Startup Spotlight: GONE.COM - Giving Goods a Second Life for a Healthy Planet

Yashovardhan Wagh is the co-founder & CEO of Gone.com, a Seattle-based circular commerce company giving quality goods a second life through local supply chains. He previously built supply chains for Amazon and other Fortune 100 companies. His mission: to build a national circular economy so future generations can thrive on a healthy planet.

Brought to you by TiE Seattle
Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar
Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In this episode of our Startup Spotlight series, we dive into the journey of Yash, CEO of GAN, a re-commerce startup revolutionizing how we view and handle household items. From humble beginnings with a simple idea to a thriving business model, Yash shares how GAN offers free pickups to help declutter homes and resell items through various marketplaces. Discover how GON is not just about creating business, but also about creating a sustainable future by reducing waste and promoting a circular economy. Join us as we explore the challenges, triumphs, and the visions that drives GON to make a significant impact on both the market and the planet.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Welcome to the Startup to Exit podcast, where we will bring you world-class entrepreneurs and VCs to share their hard-earned success stories and secrets. This podcast has been brought to you by Thai Seattle. TIE is a global nonprofit that focuses on foster entrepreneurship. To become a member, please visit www.seattle.ti.org.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

After the success of our Microsoft at 50 series, which is a first person account of many senior executives in the early years of the company, we're starting our next series, Startup Spotlight. We're going to feature founders and hear their stories, their journeys, and what they are solving in the new world order of AI. I hope you all enjoy it. We have now actually crossed over 25 episodes, and we really thank you for supporting us through our own journey. It's now available everywhere podcasts can be heard: Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Google. I hope you all subscribe, tell your friends to subscribe, and enjoy our next series from Startup to Spotlight. Thank you. Now, a word from our sponsor. At JP Morgan Private Bank, wealth is understood to be more than just numbers. It's about creating a legacy, achieving dreams, and securing a family's future. With over$3.1 trillion in client assets under management globally, JP Morgan Private Bank is committed to providing customized financial advice that aligns with each client's unique goals. Clients benefit from a personalized approach, working closely with experts in philanthropy, family office management, fiduciary services, and special advisory services. The firm emphasizes building lasting relationships and ensuring that every financial strategy evolves with the needs of clients and their families. JP Morgan Private Bank not only manages wealth, but also helps clients create a meaningful impact. Whether individuals seek to support charitable causes, manage a family legacy, explore new investment opportunities, the private bank team is there to provide guidance every step of the way. With the presence in key financial markets worldwide, JP Morgan Private Bank offers unparalleled access to global insights and opportunities. Its commitment to excellence and innovation ensures that clients receive the highest level of service and expertise. Time is recognized as precious, and JP Morgan Private Bank values every moment spent with its clients. The mission is to make the financial journey as seamless and rewarding as possible, from the initial consultation to the ongoing management of assets. To learn how JPMorgan Private Bank can help clients achieve their goals, visit privatebank.jpmorgan Connect with a dedicated team of specialists. Again, privatebank.jpmorgan.com. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 4:23

Hello everyone. Welcome to the next episode of our startup spotlight series. Today we interview Yesh Wag, who's the CEO of Gone. That was in the news uh recently on GeekWire. Yesh uh is formerly from AWS or Amazon, uh, where he was uh an expert on supply chain logistics. And uh Gone is in the re-commerce space. They take household items uh from your home and resell it through marketplaces like Facebook and uh offer up and others.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

So welcome, Yash. Thank you. Thank you, Sharish. Thank you, Gauri, for having me here. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

Great. So let's start by having you tell us the story behind your startup. How did you come up with the idea? And how did you uh start gone?

