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Like Amazon, Airbnb, and many other startup breakthrough stories, Whatnot traces its origins back to a small rental home. But unlike other founder success stories, one of its creators took a rather radical approach to productivity: total seclusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Co-founder Logan Head \u201clocked himself in his room for about four or five weeks to build it,\u201d Whatnot CEO Grant LaFontaine told Fortune\u2019s Allie Garfinkle on a recent episode of the Term Sheet vodcast. \u201cHe was coding 16 hours a day, six days a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inspired by their own collectibles habits, LaFontaine and Logan Head launched their livestream shopping app in December 2019, and applied to join Paul Graham\u2019s Y Combinator three months later for the program\u2019s winter cohort. The app has become the largest livestream shopping platform outside of Asia, offering an interactive format where sellers display items for sale via livestream, allowing customers to bid for and ask questions about the products. Whatnot, which has grown into America\u2019s largest livestream shopping app, had one major challenge: hosting its first livestream auction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came out and he\u2019s like, \u2018All right, I\u2019m done. We got to test this,\u2019\u201d LaFontaine recalled of the \u201cmentally exhausting\u201d daily grind. \u201cHe was just really nervous that it wasn\u2019t going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The duo had amassed hundreds of Funko Pop figurines, organizing their personal collection within the rental home. Unsure about which format would be most successful, the pair listed half of the figurines under static buy-it-now listings, and livestreamed the other half, both features still existing on the site today. LaFontaine served as the livestream\u2019s host, and within just two and a half hours, they had sold out, raking in $5,000 in a single evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sold every Funko Pop we had, everything that was in the office,\u201d LaFontaine said. \u201cWe had more in the house, but were so tired because it was 11 o\u2019clock at night by that point. But we were very excited: It would have been more Funko Pops than I\u2019d have been able to sell on eBay in a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rapid rise of Whatnot<\/p>\n
Taking place during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the stay-at-home order helped Whatnot flourish due to the nature of the livestream shopping model. Since then, the live-shopping app has enjoyed explosive growth, recently notching a $20 billion valuation, backed by Wonder Ventures, DST Global, and CapitalG. Since October 2025, Whatnot\u2019s valuation has nearly doubled.<\/p>\n
Whatnot requires sellers to appear on camera with their stock as a means of preventing fraud. While showing their face isn\u2019t mandatory, sellers must physically show the stock on camera. Unlike e-commerce giants Amazon or Craigslist, Whatnot deliberately targeted a small but fervent base of collectors. Through this approach, the founders honed in on customer service and satisfaction, made much easier by starting small.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way you build something really great is by knowing your domain, knowing your customer,\u201d LaFontaine said. \u201cI\u2019ve been a collector since I was in fourth grade. I spent almost all of my career in consumer tech, in two-sided businesses or marketplaces.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaFontaine grew up selling Pok\u00e9mon cards with friends in his hometown in Maine. In fourth grade, he opened an eBay store, expanding his budding business nationwide. His first online sale\u2014a holographic Chansey card\u2014was enough to hook him as a collector and a seller.<\/p>\n
Securing funding wasn\u2019t easy<\/p>\n
This year alone, 20 million new users have joined Whatnot, with one in eight relying on the platform as their full-time job. But behind that momentum was a string of setbacks.<\/p>\n
The founders pitched hundreds of investors, and even kept a spreadsheet logging each meeting\u2019s feedback. They stopped updating it when they hit 100 rows because they were too \u201cdemoralized\u201d to continue tracking the failed attempts, LaFontaine said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything that\u2019s worth doing, you\u2019re going to have some series of ups and downs,\u201d LaFontaine said. \u201cPeople will say a lot of things, and most of what people say will not be correct. You always have to know at moments in time when you\u2019re getting a bunch of negative news.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, the founders have raised $1 billion through nine rounds of funding since 2020, and the app has grown from its original collectibles niche to over 250 product categories. The platform specializes in trending items, from rare clothing and accessory collections, to toys such as Labubus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bringing the Chinese live auction trend to America<\/p>\n
Whatnot\u2019s business model is inspired by the Chinese livestreamed auctions popularized on Douyin, a popular Chinese competitor to TikTok. These livestreams offer customers the chance to buy small trinkets hidden behind plastic boxes, capitalizing off the element of mystery and surprise.<\/p>\n
In America, livestream culture is gaining steam through TikTok Live. In conjunction with TikTok Shop, creators can use livestreams to promote products they sell on their storefronts through product reviews and live demonstrations. Current bestsellers include Kourtney Kardashian\u2019s Lemme vitamins, with more than 10,400 total orders, and a portable phone charger and speaker, with more than 251,000 total orders. In the U.S., there are an estimated 216,000 active TikTok Shops, according to a Resourcera report from March.\u00a0<\/p>\n
EBay has also implemented a livestream shopping option in 2022, but it\u2019s been limited to certain approved sellers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whatnot\u2019s position as a community-based live shopping app is what differentiates it from its competitors. With more than 20 items sold every second on the app, Whatnot hit 1 billion orders last month, most of which occurred only in the last six months, LaFontaine said. The platform has an immense range of products available for purchase, ranging from rare coins and sports memorabilia to appliances and furniture.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also helping small business owners grow their brands. LaFontaine pointed to a San Diego sustainable seafood merchant who livestreams from his boat. In its pilot, the standout seller earned $4,000 per hour selling raw seafood, directly livestreaming from his boat. The shop, known as E-Fish, has fulfilled more than 8,000 orders since joining the platform thanks to speedy overnight shipping to keep the fish fresh.<\/p>\n
The average seller on Whatnot can earn $25,000 a year, making the platform a possible side-hustle for many. The top sellers on Whatnot have earned over $100 million in total on the app.<\/p>\n
AI is the future of Whatnot<\/p>\n
Several shopping and e-commerce platforms have implemented AI to aid user experience and market research.\u00a0<\/p>\n
London-based startup and Whatnot competitor Tilt has integrated AI to directly list items from livestreams, making it fast and easy for customers to purchase. The AI lists items with about 90% accuracy, which the sellers can edit and correct when needed, according to Tilt.<\/p>\n
Whatnot is joining the AI bandwagon by weaving AI into the platform to make the transaction, product research, and shopping process easier for users, LaFontaine said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatnot is inherently human,\u201d said LaFontaine. \u201cPeople don\u2019t come to Whatnot to watch a robot or an AI. They come to engage with people, build community, bond over real shared interests, and that\u2019s not going away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company already uses AI for user research and analytics, and is working on giving sellers access to the same data to optimize their shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to enable thousands and thousands of businesses on Whatnot to run much more efficiently,\u201d said LaFontaine. \u201cIt\u2019s going to enable many more thousands of people to create businesses, and so I think it\u2019s an exciting time.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Whatnots #founders #turned #investor #rejections #billion #liveshopping #rocket #ship<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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