With immediate product-market fit, the brand saw $100,000 in month one. This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Cristina Ashbaugh, 28, and Kelly McGee, 29, co-founders of the design-driven ski pole brand Yardsale . The San Francisco-based duo's business saw $100,000 in sales in its first month and $300,000 at the end of its first year (with a ski season of only four months). Responses have been edited for length and clarity. Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale
What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle? CA: I was the head of content for a venture capital firm in San Francisco, where I focused on helping my firm's general partners develop their investment theses and translate them into long-form written content to attract founders. Before that, I helped build the content marketing function at Samsara, an IOT tech startup that went public during my time there. KM: I previously worked at Apple as a product designer and then started a medical device company in orthopedics. When Cristina came to me with this idea, I told her I could help on the weekends and nights. When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it? CA: I started in March 2023 by sketching ideas down on a napkin, then onto paper. The inspiration for the product came from my direct experience as a lifelong skier. I always hated how ski poles were so unruly to manage, as well as how ugly they always were. For a sport where people spend thousands of dollars on their gear, I felt like there were no ski pole products on the market that people could actually get excited about. Plus, there was no go-to brand for poles. The market was fractured by legacy ski brands that made poles as a cheap side accessory since the bulk of their revenue came from skis/boots or apparel. I was inspired by Recess Pickleball's approach to building a product and brand around pickleball and thought there needed to be something similar for ski poles: A go-to brand for beautifully designed ski poles. Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale
What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground? CA: I relentlessly researched factories that I could have kick-off conversations with to see if anyone would even be interested in manufacturing this product for us. I had absolutely zero experience in doing this but took full advantage of Google and ended up finding the factory that makes the majority of the world's ski poles in Asia. I did a lot of consumer research , which primarily consisted of reaching out to all of the people I knew who skied, and I asked them 1) if they could name the brand of ski poles they had and 2) if they could name a single thing they liked about them. Ninety percent of people could not remember the name of the brand of their poles (even those who had just purchased them), and 95% of people couldn't name something they liked about them. This was the first product validation that I got. (I made sure not to mention to them that I had this inkling of an idea or what I was working on so that I got untainted data.) I also called a ton of ski shops and asked what kinds of poles they sold and what the main reasons were for people purchasing new poles. I learned that most skiers went purely based on color because there were no differentiating factors among most poles. During these calls, I also learned that the sales associates at these stores rarely paid any attention to selling poles because there were virtually no selling points or differentiators among the poles they sold. This was also incredibly validating because I knew that if we could build a product with key differentiating factors, ski shops would be motivated to bring them in because they could sell more of them. On the brand side, I did a lot of research into brands I liked and why and looked at the competitive landscape across the ski industry. I noticed that most legacy ski brands spoke solely to the aspirational skier, and everyone seemed to neglect recreational skiers. All of their marketing looked identical — white snowscapes, skiers jumping off cliffs, etc. and none of it felt relatable to a skier who cares more about the entire experience of skiing versus just the act of going downhill. What went into the development of the ski pole? KM: We started with a rough prototype in our garage, where we taped magnets onto some old poles just to see if the concept would work. Then, we went into a deep development cycle on all the features as well as the look and feel we'd want in our dream ski poles. This required a ton of design work and a bunch of 3D prints before kicking off tooling and testing with our manufacturing partners. The hardest part of our design was not only hiding the magnets inside the handles and the baskets but also getting a manufacturer to completely rethink how a pole is assembled. For decades, ski poles have been shafts glued together with handles and baskets. For our completely modular system, which allows customers to mix and match, we needed to have each piece be created separately and seamlessly click together, regardless of what color or model you choose. No one had ever done this before, so we spent many days on the factory floor working through the complexity of the design and assembly. Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale
What were some of the strategies you used to generate awareness and drive sales for the product? CA: We wanted to try something that no other legacy ski brands would do, so we invested in subway advertising in New York City for the months of November and December in 2023. It paid off for us! We got inbound from REI, SKI Magazine and other retailers who saw our ads in real life and wanted to learn more about our product and brand. As a small company with a limited budget, we've also stayed far away from working with traditional influencers or professional skiers, which most other ski brands embrace. Because we focus on selling to recreational skiers, we recognize that most regular folks don't keep up with the X Games or know every hot new professional skier . Instead, we focus on seeding our products to regular people who we think will love the product and brand and recommend it to their friends. From the start, we also spent a lot of time and energy on earned media . Thanks to my background in the tech industry, I knew how to craft pitches and position our product to media. I cold-emailed hundreds of editors before we even had our product in hand. Then, we got a bite. The inbound from our first feature was astonishing, and we've been huge proponents of earned media and public relations ever since. How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? CA: Immediately. We found product-market fit almost instantly and were shocked that people immediately resonated with the product and the brand. How much did the side hustle earn? CA: We did $220,000 in our first three months in business. When did Yardsale's potential to be a full-time business become clear? CA: Almost immediately. After we launched, we weren't sure if people would care or resonate with our product/brand, but after our tenth day packing orders all night in Kelly's basement, we knew we had to quit our full-time, stable jobs and dive full-time into Yardsale. I was going into my office every day at the time and packing orders all night, which I knew would be unsustainable in the long run. We could have decided to grow the brand slowly, but we saw so much positivity and momentum that we wanted to take advantage of it as quickly as possible. Taking that dive enabled us to dedicate more time and energy to Yardsale. What does growth and revenue look like now? CA: We've grown our DTC sales by 180% this season compared to last (our first season), and we're expanding fast into wholesale, which we hope to turn into 50% of our revenue in the next two years. We have tons of inbound from other retailers. Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale
What do you enjoy most about running this business? CA: Every day, we face completely new challenges (and successes), so nothing is ever boring. It's the most energized I've ever felt (and the most stressed! ), but it's been life-changing for me to work on something that I started and own because I get to see the impacts of my work almost immediately. It's also so fun and rewarding to get to work in an industry where we get to see our product in action every time we go skiing. Just this weekend, we were in Deer Valley and saw Yardsale poles all over the place. We stopped a few folks to ask them how they liked them, and they all loved them and were so excited to tell us about their experience. We don't get to ski too much anymore (too much work! ), but when we do, those moments are so special. I also love building this brand and business with one of my closest friends. We've gotten to travel all over the world together and go through so many firsts together in this business and I'm grateful to get to do it with someone like Kelly. KM: For me personally, it's rare that you really get to experience true product-market fit . When you make a product where a customer goes, "Wow, why hadn't anyone thought of that before?" it means you've really found something unique. Those aha moments are what we strive for in our design principles, and we're so excited to take that thinking beyond poles in the years to come. Additionally, it's fun to make products that your friends and family can use. So many folks we know are users of our products, and we're able to feel their excitement each and every day they use them. They're our biggest fans and our best test dummies. What's your advice for others hoping to start successful side hustles or full-time businesses of their own? CA: Make sure you're making something unique and speaking to an audience that wants that product from you. Do all of the research you can before jumping in to make sure you'll have product-market fit. It makes your life 100 times easier than trying to convince someone they need something that they don't really want. KM: Definitely keep your day job if you can until you find product-market fit ! Once you have it, then you can scale accordingly. Additionally, especially for a hardware company, setting your sights on profitability ensures the long-term success of your business. We've tried to stay as lean as possible and use unique marketing tactics to help customers discover us and reduce our customer acquisition costs. Once we get to be financially viable, we're excited to grow the company from there, but until then, we're not sleeping much!