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Sure. Uh so the story goes back in like 2022 and 2023. I am I am a through and through supply chain guy. All I know was how to connect the dots of supply chains. And I reached out to Nick over a cold call LinkedIn message. Nick was the founder and CEO of Offer Up back then, saying that we know how to connect the dots of a supply chain. I want to do it for Offer Up. And that's how we got onto a coffee to just get things started. And then in true Amazon fashion, after multiple six pages, we were like, okay, there is a market here which we need to explore where unlocking the value in people's homes becomes the crux of the idea because there is a lot of value sitting in people's homes in terms of the stuff that they have. And how do you do it? So to begin and to start doing it, Nick and I actually got into a truck and went around all around Seattle for six days straight and picked up goods out of people and spoke to people and trying to learn their problem where why have they not given our the stuff to offer up? Why have they not put it on Facebook? Why haven't they trashed it or given it to a god junk? And we realized it was all about time value that they did not have the time to do it and they did not have want to put the effort to do it. That's where the idea of Gone, where we are able to give a free pickup to customers to get stuff out of their houses and back into circulation started. So that's that's in a nutshell. Gone started.

SPEAKER_04 6:38

Got it. So what is the solution you have developed so far? How does it work?

SPEAKER_03 6:43

So Gone's end-to-end solution is as simple as we give a free pickup for all the stuff that is reusable. As long as you have goods in your house, it can be furniture, appliances, it can be decor, it can be artwork, it can be exercise equipment, outdoors, whatever it is. If it's in working condition and you're not using it, it is a garage full of stuff, it is just sitting in your home and you're buying new things and you want space out. We offer a free pickup as long as the customer can give us just pictures of what they want gone. After that, behind the scenes, our entire systems look at what you're giving us, make sure that it is reusable, in good cosmetic condition, and desirable to someone else, and then we actually make sure that we can do the supply chain in an ROI positive way, where our truck comes to you for free, takes it all out, we bring it in, we actually warehouse it, list it, sell it across multiple platforms. So the solution to the customer is getting stuff gone. Now, this is just one side of the solution. The other side of the solution is actually the demand side or the buying side. And uh in here, all the things that we get are listed across Facebook, like Facebook, offer up, our own website, actual retail stores, and all n number of places where we can get more eyes on it, and then we try to get it into circulation to the right buyer at the right cost.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

How do you deal with the situation uh where, you know, I might say I have a stairmaster that's in good working condition, etc. I send you a picture. But in reality, I'm lying through my teeth and it's it's not working. I just want to get rid of it, and you do it for free. So now you end up with a lot of junk in your warehouse that you now have to get rid of.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

That's an interesting question. Uh it happens. Sometimes it happens. But look at it this way we are also educating our customers in terms of telling them that we are a sustainable company where the mission to not create waste is the most important mission that we have. And in order to save our own planet through carbon emissions, through waste, through all the things that we are throwing out into landfills, if you try to give me waste, it's actually gonna happen that you have wasted supply chain cost, we have wasted fuel, you have actually wasted space, it's not gonna sell and it's not gonna end up in the landfill anyway. So you have created additional waste just because you wanted a free service. So we try educating our customers. And when it comes to actually operationally doing this, our drivers are well trained that once they are there at your place, they look at it, they touch it, they feel it, and they make sure that the photos and what you're giving us match, and only then we are able to take it. So it comes down to both educating the customer as well as making sure that we are aware of the situation. That sometimes two to five percent of the times things can happen like this.

SPEAKER_04 9:32

So most of the time you get good stuff that you can resell in the marketplaces.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Absolutely. Absolutely. And like our aim is to keep all the premium goods out of landfills. Like it's not the cheap stuff that you generally get out of an IKEA. It is a lot of if you look at the furniture that we have, it is a lot of quality furniture that has been made over a many years that is back into circulation.

SPEAKER_04 9:55

So I guess uh one question the lot of VCs ask like to ask is why now? What industry trend are you riding on that makes this a great idea? I mean, offer up and Facebook marketplace have been around for a long time. So what's what's new that is making this idea possible?

