While Whatnot started in collectibles like eBay, the live format attracts small businesses and brands with brick-and-mortar shops or Shopify stores — sellers who would never use eBay. This makes the seller base inherently more diverse. ✦ AI generated
Grant LaFontaine · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-19 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 18:27
“I always find it funny when people mention Etsy or eBay as comparisons. Would you agree or disagree with that framing?”
People will peg us to eBay because we sort of got started in collectibles and that's where eBay got started. But actually the live format is just very very different. It means that a whole swath of different types of sellers can use the product. Anywhere from when eBay got started, a lot of it was like smaller resellers. If you look at whatnot today, it's fundamentally like small business and then we're getting into brands. A lot of those brands and small businesses would typically not be on eBay.
verbatim transcript · starts at 18:27
18:27but actually the live format is just very very different. >> Yes. >> Um it means that a whole swath of different types of sellers can use the product. >> Yes. anywhere from, you know, when eBay got started, a lot of it was like smaller resellers. If you look at whatnot today, it's fundamentally like small business and then we're getting into brands. So, and a lot of those
18:51brands and small businesses would typically not be on eBay. >> Yeah. They would never Yeah. wouldn't it wouldn't make sense. Yeah. Maybe they have a brick-and-mortar shop or they have a Shopify store or, you know, a bunch of things like that. So, I think the the seller base is inherently much more diverse. And then the thing with live is it's it's um demand expansionary because um you go in and discover new
19:17things you didn't know that you would be interested in. >> Yes. >> Uh and so if you look at e-commerce today, it's so you have to know exactly what you're looking for. So all it's really done is take a bunch of offline sales and bring them online in a more efficient way. But you still got to know exactly what you want. And as like live commerce >> uh proliferates, it's just going to
19:42expand that market. So, not only could it be 30 or 40% of that market, um that market is going to get a lot bigger. >> Yeah. It's sort of like it would be more akin to not so much like e-commerce, but more like the inception of department stores or shopping malls. Yes. >> Right. Which is like actually expanded the the demand characteristics of the market. >> Yeah. Exactly.