Matt Kaness has an extensive retail background with a heavy focus on e-commerce, having worked as the CEO of Modcloth and, for eight years, URBN’s chief strategy officer. Since late last year, he’s zeroed in on retail’s booming resale sector, as CEO of the new online marketplace GoodwillFinds.  “We’re a technology venture,” Kansas said on the latest Glossy Podcast, explaining GoodwillFinds’ business model. The company’s tech focus includes building out proprietary tools “for sellers to be able to list [products] quickly, for customer acquisition and retention, and for [partner] Goodwill [store owners], in support of their packing, shipping and outbound logistics.”  What drove Kaness’s interest in running GoodwillFinds was, in part, timing. “Coming out of Covid, the Gen-Z consumer has said that there's no stigma on secondhand,” he said. “That, coupled with a lot of advancements in technology, has allowed resale to scale profitably.”  GoodwillFinds, itself, has also impressively scaled. According to Kaness, the marketplace is currently attracting value-driven and trend-driven shoppers, with sustainability-driven shoppers being a target demographic. Since its launch, it's built up an email database of 250,000 subscribers, plus it's en route to offering 1 million products on its e-commerce site by the end of the year. It has 20 full-time employees, with 20-30 more set to come on board by the end of 2023. 

When Liz Eswein and Quincy Moore launched New York or Nowhere (NYON) in 2020, they were intentional about focusing on community first, then a product after. NYON, birthed from Eswein's @newyorkcity Instagram account (currently at 1.5 million followers), first hit the scene with digital downloads such as phone backgrounds and a coloring book. Now, the 3-year-old company has become best known for its apparel and art prints featuring its brand name.  Since its inception, NYON has entered physical retail, opening its first flagship store in NYC's Nolita neighborhood in October 2022. The brand has also forayed into product collaborations, including with the New York Knicks, Rimowa and American Express.  "We're thoughtful and careful with who we collaborate with. Our biggest and most ongoing partnership is with the Knicks, and it's hard to get bigger than that, especially for a New York brand," Moore said on the latest episode of The Glossy Podcast. "Slowly but surely, we will continue to do smaller collaborations as a customer acquisition tactic. We don't have massive budgets for marketing, but it does work to align yourself with like-minded entities and feed off of each other's audience."  As the brand expands, exploring new categories is at the top of the priority list. NYON launched its first knit crewneck over the holiday, which performed extremely well, according to Eswein. At the end of last year, the brand also expanded into more home goods products and released a candle and a blanket. Above all, Moore and Eswein said they are now focused on ensuring that all future products and assortment are a "level up" from previous items by producing them with high-quality materials.