'$220,000 in 3 Months': These Friends — One a Former Apple Engineer — Started a Side Hustle By Revamping an 'Unruly, Ugly' Product in Their Garage

By FinSMEs
Gone , a San Francisco, CA-based selling on-demand service, acquired Yardsale, Inc., assets, including its online listing and selling product and platform, FOBO. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. Going forward, Yardsale co-founders Ryan Mickle and Ed McManus will work closely and with the Gone team in advisory roles. The acquisition will strengthen Gone’s presence in the on-demand selling services space by creating together a retail grade second-hand consumer electronics marketplace, with the aim to achieve a combined base of over 200,000 users on the Gone and FOBO platforms. Yardsale participated in the Y-Combinator accelerator in 2011, initially focusing on its classifieds app, built for iPhone. The company launched FOBO in early 2014, yielding them a $1MM run rate within two months and a seed financing of more than $2.5m from a group of Bay Area investors. Launched in 2014, Gone allows users to sell unwanted items easily. The Gone Lite version of the app sends users boxes for users to ship their items and is available nationwide, with users selling mostly electronics and earning an average of $210. Users in San Francisco and Austin can use a concierge service, where an assistant meets them at their location to pick up items. A graduate of TechStars Austin, Gone is backed by Techstars Ventures, MasterCard, Silicon Valley Bank, Cygnus Capital, NXTP Labs,Grooveshark Co-Founder Andres Barreto, Uber Founding CTO Oscar Salazar, former eBay executive Larry Illg, and early Groupon employees. The app is available for free on iOS and via SMS. FinSMEs

