Goodwill Hunting #19: annual review
How to engineer serendipity, plus an end-of-year reflection
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 is the last Goodwill Hunting of 2022. It’s time for a digital detox over the holidays to reflect, recharge, and reset before kicking off 2023. Happy holidays!
♻️ Thrift Finds of the Week
Roberto Cavalli NWT denim corset ($48, MSRP $1550) | Vintage genuine leather pants ($30) | Vintage Gucci bag ($166) | Vintage Barbie carrying case ($27) | Juicy Couture charm bracelet & earrings ($35)
Sourced from GoodwillFinds and ShopGoodwill. Made with <3 with Landing.
✍🏻 2022 Reflection
Can you engineer serendipity?
In the Surface Area of Luck Theory, your chance of being lucky is equivalent to the actions you take towards your passion multiplied by the people you tell. In other words, Luck = (Passionate Doing) x (Effective Telling).
Telling others about our passion increases the “surface area of luck.” When you give more than you take and ask thoughtfully for help, you’ll be amazed at who’s willing to make that intro, hop on a call, share tips, etc. But first, you have to ask yourself what you really want: what is your “why” or “ikigai”?
Ikigai refers to defining your personal meaning of life in relation to your talents, passions, and profession, as well as what you can give to the wider world.
In 2022, I vowed to rebalance the Doing vs. Telling about my “why”—my deep interest and expertise in the intersection of fashion, tech, and resale. When reflecting on the highlights and lowlights and wins and misses of this year, I realized how grateful I am for this little corner of the internet and how much has changed in 2022.
Write. Started this newsletter and grew organically to several hundred subscribers (thank you for reading!).
Build. Quit my corporate tech job at Amazon Fashion to join a startup. More to come in the new year!
Curate. Became a Startupy curator indexing the best insights on fashion tech, secondhand fashion, and social commerce from across the web.
Community. Joined Arkive as a member to help build the first decentralized museum, curated by its members.
Want to do an annual review or end-of-year reflection? Here are some of my go-to resources:
Annual Examen (free)
Landing vision boards (free)
Design Your Life book ($23)
📕 Holiday Reading
When creators, culture and community commerce collide (The Drum)
“The path to purchase is now led by spontaneous product discovery and inspiration, meaning every moment on a platform is an opportunity for conversion for those who are able to attract and retain their audience’s attention...Community commerce’s blend of community, entertainment and shopping creates a unique product discovery experience, that drives purchase decisions influenced by authentic social communities rather than one aspirational individual.” says Kris Boger, general manager, global business solutions UK at TikTok.
The ultimate guide to social commerce (Ana Andjelic, Sociology of Business)
Social commerce will turn us all into shoppable product demos, and our lives into a catalog of stylized products. It will also introduce new revenue streams, business models, marketing strategies, and regulatory hurdles, reversing a short-sighted belief that “the Internet lets you buy, but it doesn’t let you shop.” Social currency is the fuel of the modern retail economy. Community is its killer app.
The rise of social commerce (Joanna Williams)
Social commerce is growing at a CAGR of 30.8% reaching $6.2T by 2030. Social commerce was valued at $585B in 2021, projected to reach $727.6B in 2022 with 8.53X growth by 2030 based on average time spent on social media, driven by TikTok. Apparel accounts for 23% of total revenue forecast, and 88% of fashion customers are women.
What Makes a Great Brand? (Joanna Lord, Building Beautiful Things)
Great brands have three different components all working in harmony at any given time, across every touch point. A Great Brand = Company Mission + Customer Voice + Market Zeitgeist. Great brands don't just solve customer problems, they improve the world around them as they do it.
A vision for the internet in 2023 (Emma Bates, Diem)
Collective media fosters a sense of communal building where users are self-determined (and often rewarded) to build their online experience with each other. Where traditional social media can feel like performing on a stage, collective media feels more like attending a party. Collective media centers on a more aligned collaboration between platforms and the communities they power.
💡 Tweet of the Week
This thread about Gen Z and quality randomly went viral this week (4M+ views and counting).
Intellectually, I understand that the global fashion industry is complex and these issues are systemic and interconnected. But emotionally, I’m sad for younger consumers who have never experienced touching, feeling, trying on, or even smelling high-quality fashion—real silk, pure cotton, genuine leather, etc.
That’s why I’m convinced that Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha will have an “a ha” moment when they touch and feel quality fashion. Most new clothes aren’t well-made, so this moment will likely be from secondhand and vintage clothes.
What do you think? Message me with your ideas!
👋 Join the Community
See you in 2023, Goodwill Hunting community!
sorry for ‘commenting’ everywhere, but just realized now that we share too much 🤗 happy Arkive & Startupy member here as well ⚡️✌️