Tracy Sun is the co-founder and SVP of New Markets at Poshmark. She has spent the last 15 years between NYC and Silicon Valley at the intersection of fashion and technology. At Poshmark, Tracy has pioneered a social commerce platform that is shifting the fashion landscape, making shopping simple, fun and social, while also empowering entrepreneurs to build thriving retail businesses. Prior to Poshmark, Tracy was Vice President of Merchandising at Brooklyn Industries, a New York City-based fashion retailer. Tracy has been highlighted as a "Top Female Tech Founder" by USA Today and TechCrunch, a "Woman Making Waves in Tech" by Refinery29, a "Retail Game-Changer" by Marie Claire and is a member of the BoF 500, the definitive professional index of the people shaping the $2.4 trillion fashion industry. In her interview, she shares what it takes to be an innovator in the retail space.
You started Poshmark with a huge vision, to blend an E-commerce platform with a social network. When you were pitching to investors, did they see the vision?
Of course not. That would be too easy but the vision of Poshmark back then is pretty much what you see today. When we started, there was a massive player already in the space - eBay had done such a fantastic job with the secondhand marketplace. We had no ambitions to be eBay. We wanted to create a platform where anyone could launch a business and start with items in their closet. It would be mobile, and there would be no need to spend money on inventory. It would also be incredibly social because talking to one another is a very natural way to buy and sell. That was our vision. Very few people we spoke to, especially investors, could understand what we're doing. But I always say, when you're fundraising, you don't need everyone to believe. You just need one or two really good believers, especially at the beginning.
When you were raising, did you build an MVP and have sales before VCs became interested? Or did you raise on a concept?
We happened to raise on a concept. A small round, because we needed some resources to build what we were envisioning. Poshmark is a marketplace, which is incredibly hard to get started. One doesn't get the buyers and the sellers and the merchandise one at a time. No, they have to be brought on at the same time. It was very challenging. We‘re also building a community, so it's almost like two businesses in one. We felt like we needed to hire and invest a bit more before we got to that MVP. Every subsequent fundraising event that we've done since then, we've had to move the business forward and show tangible results and an increase in the value of what we'd built.
What are some of the early learnings you want to share with people embarking on a similar path?
Remember that for everything that goes well, there are multiple things that get messed up along the way. We did many things well, but we also tried a lot in between that didn't quite work.
Prior to Poshmark. I lived in New York, and I had a certain perspective because New Yorkers tend to be connected to fashion in a really special way. That was my perspective. When I moved to San Francisco to start Poshmark, I thought surely San Francisco - also a fashion capital - would connect to fashion in a similar way. That was not the case. Silicon Valley is very much a tech capital. And they don't care as a collective community about fashion. They care about cutting-edge technology.
I'm telling you that story because often, the most innovative companies blend different perspectives together to do something new. Poshmark is a technology company, we have laptops, and we pay Amazon for server space. However, we have a lot of people in the company that care deeply about the customer and the customer's needs and will evangelize strongly for brands. That's not a typical technology value, but it is a very typical fashion brand value. And so, I like to think of Poshmark's DNA as half Silicon Valley and tech and half fashion and consumer.
But I always say, when you're fundraising, you don't need everyone to believe. You just need one or two really good believers, especially at the beginning.
You serve customers who come to the platform to buy, but you also serve your sellers who are on the platform as entrepreneurs. How are you navigating that messaging?
We focus ourselves by having one customer. We are laser-focused on sellers - they are our primary customers - providing services to help them grow helps us keep our priorities in check. They are the ones building businesses and taking risks. They're the ones putting in their time and energy to make money or to connect with more people.
In order for them to grow, they need tools and a reliable platform. Early on, we decided we wanted to create an end-to-end solution to make it easy to sell. Our goal is for every single person with a phone to be able to start a business. I don't care if you're making 20 bucks, 200 bucks or 2 million bucks. You can do it on Poshmark with just what you have.
Part of our value proposition is sellers don't have to learn how to run ads or things like that. They just need to do what they're good at: tell a story, merchandise their store, talk to customers and inspire people. As a platform, we'll bring the traffic and handle everything else.
