GoodwillFinds CEO Matt Kaness: 'Great brands have a narrow focus and a wide appeal'

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.