SPEAKER_03 10:12

We are in 2025. Uh there's only one trend that is riding all of us, to be honest with you right now. AI, right? So we brought together, my take is I think we brought together four key ingredients to an age-old C 70, 100-year-old industry to make it happen now. Let's let's start with the first one. Uh like uh the team that we have, right? We got my supply chain expertise in a way and trying to develop an operations-heavy business while bringing in Nick and Aryan's expertise from Offer Up, what they have learned for 12 years or 13 years of running Offer Up in terms of expertise. The second piece is the data that we are actually carrying forward, which is what sells when, where, for how much. We can bank on the data to actually understand how e-commerce market is doing because likes of OfferUp, likes of Facebook, and all of these guys have done it before, and there's enough data out there. The third piece to all of this is actually creating the AI systems. We are in 2025, where it is the world of AI, where we now know to see what is coming in, how do you curate it, how do you price it, how do you actually cre get the supply chain costs done in an ROA positive way and take it through end-to-end. So we have tried to figure it out in terms of technology, data, and team. And last but not the least, we are not trying to be a like one-shop only. We are trying to actually create a hub of re-commerce where everything from the supply side of re-commerce comes and hits the gone hub and then is able to be connected to the entire side of the demand of re-commerce. So we are becoming an AI-enabled logistics hub of re-commerce which connects everything end-to-end, both the supply and demand, and make sure all the avenues are open. So bringing together partnerships, trying to get the right partners and channels out, and making it multi-channel fulfillment as well as multi-channel channel sourcing is what we hope to achieve by bringing this industry together. So those are the four things. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 12:25

Do you have any uh competitors uh like uh is one 800 junk a competitor, or could they be a partner for you?

SPEAKER_03 12:33

One it got junk is one of our most pioneer and initial like initial partners in general, and there are uh we have a strong relationship with them. One eight got junk has been around and many businesses have been around while they're doing this, but they cover their costs through their transportation and through upfront fees. The stuff that they get actually ends up in landfills because they do not have the space to actually sell it from, nor do they have the technology and the pricing to actually get it out in the right way. So the goods that are new to them that are actually in working condition and they become our partners, so they have a two-fold value proposition. Instead of having dumb fees, they're able to make revenues, and instead of having to store it into their space, they're able to use our space with premium customers and premium pricing that makes them or gets them commissions that helps them increase their revenues. So they become our partners. We don't think about them as competitors in any way, shape, or form. And so far, as far as I know, in terms of value village, goodwill, and there are so many others, no one is able to offer the technically easy or convenient service, which is a free pickup from your doorstep, which gets the stuff out. That is, that becomes our kind of value proposition, which no one else has offered in terms of competition.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

So, what kind of progress have we made? I mean, you talked about invasion and use of AI and all of that. Uh, what kind of progress have you made? What kind of traction have we achieved so far?

SPEAKER_03 13:59

So we have actually now have a completely operational store in Renton. And I would urge everyone of you to just come and visit us. It's 13,000 square feet full of stuff, which is the most premium things that you'll ever see. And just on premium, if you actually come in here, you'll be able to furnish your entire office, your entire home, your entire startup, your entire student's little apartment, whatever it is out of here. And that is the stories that you're starting to hear. That Airbnbs are furnished out of here, offices are furnished out of here. The traction is we have a store which is complete now. We have a location and a website, shop.gone.com, which can show you everything that we've got. And this is basically a paramount importance that the supply side of the market, which is supposed to be the difficult part, has been cracked in a decent way. That we are getting enough quality supply from partners, from individuals, from corporations to make sure that the supply side of the marketplace is solved, and now the demand side is starting to pick up as we become a household consumer brand.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

So let's talk about your funding.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