Poshmark has been in existence since 2011. How has the platform and approach evolved in that time?
Our strategy has evolved quite a bit. Poshmark was a mobile-only experience for the first few years of our company's existence. That doesn't sound so crazy today, but back when we were developing the business, it wasn't obvious yet. We knew it was coming, but it wasn't obvious enough to bet our business on. As a startup, you have to make those difficult choices and bet on things. Mobile was one of the huge bets we made early on that ended up paying off.
I bring that up to discuss customer acquisition. Because mobile was so new, there were no acquisition engines for mobile. There were no advertising platforms. There was nothing. So in the early innings of Poshmark, we focused on recruiting community members. We sought people who would take pictures of themselves before the word selfie was coined; who would sell resale before we all started embracing pre-owned clothing. We found those early adopters and formed a community. We focused on organic community formation and then had them invite their friends. As we evolved, a lot of mobile advertising opportunities came into play.
There's not always solid decision-making when it comes to growing a business. There's a lot of fuzziness and calculated risk-taking.
And now you primarily focus your attention on the seller?
The truth is we don't think of people in terms of buyer or seller because any given person could be either or both. Our goal is to get people to register. Once you register, you can take one of two paths, you can start shopping, or you can start listing some items to sell. What we find is people often like to do both. When they do both, they are really, really engaged. So our main objective is engagement.
What are Poshmark host events, and what are they like?
Virtual events have always been part of our DNA because of our emphasis on human connection. We do most of the human matching, connecting you to people online. But we do often bring the connections in person. Pre-COVID, we would do company-sponsored Posh Parties around the country.
We do a multi-day event annually. And then we have seller-focused or seller-hosted events that we support - hundreds of them happen across the country. These events form connections. Imagine meeting someone for the first time who's also trying to hustle and build an online business. It's such a great connection to make because you have something so core to your DNA in common with this complete stranger, which is this like belief in yourself that you can do it. And then you get together, and you're like, "Well, how did you do it?" Or, "I'm having this problem. Can you help me figure it out?" Or, "I'm just really discouraged because I did all these things to run my store and for some reason, my sales are down?" It's a support network for sellers to learn and mentor and grow.
We find that these events - that are now virtual - are a great way for people to support one another in a way that we can't. But we can give our community the tools to help themselves or help each other, and we're happy to guide and help out. We've found that the events work. So, in a pandemic world, a lot of these are now hosted over zoom. We've done about 600 of these events virtually.
What are the qualities of a successful seller on your site? What makes them rise above everyone else?
First and foremost, like any entrepreneur, a seller needs to believe in themselves and put in the time and energy to grow their business. When people ask me about my experience with Poshmark, a lot of them think I'm so lucky, and it just happened. That's not true! I spent years hustling to solve every single problem we encountered to build this business. It was not easy. The same thing goes with any of the sellers on Poshmark. If you pick up the app for five minutes and put it down, you're not putting in the effort to build a business. You're doing a little bit, and that's great. But the more time and authentic energy you put towards engaging with your potential customers, using all of the tools, the better. Hustle, time and energy make a good seller.
The second thing I think makes a seller successful is owning their story. Plus, not being scared to share it with the community. Uniqueness inspires others.
Do you ever partner with third-party retailers as far as selling on the site?
We have larger sellers who have joined Poshmark; boutiques with physical businesses using Poshmark as their online business; and brands selling here and other places. However, many of them only sell on Poshmark, and all of them have catered to the Poshmark audience. We have all sorts of different types of perspectives on the selling spectrum. We try to support all of them, from people who've been doing it for 20 years to people who have been doing it for two days.
What advice would you give to founders navigating the eCommerce landscape?
First of all, it's a crazy place to navigate, so have empathy for yourself, your health, family, friends, and business.
Secondly, if you're a founder, you probably have a knack for seeing where the world is going before the world realizes it. If that's the case, as soon as you make that realization, that is the best time to launch a new business because it means new opportunities are coming and people aren't seeing it.
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