Growth-spurts - good for middle-school-aged boys who are too nervous to dance with a taller "woman," bad for parents trying to clothe their child's ever-changing body. For many parents this all too common game of cat-and-mouse starts at birth and continues until his/her child stops growing. Along the way is a trail of clothing, toys, accessories, etc. that, for intents and purposes, are just as good as the day they were purchased, but are no longer needed/wanted in the house.
Like an Etsy for kidstuff, Kidizen was created to help parents come together to give a second (or third, or forth) life to gently-used kids goods. Sure going secondhand is hip and thrifty, but for the co-founders of Kidizen it's more than that. By bringing together like-minded moms and dads, Kidizen aims to reduce societal waste as much as it cuts clutter in its users' closets.
To tell us more about their story, Beta.MN exchanged words with one Kidizen co-founder - CEO, Dug Nichols.
Reed: Dug, tell us, where did Kidizen come from?
Dug: When we first launched, the Itizen platform was designed to digitally track all of the physical things that come in and out our lives. We quickly found that this scope was too broad and wouldn’t scale. Although scrapped, the original platform helped us discover a small group of passionate, early-adopters who expressed a need for selling their kids’ goods. It also showed that our users, and the market at-large, were ready for a niche marketplace, heavy on communal features. Thus, we made a pivot.
Kidizen is the NEW brand for our kids vertical. It’s an exciting play because, as parents, we understand the problem. We’re also not the only family looking to pass along our kids' clothing, etc. Plus it's fun to be one of the few players in such a large market.
Reed: Great stuff. Do you want to share any recent successes?
Dug: In September we closed a partial round of funding, got office space, hired employees and started cranking out a full-featured, Beta application. In December we launched our new baby, now called Kidizen.
Reed: Cool! If all goes well, where do you see your start-up in one year?
Dug: I'd like to see us post Series A with over 500k users, generating annual revenue over one million. In the process we'd expect our team to triple in size from five to 15 full-time employees.
Reed: That would be most excellent. Best of luck to you and the team.
Want to see the NEW Kidizen app in action? Buy your ticket to 1.0 now, or go for FREE with a Tweet. You're kids and your closets will be glad you did.
