Heritage Auctions

A startup raised $8M copying the org-chart idea from the show

After Shaan and guest Daniel Gross brainstormed a public, crowdsourced org-chart tool on the pod, a stealth startup called The Org launched doing exactly that and raised $8M from Sequoia and Founders Fund.

“There's actually a startup that came out of Stealth that is doing this after we talked about it. Clearly stole our idea. It's called The Org. They raised $8 million from Sequoia and Founders Fund, and it looks like they're doing exactly this.”

Heritage Auctions does $800M in sales, half online half in person

Shaan highlights Heritage Auctions as a niche auction powerhouse doing roughly $800 million in annual sales, split about evenly between online and in-person, praising the time-urgency of auction marketplaces.

“What I think is even better, and so for Heritage Auctions, I think roughly half of their sales, of their $800 million sales, are online and the other half are in person.”

Heritage Auctions doing $850M in collectibles a year, biggest category coins

Shaan flags Heritage Auctions (ha.com) doing $850 million in auctions in a year, with coins as its biggest category — people spending tens of millions on collectible coins.

“tell me about collecting and how this company is doing $850 million in auctions this year”

Build a GOAT/StockX-style mobile marketplace for collectibles

Pointing at the dated ha.com, Shaan pitches making a slick, mobile-only marketplace — like GOAT or StockX did for sneakers — for movie posters, coins, or other rare collectibles, where fanatical demand already exists and only the modern interface is missing.

“I wonder if you could do that in pick your favorite movie posters, coins, whatever. Clearly there's a lot of demand and it's just about making sort of a modern-day marketplace. Because if you go to this HA.com, it literally looks like— how old is it?”

Steal thisTake a category with fanatical buyers but an ancient web experience and rebuild it as a slick mobile-only marketplace.