Gone Acquires Yardsale

Friends (19)
October 21, 2015    3 Views    0 Comments
Gone, which is backed by Techstars Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank and Cygnus Capital, has acquired Yardsale, an app that helps users buy and sell goods with friends and neighbors. Included in the acquisition is Yardsale’s FOBO, an online listing and selling product and platform. No financial terms were disclosed. PRESS RELEASE
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (PRWEB) OCTOBER 20, 2015
San Francisco, CA — the leading selling on-demand service, Gone, acquired Yardsale Inc. assets, including its online listing and selling product and platform, FOBO. Going forward, Yardsale co-founders Ryan Mickle and Ed McManus will work closely and with the Gone team in advisory roles. The acquisition will strengthen Gone’s foothold in the on-demand selling services space by creating together the first retail grade second-hand consumer electronics marketplace, increasing their expertise in the space by leveraging Ryan’s and Ed’s contributions to the go-forward strategy and product line, with the aim to achieve a combined base of over 200,000 users on the Gone and FOBO platforms. By leveraging the power of Gone’s technology and logistics platform, the team plans to revitalize the FOBO marketplace by creating dynamic synergies in order to provide the ultimate buying and selling experience in the second-hand electronics market. Yardsale participated in the Y-Combinator accelerator in 2011, initially focusing on its elegant classifieds app, built for iPhone. Yardsale launched FOBO in early 2014, yielding them a $1MM run rate within two months and a seed financing of more than $2.5MM from a group of notable Bay Area investors. “We’re excited to increase our presence and competitive advantage in the on-demand selling space,” said Nicolas Bayerque, Co-Founder of Gone. “With the addition of the FOBO platform to our already strong technology, the addition of Ryan and Ed to our team, and our combined networks, we see Gone’s platform as being the leader in the on-demand selling market. The ability to leverage these new resources as we ramp up for the anticipated launch our Gone concierge service in Boston and New York later this month will certainly increase our competitive advantage in the space.”
Since its launch in 2014, Gone has been a leading on-demand selling service company and launched its Gone! application and platform in August 2014. For more information about Gone, visit http://www.thegoneapp.com. About Gone
Gone helps users get rid of unwanted items by making the selling process easy. The Gone Lite version of the app sends users boxes for users to ship their items and is available nationwide, with users selling mostly electronics and taking home an average of $210. Gone users in San Francisco and Austin, however, can use the Gone concierge service, where a Gone assistant meets them at their location to pick up items. A graduate of TechStars Austin, Gone is backed by industry recognized investors including Techstars Ventures, MasterCard, Silicon Valley Bank, Cygnus Capital, NXTP Labs,Grooveshark Co-Founder Andres Barreto, Uber Founding CTO Oscar Salazar, former eBay executive Larry Illg, and early Groupon employees. The app is available for free on iOS and via SMS. Leave a Reply

VC-backed Gone buys Yardsale

Y Combinator is the Ivy League of startup schools. The odds of getting in are incredibly slim, and only the top founders typically make the cut. Some graduates have gone on to become billion-dollar companies, like Airbnb and Dropbox. But what is it actually like once you get accepted? We&#8217;ve compiled thoughts from several Y Combinator founders about the incubator.Tikhon Bernstam, cofounder of Parse, says you have to get a year&#8217;s worth of work done in 10 weeks.  The best parts are, one, the YC founders support each other. They help with recommendations and suggestions for lawyers, fundraising, testing your product, help through the inevitable ups and downs of startup life, help with setting up payroll, hiring, leads on hires (like engineers), partnerships and deals. &amp;nbsp;Intros to whoever you need&amp;mdash;you could ask for an intro almost anyone and someone in the group would have it (or one of the partners would). The Y Combinator&amp;nbsp;partners are top-notch. Their help was critical to almost everyone. They helped with fundraising, constantly pushing you to launch early ("if you&#8217;re not embarrassed when you launch, you&#8217;ve waited too long"). &amp;nbsp; We demoed Parse (and Scribd the last time around) every week at dinner to our classmates, and that really helped push us every week to have something new to show. &amp;nbsp;The deadline of Demo Day forces you to get a years worth of work done in 10 weeks, and is a great motivator in general. Ryan Mickle, cofounder of Yardsale, said the finish line is already in sight as soon as you join.  One of big advantages to being part of Y Combinator was the unfiltered advice. The partners and alums are exceptionally candid in helping founders navigate around easily avoidable mistakes that could waste time or come back to bite you later. Stuff like financing documents are standardized (and founder friendly) so you don&#8217;t waste cycles and can focus on building your company.&amp;nbsp; That&#8217;s not to say that you won&#8217;t make mistakes&amp;mdash;you will&amp;mdash;but at least you dodge many of the avoidable ones, without needing to build a network of trusted advisors from scratch. The Y Combinator experience itself is a pressure cooker, as the countdown to Demo Day begins the moment you get in. So you&#8217;re forced to stay focused and work as hard as you can with the time you have. It seems to work to effectively "reset" your work/social life. At least it seemed like the case for us, since we were one of many who moved down to Mountain View for the summer, leaving many of the things that would have distracted us in the City [San Francisco], so we could work hard to get into the groove of being productive. Finally, the support of alums was invaluable. They always seemed to make time when you needed help and the network is large enough that the problems you face are rarely if ever unique. And there definitely seems to be a spirit of indebtedness toward Y Combinator itself, so past founders look forward to helping future founders, because it wasn&#8217;t that long ago when someone, perhaps an alum or YC partner, did the same for them. James Beshara, cofounder of Crowdtilt, says Paul Graham has turned Y Combinator into a "flight control center."  During the program, I would say that the constraints of 90 days and weekly conversations about your product and growth are invaluable&amp;nbsp;for focus and productivity. And since the more recent your batch, the larger the network you graduate into&amp;mdash;the network of other founders and companies has become the single biggest factor in why I tell every tech entrepreneur I know that they should apply to Y Combinator. In their own words, PG et al. have almost turned into more of a flight control center ... "Oh you&#8217;re having this problem, talk to these founders. Oh you&#8217;re selling this solution, these guys need that." It&#8217;s pretty incredible. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