It's finally uh public now. You raised 6.3 million in funding from a number of VCs, including Fuse Ventures, as well as Thai Seattle and other Thai chapters.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Uh how did that happen? Uh you're gonna make me roll back a few years. So this this funding was raised last year in June, but the seeds of this funding were shown probably eight or nine months before we even raised around. And honestly, like I have the likes of Nick, our seasoned entrepreneurs with me, but our philosophy was very simple. We take our investors along a journey to make sure that they understand what the product is, to make sure that they understand why we are building it, to get them involved in our purpose. So, an example of this would be Fuse, right? Fuse is our lead investor. But our first meeting with Fuse happened in November of 2023, and then we raised in uh June of 2024. The first meeting was to just expose them to what we were doing, to tell them that these are the things that Nick and I have gotten into a truck. We are collecting stuff and we're able to see quality things coming out of it. The concept, what started then actually pivots. Gone is not what it started as. It pivots, it changes things. The company is completely new, and from funding onwards, things change. So the company is new since then. But the concept to actually take your investor along with you helped us a lot. TI Angels was with us because all of you knew exactly what I was doing. You knew exactly the efforts that we were taking in building this marketplace. You were you had the confidence probably in in me to know that okay, we know him. He's able to do these things and he has proved out attraction of by actually doing it with their own hands and bootstrapping it. And that's when all the investors came along. And once that thing started, I generally would say that this rarely would happen. But Fuse was our first pitch, and our first pitch converted into something that was meaningful, and then all of you supporting us meant a lot where we are like, okay, we have the confidence from our investors to make this happen because they have seen us through the last eight months.

SPEAKER_04 17:21

Great. Yeah, we are very happy to uh support this initiative. Great. So over to you, uh Gallery.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Great, thanks. Yes, first uh I have to congratulate you on the funding and getting it started. But uh actually, I want to congratulate you for being a mentor for the TYE program, the Young Thai Young Entrepreneur Program, where your teams have won now back-to-back championship on the global stage. So, congratulations for shaping young minds to be entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Thank you so much, Gauri. Like you've touched a topic which is very, very close to my heart. It's all about giving back and how we do it. So, really, really appreciate it. I don't know if you want to dive deeper into that today, but I think we have something very cool going on out there since the time that Arvind and I have taken it over. Happy to dive deep if you want to right now.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

We're gonna do a separate episode with the winning team, so we're gonna invite you for that one. But that sort of leads me to this next question, which is there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there today raising money, right? And you have been both the the entrepreneur who's raising and also advising other young entrepreneurs how to do it. But uniquely, you talked about a journey just now of uh a long one, November of 23 to a year plus before it all came together and the changes. If I'm an entrepreneur listening to you out there, wanting to raise money today for my greatest idea that I ever thought of, and I'm sure it was your best idea at that time, but you were letting it go. How what advice would you give those entrepreneurs, especially on the funding journey that you've been on and the support you got from everybody around you?

SPEAKER_03 19:06

There's no there's no magical pill that gets you funding. It is day in and day out of hard work and in general persistence that helps you with funding. Uh unless you are fully into it, you've burned your boats, burnt your boats for that lack of better terms, that there is no fallback option. You have gone into it all in and you're trying your best every day, is what eventually gets notice, is what I feel. It wasn't it wasn't a year plus and a year and a half of building gone, and then we like a year and a half of no paychecks, just building, just trying to figure out what we can do, and then eventually pivoting many times is what led to the June 2024 funding. So getting it bootstrapped, trying to figure out how many pieces that you can put in place, connecting with the right people, and at the end of that it like being extremely patient and extremely, for lack of better terms, resilient. Because not every day you're gonna find an idea, not every day someone is gonna come and help you. Just trying to meet as many people as possible was what led us to this. And I am very grateful to Thai Seattle for that instance. Because my entire journey, entrepreneurship journey, also started with me getting involved with Thai Seattle. It is you folks who introduced me to many people. Obviously, we take the coffees, you take and take the meetings, you understand from them, you learn from them. So we did all of that. But I'm extremely grateful to organizations like Thai Seattle that help us actually get connected into the ecosystem, and that that makes things happen. And the biggest example, I met Kellen at the holiday party at Thai Seattle. I met Kellen because I got introduced into the charter member group, and that's how we reached out. So getting the connection, the networking going while building with your head down, both of those things come together.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

That's excellent advice. That uh it's a journey, and you have to be resilient to withstand it and get up every morning and do it all over again. Seems like that's uh and I'm and we are glad that uh we see one of our own, you know, get funded and get get their vision into real execution. Now, you talked a little bit about uh the pivots that you went through even as you were heading to your launch, right? So that means there was morphing of it. A lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in saying, hey, I have this idea, so this is it, right? You seem to have struck that balance between pivoting and staying core to your idea. How would you say that you struck that balance and where there are times in which you felt like you're moving away too much from the core or you're not incorporating enough of the suggestions you're getting? How do you balance those two?

