Hello, Republic Community!

I hope you are all doing well. Only one week left for our campaign! I wanted to share an update on our end, so here we go:

 Quote of the Week:

 "As an impact investor, I love this business model and its underlying WHY. As a first-time parent of a 2020 baby, I love the ease, simplicity, quality, and value of my regular UpChoose clothing sets. We're proud to be an UpChoose family and want to participate in the organization's growth and success!"

— Marissa Brassfield, Impact Investor, UpChoose customer & investor

The Campaign

• We have raised $220,245 from 397 investors so far. That’s 880% above our minimum goal.

• Only one week to go! If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to invest and join our growing movement!

The Company

• We've been growing fast this month (numbers for April so far and compared to the same period in March):
  

  • 24% more people have started a subscription

  • 62% more people have taken our quiz (where they sign up and submit their preferences)

  • There were 37% more gift contributions

  • 18% more people have started a registry. We expect this to accelerate as we just launched the new registry option and making improvements based on initial feedback.

• We're launching a new version of the user profile in a few days. Users will now have a very simple dashboard where they can access the most important features with one click. 
  • Users will be able to reschedule their next delivery date, contact us, share their registry page, refer UpChoose to friends, and other key features all from the same place and in one click. 
  • This further illustrates that beyond the circular model for children's clothing, UpChoose is focused on creating radically simpler experiences. It's our "all you need in one place" approach that applies similarly to a clothing set or an online experience. When they use UpChoose, our customers get what they need in a fraction of the time and effort. That's very valuable especially for busy, overwhelmed new parents.

The People

• Today is Earth Day and if you want to better understand our approach to sustainability, here are two main resources:

  • A piece I wrote in the early days of UpChoose: Our Consumption Model Is Broken. Here's How To Build A New One. It's gone pretty viral and it's my detailed articulation of the WHY behind the company.

  • A podcast discussion I had with Bob Safian (Former Executive Editor of Fortune and Fast Company) and Dara Treseder (Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at Peloton) exploring consumerism and sustainability.

The Market / Trends

I discussed the Poshmark IPO in a previous update. A few weeks ago, ThredUp—an online marketplace for secondhand clothing—also went public at a valuation of about $1.3 billion. This is happening in the context of a booming resale fashion market.

Analysts expect the online resale market to grow 25% on a compound annual growth rate (CAGR), reaching $70 billion by 2028. “More millennial and generation Z consumers are driving the shift to secondhand each year,” ThredUp said in its IPO filing.

Younger customers are more conscious of sustainability and therefore more likely to shop for secondhand goods, it said.

In other news, Nike launched a circular sneaker business. It's a program that will give a “second life” to returned shoes, an effort to address the consumer concern over climate change and environmental degradation.

UpChoose is especially well positioned to capitalize on these growing trends, especially as younger generations become first-time parents in the coming years.

As always, please do reach out with any questions/suggestions. And remember, there's only one week left to invest!  I hope you'll join us and thank you for your support.

Ali