ReQuip, aiming to create a trusted, P2P mobile and web marketplace for buying and selling new and used sports gear, is 
focused on cycling, triathlon and outdoor adventure sports gear based in Austin, TX. Urged to think of reQwip as a “P2P marketplace for pre-owned REI inventory,” investors will certainly be interested, especially with the nearing ski season. An early-stage retail company in the technology industry reQu already has revenue, users, paying customers and strategic partners. Having launched its beta web, native mobile apps this fall, the Seed Sumo accelerator is now crowdfunding on OneVest, seeking to raise $250K for its 506(c) Regulation D private offering. To date, over $87K has already been secured with 63 days remaining; a $25,000 minimum investment is required.
reQuip CEO and Founder Dan Driscoll and VP of Development Caden Burross seek to break further into the $40B sportswear industry total market and the $3B total resale market. In additional to founding reQuip, Driscoll founded Prepify, an online platform for interactive and computer-adaptive learning, starting with a free SAT prep course, and also Handpicked, which aims to solves inefficiency and missed-connections issues at career fairs.
“The vast majority of the note ($250K total) will be put toward marketing, both in Austin and in the months ahead in a pair of additional cities (likely SF-Bay Area and either Boston or Salt Lake City),” according to the startup. “A small percentage will be earmarked for development (maintenance of existing infrastructure and adding buyer-side functionalities to the mobile app). We are targeting $250K as a reasonable figure for raising at this stage in the life of our company, but we are open to oversubscribing the round up as several advisors have suggested we go as high as $500K. With our current burn rate and expansion into two cities, we will have 8-12 months of runway from Dec. 31 when we close the $250k round.”
With 284 registered users and just 9 items sold for $5,260 total (reQwip revenue = $415), reQuip is just beginning. Other campaign metrics include:
- number of site hits & mobile app downloads:
- excluding the occasional pop for media placements, we average 100 unique visitors per day to www.reQwip.com and 150 uniques for austin.reQwip.com
- we turned on FB and Twitter ads 2 weeks ago ($20/day) which resulted in a ~50% bump in traffic
- 130 mobile downloads of iPhone and Android apps
- Android and iPhone apps released in mid-October 2014
- number of items listed for sale & number of unique users listing them: 541 (of those 117 are listed by individuals as opposed to shops and gear reps)
- visitors browse 3-5 listings on average
- bounce rate for austin.reQwip.com is 47% (up from 40% before a VentureBeat article about reQwip’s co-founder, Dan Driscoll, because that brought more traffic from outside Austin)
ReQuip’s OneVest campaign closes on 31 December.
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ReQwip from RDM Pros on Vimeo.
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