Thomas Plantenga & Alex Taussig: Vinted CEO's Ultimate Guide to Scaling Marketplaces | E1114

Did you know Vinted is Lithuania's first tech (bell chimes) unicorn, but almost (explosion) nobody thought it would work?

I think the prevailing opinion at the time was it was too hard to build a pan-European marketplace.

So how did they went from an almost-failing business-

By the certain point in time, it really went upside down.

... to completely changing their business model?

Bottom line it comes down to, you completely kill all your current revenue streams, build new ones, and then the last money that you have available, you blow it on television.

(laughs)

And now they are Europe's largest online secondhand marketplace with a $3.5 billion valuation. And this is how they did it. Guys, I am so excited for this. I've been a fan of the Vinted business for years. Thomas, I've been a fan of yours for years. I mean, you were last on the show five years ago. So first, thank you both so much for joining me today.

Of course. Very happy to be here, man. Fan of your show.

Great to be back, Harry, after so long. Thanks for having me.

Now, I want to start with a bit of a weird one, but Thomas, I heard that you never intended to be the CEO. So can I ask-

Uh.

... how did the opportunity actually (laughs) come to be, given that as a starting point?

Yeah. So I, um, I got involved with, with FJ Labs and we, we, we built a company there that we sold to, um, uh, to Wallapop, then we ran that for a while, and there you had investors, uh, Insight and Accel on the board. And then when we sold off to, uh, LetGo, I was kind of like without a job, had nothing to do, uh, but I was really enjoying it, living in New York, uh, was skating a little bit and thinking about what to do next. And actually the plan was to build something again with Fabrice, because I don't know, me and Fabrice clicked and it was good. So then they had Elodie from Insight Ventures who came to me and said, "Thomas, come for breakfast. I have this amazing company. You gotta come." And I asked about the company and they said it kind of like really didn't look good. I'm like, "Come on, I'm not gonna go to Lithuania while I live here in New York." And like, it's like, "No, I'm not gonna do this." Another breakfast, another pitch of li- of, uh, Elodie, and I'm like, "Okay, I'll take a call." So I took a call with, um, Mantas, Justas, and Vidas, and I remember these guys coming in, and they first told their stories about, you know, how they grew up in Lithuania, meaning growing up in the Soviet Union, like, Soviet Union falls apart, like, big chaos. These guys, brilliant, start building tech companies in Lithuania at the age of 13, 14, 15. Mantas built, like, a server company by himself that he sold. He was a data expert. Justas, uh, built an accounting software in Lithuania that is still this day one of the most used accounting softwares (laughs) in Lithuania. And Vidas was able to escape the Soviet because he was winning all these mathematics and, uh, programming medals, you know, those Olympiadas. So I, I hear these stories of these guys and I'm like, "Holy shit, these are, like, brilliant guys." (laughs) I'm like, "Okay, I'm in New York, I'm surrounded by a lot of, like, interesting people, but, like, would be really nice to meet them." Then they showed me, like, how the business was doing. They walked me through, and you saw, like, fast growth of the business, and then they changed the business model into what was, let's say, what the business model that Poshmark is using as we speak. And then the business started to collapse. So they showed me this graph and it showed how at a certain point in time, it really went upside down. And I thought, "You know what? I, I can learn a lot from this visit if I'm gonna do this." So we closed the deal. I said, like, "I need a consulting fee because I, I don't have any, uh, job. I'll come help you five weeks. Write me a good check for five weeks and I'll come over for five weeks." And it just directly it connected, like, um, I, I don't know, you sometimes have that with people. We really understood each other. We started working. Within three weeks, we had a plan ready, and I sat down with Mantas and, uh, Justas and Vidas, well, actually it was Mantas and Justas at that point in time. I walked them through these decks, like 80 slides of analysis of how we should change the business model, what we should do. Bottom line it comes down to, you completely switch your business model, you, (laughs) you practically kill all your current revenue streams, build new ones, and then the last money that you have available, you blow it on television.