SPEAKER_03 21:55

So the two things that you're probably talking about is how do you balance purpose with the market? Market signals. My purpose stems from my daughter. What kind of a world do I want to leave for my daughter as we pass on back into the next generation? And that meant that we wanted to create a sustainable world. The carbon scores are going to the roof where we are just consuming and consuming and we're becoming a consumerist nation, consumerist people. And my thing was like, we got to stop this cycle somewhere. So the core purpose that I have gone behind is a sustainable, mission-oriented thing where we stop the consumerism and actually are happy and content with what we have. And that means making sure that the second-hand goods that have life left in them get used to its fullest rather than crashing and making sure that we don't consume new things. That's the purpose. So if that was the purpose, we started the idea on in many different ways. The first way was like actually consignment. Like we started a company 1-800 consign where we were able to take things in, store it, and actually give the customer some money back. Once you did that, we we figured out that as we learned from the market signals, the idea pivoted completely. And it's a new business again. People did not want money for it. People wanted stuff out of their lives and gone out of their lives. Okay, fine. So we tried doing that. From there, an idea of treasure truck also struck us. Like, can we do it in a treasure truck where we'd come pick it up and just distribute it out there? Eventually, when you hear your customers enough, eventually, when you get the signals right and you match the signals from what the customers are telling us to the purpose, that's how you do it. If you are hell-bent on one idea and if you just want that idea to be proved right, you don't listen to the market. I think it is doomsday. You have to listen to your customer, you have to ask your customers constant questions. And that too, when you're with them in a very friendly way without indicating to them that this is what you're gonna ask. So we made sure that we are solving a problem that the customers wanted while staying true to a deep, innate purpose that I have is how we have landed so far. And I I hope we continue because there are gonna be many more pivots from here on as well.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

So now with the launch of it and the success that you're having, you have great co-founders, right, who have scaled companies. I'm sure that they bring in a particular set of skills with your supply chain and their roadmap is charted, right? How internally are you guys organized or even debating which is the first one to go? Because the choices and the allocation of resources is your number one challenge, I assume you're having because you're actually a physical goods company. It's not like I can hire 100 people more people and they can write more code or they can deploy. This is buying a hundred more trucks is not is non-trivial. How are you mapping roadmap with the team that you have built and the co-founders with experience that you have, as the CEO, you can say this is how we are moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 25:05

Sure. There are a thousand things we can do. You pointed out right now. There are literally thousand things and two thousand ideas that come to us every day. Uh what we have done is for the seed round and for the seed stage of funding. We have a team of what, 14, 15 people now. Seattle is our Peter dish. And in the in this Peter dish, we are experimenting enough to find the right market signals and to just do one simple thing right. It is to do, and that is the crux of our business. It is to get the unit economics of a physical logistics company right by pulling all the levers of AI, all the levers of technology, all the things that we can do physically in a store right out here, to get that Petri dish right, where you prove out one market, you figure out, for lack of better terms, a playbook. It is not a playbook because every market you go to, 80% of the playbook should remain the same, 20% will change. But in this one market, if we can actually figure out how to get our unit economics right, how to make the customers happy, and how do the goods move end-to-end seamlessly using our technology, then we would know that okay, this experiment works. If this experiment works like that, that's when we will be ready to go across the nation. Right. That's how we're prioritizing it right now, rather than entertaining every idea possible.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Right, right. Which is incredible, right? Because you actually can do a lot of things at this point. And you are focused on the one thing that you want to do, right, which is unit economics. And eventually your business, more than any other startup, is so unit economics-centric. Now, as you look ahead, you know, in the next, say, two to five years, right? What would uh what would Yash's vision and life be? You know, just don't worry about the head if I get funding, if I remove all the hurdles, just kind of let your mind wander and tell our audience what you see as your path in making gone a verb.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

