluters, responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. But there’s a growing movement among consumers and retailers to give the unwanted threads clogging our closets a new lease on life. Enter thredUP, one of the largest secondhand apparel marketplaces for women's and kids' clothes, shoes, and accessories. Founded by a cash-strapped Harvard grad student named James Reinhart and his co-founders in 2009, thredUP is today one of the largest online resale sites But it’s also a massive technology and logistics company. With sprawling automated distribution centers and a custom-built, proprietary operating platform, thredUP processes an impressive 100,000 unique items daily. In addition to its consumer-facing marketplace, the company also runs a Resale-as-a-Service (RaaS) program to help brands and retailers participate in the growing secondhand economy. James joins us to share his unconventional founder story and how his lifelong obsession with market failures and solving really hard problems has been a driving force behind thredUP’s growth. He talks about how Gen Z is leading the sustainable resale revolution and why the circular economy will change the way the world shops.
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