Can you tell us a bit about your background and what inspired you to launch SidelineSwap? How did you identify a gap in the sports equipment resale market?
Growing up, sports were always a big part of my life. I played lacrosse in college at Holy Cross and as a D1 athlete we received all our gear for free. After college, I had to buy new equipment and rather than spend $500+ on a new set, I bought it from a friend and saved a few hundred dollars in the process.
The two of us started talking about why it wasn’t easier for athletes to buy and sell their gear online. The sporting goods market was $100B+, but the secondhand market was still largely untapped. eBay was focused on professional sellers, and as a result, didn’t have much high quality used gear in most sports, and Play-it-Again Sports hadn’t successfully transitioned online. So, we set out to build a marketplace focused on secondhand gear.
How has SidelineSwap evolved since its inception, and what are the biggest milestones so far?
The core concept for SidelineSwap is to make it easy for athletes to buy and sell gear online. This mission hasn’t changed since we started the business nearly 10 years ago, but our approach has evolved.
We started as a pure marketplace model, where we connect buyers and sellers and take a fee from each transaction without ever touching any inventory. We've grown quickly with that model, reaching over $200M in all-time gross merchandise value (GMV). We've also raised $18 million to date, including strategic investments from eBay and Dick's Sporting Goods. In the past two years, we added our trade-in platform and partnered with leading retailers to enable their customers to receive store credit for their used gear which is then resold on SidelineSwap.
We ran about 500 trade-in events this year and power trade-in programs at hundreds of retail locations. Going forward, we plan to drive growth through both models: the marketplace and the trade-in platform.
What strategies did you use to build trust among buyers and sellers on the platform, particularly in a niche like second-hand sports gear?
Trust is critical when building a marketplace. We offer a buyer guarantee that ensures every buyer receives the item they ordered in as-advertised condition or their money back. We escrow funds until the order is delivered to ensure things go smoothly and have a dispute resolution process when they don’t. Less than 0.5% of transactions result in disputes.
Trust is critical when building a marketplace.
In addition to the buyer guarantee, buyers and sellers can chat prior to a purchase. This allows any questions about condition and product specs to be answered ahead of time. Sellers receive feedback on every transaction, which helps them establish a strong reputation as their sales grow.
You’ve been able to secure funding from flagship partners like Dick’s Sporting Goods and eBay Ventures. How did you secure funding in the early stages and what tips do you have for pitching investors?
Initially, we raised from friends and family to build the first version of the website. As we gained traction, we started pitching venture investors and successfully raised our seed and Series A rounds that way. As first-time founders with a limited track record, we had to prove that we could gain strong traction early on before raising outside capital. We reached $1.6 million in sales in our first year without any paid marketing. Our scrappy approach to driving initial growth, combined with a clear vision for how we could build a large marketplace in the sports vertical, resonated with investors, and allowed us to raise our first venture round.
How do you balance the demands of growing the business while maintaining the long-term vision?
I think as a CEO you need to find a way to = be in the details today, and also make time to visualize where the business will be five to 10 years from now. We start with a clear long-term vision, and work backwards from there. Every six months, our leadership team spends a week together at an offsite focused on the company’s strategy. We come away from those with clear goals and a strategic roadmap that we check back on frequently. We try to stay focused on the long-term plan while operating every day with a sense of urgency.
[A]s a CEO, you need to find a way to both be in the details today and also make time to visualize where the business will be five to 10 years from now.
Many of BBH’s clients are founders and business owners. Among our next generation audience, some are considering launching their own venture. What advice would you give to someone who wants to launch their own start up?
Start putting pen to paper quickly. Lots of people have ideas, but far less people put those ideas into action. I think there’s a lot of value in writing some version of a business plan and prototyping designs. You’ll learn a lot as you start working through the concept. Hopefully you’ll get increasingly excited about the opportunity the more you think through it. And if that’s the case, keep going.
Lots of people have ideas, but far less people put those ideas into action.
Pretty early on — within a few weeks — of coming up with the idea for SidelineSwap, we’d convinced ourselves that there would be a marketplace for secondhand sports gear. We couldn’t imagine the world without it. And if that was going to be true, then why not us?
In an evolving marketing era, how important has it been to use social media to get your company’s message out there?
Social media has been critical to our growth since the very beginning. We acquired most of our initial customers organically through social media, and have more than 500k followers across our social accounts, allowing us to reach millions of people each week.
Over the past few years, our strategy has evolved to focus more on content creation that will work well on TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Having a direct relationship with customers through social media is a powerful way to attract new and repeat customers, but you need to find a content strategy that works for your business.
Looking into 2025, what are some trends you’re keeping an eye on in your industry?
Resale is on the rise. We’re seeing more and more brands embrace the circular economy. As they do, they’re looking for partners who can help them incorporate resale into their shopping experience. We’re still very early in the adoption curve, and we’ll be closely monitoring who is rolling out resale programs and how they’re implementing it. We want to continue to stay at the forefront and innovate in this area.
What’s next for Brendan Candon personally and professionally?
I plan to stay very focused on SidelineSwap. We believe we’re still in the early innings, and that SidelineSwap has the potential to be much, much larger than it is today. We’re excited to continue building our brand and retail partnerships and hope to see resale options powered by SidelineSwap expand throughout the sporting goods industry.
Brendan, thank you for your time.
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