If you want something gone out of your lives, gone.com. That is that is where we need to head to this. Anything re-commerce, anything recommerce needs to hit gone, and we need to be the enablers of the end-to-end supply chain of re-commerce. There are a couple of couple of ways my brain is revving right now. Uh number one comes down to our mission, like to the core of our mission. We are we are the local hub of global re-commerce. We want to make sure that entire supply and entire demand of re-commerce gets connected end-to-end through the on. But something far larger and bigger than like just how the semantics of it works, of how the supply and demand does is, is you're creating a sustainable planet. You're trying to create a carbon conscious planet. And you're trying to make sure that you're trying to do what is right for the climate crisis that we have, what is right for the planet, what is right for the next generations. So, in an ideal world for Yash, at some point of time, if we can start making sure that every good that is there on this planet actually gets barcoded with a gone SKU number, and we are able to track it end to end, where we know how much carbon was saved, what was saved from getting manufactured, what was saved and getting into the dump. Where is that product right now? And we are able to create a full-fledged end-to-end system. That would be a super cool thing that we can do for our community or our ecosystem or planet for everything. That's that's the other answer that I would have in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah. So, you know, Nick, your co-founder, was our first guest when we started our podcast, right? So we are really thankful to him. He was very entertaining. He kicked us off great, and he's a local celebrity having started Offer Up. You know, he had a very unique perspective as to how expansion happens in the Offer Up days, right? And it was one of those several quick experiments that led him to where Offer Up is today. And he talked about expanding in NFL cities and all that. You have a unique set of things where you're going to get a lot of others who say, Hey, come to us, come to our city, come to us, because the purpose is clear. Nobody wants to do it. But really, the problem is just not United States, it's the whole world that has the same problem. Absolutely. And the unit economics you have to achieve, right? Is there a North Star that you guys measure every day to say when we are aligning, that's when we can expand in whatever the city or goods or other things? Because eventually, if your goal is to measure carbon footprint, you gotta expand it. You can't just be in one store. How do you guys look at that as a company every day and say, hey, we gotta keep measuring this every day?

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Of two very simple metrics that we have across the company. One is are your unit economics positive? That means is your store been able to break even with what is happening? Whatever your costs that are there for one hub, are they able to break even? That's your number one goal. And the number two goal is for a marketplace, whatever is coming in, is it going out? Are you able to match the supply? If you're getting thousand items per month, are you able to sell thousand items? So, what is the velocity with which you are able to actually process, churn, and match the items to from the right supply to the right demand? If you take care of those two metrics, we are decently well aligned to making sure that okay, this experiment that we are trying to run is successful. And now this experiment can be run across all your NFL cities, eventually across the blue.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

That's awesome. I like the way you've very simplified, you've simplified even for your internal teams, how they can rally around two simple metrics as opposed to broader goals that they they may not be able to see on a day-to-day basis. I love the way you've approached it. And I also think that uh what you're doing for the planet and and the purpose through which you've started is incredible. Shirish and I are very happy that we've been uh played a very small role in uh Gone getting started. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Thank you so much. Your role wasn't small, it is a very major uh contribution to my as well as Gone's journey. I won't call it success yet. It is a journey that we are taken. Appreciate the guidance, appreciate the outlooks, appreciate the networking and connections, and hopefully all of us can be successful in times to come. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Thank you for listening to our podcast from Startup Big brought to you by DI Seattle. Assisting in production today are Isha Jain and Mini Verba. Please subscribe to our podcast and rate our podcast wherever you listen to them. Hope you enjoyed it.