Whatnot is analogous to visiting a shopping mall -- users browse for discovery and entertainment rather than searching for specific items.
Grant compares Whatnot to mall shopping: users have a general sense of wanting something but not exactly what, so they browse, discover, and get entertained along the way. Unlike traditional e-commerce where you must know exactly what you want, Whatnot excels at experiential discovery. ✦ AI generated
Grant LaFontaine · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-19 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 12:58
“Shopping often starts with intent. So, how much of the idea of this is like entertainment versus intent and like how do you think about the distribution of the behavior of the buyers and what they're getting out of you?”
whatnot is sort of like analogous to visiting a store. >> Yeah. >> Um which is I don't know if I go to the mall or I go to set of retail shops. >> I'm sort of like I I kind of know I want a thing but I don't know exactly what that thing is. I'm going to go walk in that shop. I'm going to go browse around. And so >> I don't what have I what have I bought recent? I bought some some new shoes. And so I I went on to go get some new sneakers. I was like, "Okay, I need some sneakers. I'm going to type in the website and I'm going to go like I spent 30 minutes browsing. Didn't know what I wanted. I came away on the other side. And that's sort of the whatnot journey. Whereas if you look at a lot of the e-commerce um companies that have been built in the past, you know, prior to us, you sort of know exactly what you want. It's not really great for discovery. It's not really great for experiential or having fun or being entertained. Uh so I think that's that's sort of the the analog with whatnot.
verbatim transcript · starts at 12:58
12:58think um [clears throat] whatnot is sort of like analogous to visiting a store. >> Yeah. >> Um which is I don't know if I go to the mall or I go to set of retail shops. >> I'm sort of like I I kind of know I want a thing but I don't know exactly what that thing is. I'm going to go walk in that shop. I'm going to go browse
13:17around. And so >> I don't what have I what have I bought recent? I bought some some new shoes. And so I I went on to go get some new sneakers. I was like, "Okay, I need some sneakers. I'm going to type in the website and I'm going to go like I spent 30 minutes browsing. Didn't know what I wanted. I came away on the other side.
13:32And that's sort of the whatnot journey. Whereas if you look at a lot of the e-commerce um companies that have been built in the past, you know, prior to us, you sort of know exactly what you want. It's not really great for discovery. It's not really great for experiential or having fun or being entertained. Uh so I think that's that's sort of the the analog with whatnot.
13:52Maybe you know you want a thing, but you don't know what that exact thing is. you're going to come on whatnot. Um, you're going to look for it. You're going to have some fun along the way. >> Yeah, that's awesome. So, there's all of those elements embedded in the product. So, watching, chatting, bidding, buying, returning. Are there pieces that I'm missing? >> Um, you mean just generally discovery?
14:14>> Yeah, I think Yeah, I think you've covered a lot. I mean the the the one of one of the reasons why whatnot has worked so well to to date is that there's a lot of value because it's such a you can do so many different things. Sometimes you're going to look for a great deal. Um a lot of times you're going to just have an experience and be entertained. So on any
14:35[snorts] given day most people on whatnot don't purchase anything. The vast majority of people don't purchase anything on whatnot. They're just going and they're watching and they're talking with people. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, and so that's that's why I I continue like it's not a perfect analog, but I I like the sort of analog of like going to the shopping mall. Like you'd go to the shopping mall, I hang out with
14:52your friend, at least, you know, when I was growing up, hang out with my friends, walk around the mall, have some fun. You know, many times I wouldn't purchase something, just go there for an experience. I am struck by obviously we're longtime investors with you and so you know this is this is not new news to us but it is striking when I describe it to other people how big the market for