What It&#8217;s Really Like To Go Through Y Combinator, The Most Important Startup School In The World

Craigslist’s Challenger Could Be an App, or Several
By
August 7, 2012 6:26 pm
August 7, 2012 6:26 pm
A few days ago an incoming alert caught my eye. Someone had posted a public message through Highlight , an iPhone app that shows people who else is nearby whom they might want to meet. The note simply read: “Selling 2 face value wilco tix for tonight – share pls. Thanks!”
It was enough to raise my eyebrows. Highlight is a type of application that tries to extend the social graph from the people you know to the people you might know . I’ve seen it used for networking and dating, and as a travel guide in new cities — but never as a targeted, location-based classified ad service. Yardsale, a mobile application, lets people browse through items for sale based on how far away they are from the person who is selling them. The notification might be part of the answer to a question raised by my colleague Nick Bilton a few weeks ago: Why has no upstart knocked Craigslist from its perch, despite its outdated design and failure to work nicely with others? It might not be one site that rises up to claim the throne. It also might not be a site. It might show up in the form of a distributed network of sites and applications, one that connects buyers and sellers who are near each other, linking them through the location-aware, always-on, powerful machines in our pockets. The Highlight example is one of many. There are several start-ups that are trying to tap into our mobile phones to build out that exact network of listings, but only for people nearby. Yardsale , for example, lets people browse through items for sale — everything from dining room chairs to gaming consoles — based on how far away they are from the person who is selling them. Bondsy is trying to build a marketplace layer over a user’s existing social network. Another service, called Ketup , shows a photo feed of nearby items that are for sale. Ryan Mickle, one of the founders of Yardsale, said that while the company did not consider itself to be a direct competitor to Craigslist, he thought it could be a healthy alternative. “We wanted to rebuild the experience of buying and selling,”  Mr. Mickle said. “We could streamline it and make it so that if you had some salt-and-pepper shakers that you wanted to get rid of, you could take a picture, upload it, and 15 seconds later it would be available through the app.”
For now, this is tech that is still limited to the one-percenters. Craigslist appeals to people all around the country, and world, because of its simplicity and accessibility. You don’t need to have a fancy phone to sell your old sofa on Craigslist. But Craigslist’s foothold is still largely on the Web — meaning that as the world moves to mobile, companies that are not able to adapt could be left behind. For companies like Yardsale, whose app has been downloaded around 100,000 times, mobile is crucial. “We can show you the items for sale on your block,”  Mr. Mickle said. “The serendipity of what’s available from your neighbor could lead you to finding stuff you didn’t even know you want.”
Soon, one — or all — of these services could be giving Craigslist a run for its money.

Craigslist&#8217;s Challenger Could Be an App, or Several

Companies that sell goods online (B2C), or enable the selling of goods online via tech solutions (B2B). 

Date	Round	Amount	Investors	Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model.	Revenue	Sources
10/19/2015	Acquired		Gone App	$XXM	0 FY undefined	1
6/27/2011	Seed	$XXM	Subscribe to see more	$XXM	0 FY undefined	10

Date	10/19/2015	6/27/2011
Round	Acquired	Seed
Amount		$XXM
Investors	Gone App	Subscribe to see more
Valuation	$XXM	$XXM
Revenue	0 FY undefined	0 FY undefined
Sources	1	10

First funding	Last Funding	Investor	Rounds	Board Seats	Type	Location
10/19/2015	10/19/2015	Gone App	1 Acquired		Corporation	California
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	Y Combinator	Subscribe to see more		Incubator/Accelerator	California

First funding	10/19/2015	00/00/0000
Last Funding	10/19/2015	00/00/0000
Investor	Gone App	Y Combinator
Rounds	1 Acquired	Subscribe to see more
Board Seats
Type	Corporation	Incubator/Accelerator
Location	California	California

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