** We have not been great about updating this blog (in fact, we’ve been downright terrible) – but that is going to change. We want to share more of our experiences, offer information on electronics reuse and recycling, reveal a bit more about YouRenew’s company history and culture, and post other items that we find cool and wacky. Let us know if you want to hear about anything in particular! **
—
Bob and Rich, YouRenew's Founders, at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute
YouRenew is rapidly approaching its second birthday (the site launched on March 3rd, 2009) but I’ve been working on the company closer to three years at this point. It was two years ago this week that we came up with the name YouRenew – a name that we loved from the outset and has come to mean a great deal to many of us.
In looking back on the last twenty-four months, I am blown away by how much progress we have made. The idea that grew into YouRenew started in a college dorm room at Yale in early 2008. In prior years, Rich Littlehale and I tried to start a number of other ventures together. We worked for months to develop an internship directory for college students, attempted to build a fundraising platform for non-profits, and later moved on to a health beverage concept. We jumped from idea to idea, and although we spent many months on each project, were never quite satisfied or passionate about the ideas that we were pursuing.
Eventually, we saw the opportunity to address a problem that we could easily understand and relate to – the buildup of old iPods, laptops, and cell phones in drawers and closets. Intent on pursuing this idea, I applied to the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (YEI) in January of 2008, and was accepted as a 2008 Fellow. YEI is an awesome program deserving of its own post, but basically it is a Yale University program dedicated to helping students start scalable ventures.
At YEI during the summer of 2008, YouRenew began to take shape. At first, we focused on building a large network of brick-and-mortar collection locations. We soon realized that in order to scale, we should focus on leveraging the power of the web. A customer-facing website that offered trade-in value for used items made a great deal of sense, but neither Rich nor I had any software development experience. However, through friends and introductions, we were able to assemble a young, lean team to build out our first version of the site.
In time, we built and launched YouRenew, and customers began to trickle in. As we began receiving some attention in the press, the trickle became a steady flow, and within a couple of months of launching, we were deluged with devices. To be perfectly honest, we were underprepared for the onslaught of boxes that the mailman began to arrive with daily. While our efforts had been focused on building the website and on procuring devices, we had not fully considered the importance of receiving, processing, data clearing, testing, and reselling all of the gadgets that we were offering trade-ins for. Nor had we considered many of the other functions that need attention in a rapidly growing business – customer service, finance and accounting, and more.
Slowly (and somewhat painfully) we built out a team, delegated tasks, and began to look more like a real company (thankfully a small, agile, fast paced startup, not a boring behemoth corporation). YouRenew was growing quickly, and things started looking up. In the summer of 2009, we raised a round of venture capital and angel financing to allow us to continue scaling the business and to build out our operations and expand into new markets. Just over a year ago, we hired Guy Minetti to lead the company as CEO, one of the best decisions that we ever made.
Over the course of the last year, the company has grown by leaps and bounds. We have grown from a small, at times chaotic startup into a substantial organization. Our operations are more efficient than ever, and we’re rapidly moving towards having the best-in-industry processing and refurbishing capabilities. Today, we serve both individual customers and large organizations, and we have built out a great team to support our mission of extending the life of used electronics.
I do not use the word team lightly – each and every day, we are working to achieve goals together, and I have great respect for everyone at YouRenew. I am unbelievably lucky to work with such a great group and to serve our awesome customers as we work to solve a real problem. We have really just begun to build the company, and I couldn’t be more excited for what lies ahead.
