Goodwill Hunting #18: quitting Amazon

I left my dream job at Amazon Fashion to join a startup

Dec 16, 2022

Welcome to Goodwill Hunting, a newsletter curated by Danielle L. Vermeer, a fashion tech leader and avid thrifter obsessed with making fashion more social, circular, and fun. This weekly edition includes an important career update, thrift finds to shop, consumer insights, and industry news to read as we head into the weekend.

♻️ Thrift Finds of the Week

Sourced from GoodwillFinds and ShopGoodwill. Made with <3 with Landing.

🚀 Career Update

I quit my dream job at Amazon to start a new adventure.

For the last ~4.5 years, I’ve had my dream job at Amazon Fashion building new products for customers at the intersection of fashion, tech, and resale.

Highlights were launching the first Disney x Amazon Fashion co-brand, luxury fashion & beauty in Luxury Stores, shoppable livestream New York Fashion Week shows, and luxury resale with What Goes Around Comes Around.

I left corporate tech to join a startup for 3 main reasons.

Come Alive. I reflected on Howard Thurman’s quote to “do what makes you come alive.” Do it even when it’s hard or you don’t feel ready.
Agency vs. Ambition. I’m trading climbing the corporate ladder for aligning my ambition and agency as a woman and mom in tech. Startups mamas—looking forward to learning from you!
Time to Build. I believe that the future of fashion is more social, circular, and fun. I’m obsessed with making this vision a reality. In case my obsession wasn’t obvious!

So what will I be building next? Stay tuned after the holidays—or reply to this newsletter for a sneak peek! 👀

📕 Weekend Reading

Haul Videos, Popular on TikTok, Are Getting Gen Z-ers to Whip Out Their Wallets (Morning Consult)
In a new Morning Consult survey of 1000 13-25-year-olds in the U.S., 2 in 5 Gen Z-ers have purchased a product after seeing it in a ”haul” video, and nearly 1 in 3 have purchased something after watching “get ready with me” or “routine” videos. Short-form video remains a powerful method to discover and shop new products. (Shoutout to Casey Lewis from After School for highlighting this research.)

Depop research on “displacement rate” of secondhand fashion (Depop)

Is it sustainable to buy from Zara, Shein, and other fast fashion brands secondhand? Or should resale marketplaces ban fast fashion, like Vestiaire Collective recently did? Depop conducted in-depth research on a key question in the sustainability debates: displacement rate. Depop found that 9 in 10 purchases made on their peer-to-peer resale platform prevent the purchase of a brand new item elsewhere. They also found that Depop users are outfit repeaters, wearing items on average 46 times.

Shein is the most Googled fashion brand in over 100 countries (Hypebae)

Research from Money.co.uk found that Shein was the most-searched brand in 113 countries this year, surpassing fast fashion brand Zara and even Gen Z’s favorite brand Nike. In case you missed it, here’s my take on why Gen Z loves both Shein and Depop. It’s not as paradoxical as you might think.

Forerunner Ventures Research: The Dinner Party (Forerunner)

Forerunner, a VC firm, published their new “The Dinner Party” consumer insights report, Forerunner segmented the modern consumer into 8 main archetypes. My archetype was “Pioneer”—the striver, entrepreneurial, driven, active, social, and optimistic. “They tend to be more environmentally-conscious…and have an above-average interest in spirituality.” Umm OK, Forerunner, way to call me out like that. Take the quiz here.

The era of community-led growth (Product Hunt)

Audience isn’t synonymous with community. Community is about the fundamental human need to seek belonging and connection with others. This is why community-led growth is about “nurturing a space where people feel a sense of belonging.”

The Big Ideas Tech Will Tackle in 2023 (Andreessen Horowitz)

Connie Chan, Partner at a16z, predicts: “Social platforms will become a natural place for product discovery….Whether short-form, long-form, or livestream, video is a fantastic way to sell things and teach consumers about a product’s value proposition. This will birth an entirely new ecosystem where anyone can become a seller, and new companies can help everyday creators curate and sell products and services.”