Whistle

Intro:

Whistle's mission is to reinvent resale by providing a marketplace that connects sellers with local professional resellers who can purchase their used products instantly. We're hiring our founding engineers who will be integral to developing our first few products. Our platform is still in its early stages, so you'll have an unmatched opportunity to shape the user experience of a marketplace that is currently experiencing 100% month on month growth. We just closed our first round of funding from investors including Signia Venture Partners and Moving Capital (a syndicate of early Uber employees) and we're planning to 2-3x the size of our team over the next 2 months.

Problem / Opportunity:

The launch price for Apple mobile devices has increased by >50% over the past five years. The market has reacted accordingly; the majority of Americans only upgrade their phones once every 3-4 years, up from every 1-2 years in the early/mid 2010’s. Meanwhile, mobile device resale has doubled in size over the last 3 years to $25B, despite the introduction of creative leasing plans from Apple and mobile carriers. The message is clear: more users than ever before are seeking reprieve in the aftermarket.

What most people don’t know is that when they trade in a device at Apple, they’re actually selling it to a company called Brightstar that purchases and resells >$10B of used iPhones every year. Since Brightstar is operating on low margins, these trade in programs typically offer low-ball pricing. As a result, only the most price-insensitive Americans are willing to use them - a huge reason why 60% of Americans have still never sold a mobile device and 40% have two or more unused devices at home (~$50B of assets).

Meanwhile, there is a multi-billion dollar cottage industry that has sprouted up over the past few years in which thousands of local entrepreneurs operate their own resale businesses. These entrepreneurs have diverse backgrounds including:
Part-time hustlers who buy a few used devices a week and resell them using platforms like Facebook Marketplace
Mobile phone repair shops that refurbish used devices and retail them out of their stores
Import / exporters who refurbish devices and send them overseas to exploit arbitrage opportunities

They’re able to offer higher prices than Brightstar while maintaining healthy margins because they operate with low or no overhead:
Living rooms instead of warehouses
Oftentimes don’t pay corporate tax or sales tax
Don’t have employees, benefits, or payroll tax
Only purchase devices they want, no deadweight

The local resale industry is fragmented but growing. The biggest pain point for these entrepreneurs is finding supply; they typically target 30-70% margins and can often turn over their inventory in 24 - 72 hours. Whistle is capitalizing upon the advantages that these “small fish” have over Brightstar by aggregating their demand into a single funnel. Many of these professionals already perform device pickups and have experience providing technical support and customer service. As a result, our product is able to compete head-on with Brightstar, and therefore virtually all trade-in programs, along three verticals:
- Superior pricing
- White glove concierge-like experience
- A rapidly growing selection of products available to trade in

Product

Whistle is currently available on iOS where we offer buyback on iPhones, iPads, and a “request a quote” feature. Our app provides an Uber-like experience with on-demand pickups, technical assistance (device wipes), and payouts in a few taps by our independent, third-party resellers. We will be expanding to other electronics over the next several months and eventually to other categories like designer clothing / accessories, jewelry, and textbooks. We’re also building a “trade up” product that will allow sellers to trade in their current devices and have them credited towards newer, used devices through our resellers. We plan to enable our resellers to offer lease plans where sellers can pay as little as $5 / month to upgrade to a newer used device every year. We’re also experimenting with brokering B2B transactions between mobile stores and our network of resellers.

An important note on our model: Local resellers take on all costs of transactions; Whistle has no overhead, carries no inventory, and has virtually no marginal costs. Resellers agree to operate this way because the market is supply-constrained and their typical margins are 30-70% with 24-72 hour turnover.