AptDeco's founder discusses raising $19M, going through Y Combinator, and building a peer-to-peer marketplace without warehousing. He explains why competitors who raised more money later shut down, and argues that focusing on what you control beats chasing funding.
you've raised from some pretty awesome investors such as Initialized Capital, you know, so what has the fundraising journey been like?
We've raised $19 million to date and it's like we're like an A+, B-, like a Series A+, a little bit under B, but, you know, compared to our competitors, we've raised a lot less than them and they've actually all now shut down. So like fundraising does not mean success. This is like the, if we, if that's the one thing you can take away is that like you raising a lot of money does not mean you're actually gonna be successful because we are a testament to if you focus on building a strong foundationally sound business, you can outperform, outlast, and outsmart your competitors. And like, I'm a living and breathing example of that. Our journey started through YC. And, you know, that was the first, like, we bootstrapped initially, my co-founder and I, and we, you know, we, the first outside capital came from YC. We actually had a competitor in the same batch as us in YC. that ended up raising 20x what we raised out of YC. So 20x, just like, could you not? And so we, you know, so we were dealing with that, you know, oh, what about them? They've raised all this money. Like, what about you? Although like our performance was actually even comparable or maybe even a little bit better than them. So like, it's just like, for us, that was just part of the journey. And we, you know, we just continued to focus on our business. You know, we've broken a lot of barriers. I was the first Black female to go through YC ever. And so for us, like, that was, you know, we just had to just do what's right for the business and just focus on the things that we control. So fundraising, there's like just a lot of outside factors that, you know, you can't control. Anyway, a couple of years later, just to tell you the story, is they ended up shutting down. And, you know, and so, and that continues to happen. So we've had 4 or 5 competitors over the years come and are now all gone who've raised a lot more money than us. Nobody's tackled it the way we're doing it, which is peer-to-peer without warehousing. Everybody else has tried to warehouse products. So for us, yeah, like it's been, it's been an interesting journey, but it's also made us a lot stronger.
I want to say that, you know, hats off to you because you definitely, you know, it's been quite the journey. And yeah, you mentioned as far as, you know, a few competitors along the way as well. That's actually one of the, you know, one of the things I want to talk about, you know, at some point was just like the competitive nature of marketplaces, right? And just kind of, you know, for 10+ years, just seeing the different kind of, I would say, you know, competitors kind of surface and other strategies that they might, or approaches that they might take as well. So.
Focus on what you control. That's all I would say about competition. Focus on what you can control. Competition is a good validator, right? Because that means you have a real business. And even if they raise money, that's totally fine. But like, don't get distracted. Don't focus on the noise. Focus on the things you control, like, which is building a good quality product that people love and come back to. And, you know, and the rest will fall into place.
