Skift Take
Brockway will likely find out that his flirtation with a business outside the travel industry was a flight of fancy. We like his criteria for starting a new business though -- think big.
At least the used furniture will be traveling.
Gregg Brockway, the co-founder of successful startups Hotwire (sold to Expedia) and TripIt (bought by Concur) has co-founded with his wife, Anna Brockway, Chairish, a marketplace to sell and buy used furniture.
Consumers shop online from a “curated selection of fabulous pre-owned home furnishings. Sellers can list their furniture for free, and pay a 20% commission when the furntiture is sold.
A concierge service, available in San Francisco at first for a 40% commission, has chairish representatives coming to the seller’s home, inspecting the furniture, writing the listings, and handling all of the shipping logistics.
Gregg Brockway vows to return to the travel industry one day.
“I’ve been in travel long enough to know that most people who try to leave wind up with a Michael Corleone experience: ‘just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in,'” Gregg Brockway says.
On a more serious note, Gregg Brockway says he loves travel and believes “there are still great travel businesses waiting to be built.”
“That said, as I kicked around new ideas both in travel and outside it, none was as compelling as my wife Anna’s vision for Chairish.” Gregg Brockway adds:
Three of the things I look for in a start-up idea are: 1. a clear customer problem, 2. a dramatically better solution to the problem, and 3. conviction that solving the problem will create a big company.
Chairish is tremendously attractive on all three of these dimensions and we have an incredible team of co-founders helping bring it to life.
The Chairish founding team includes other travel and e-commerce veterans including Andy Denmark, Eric Grosse and Nancy Ramamurthi.
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Photo credit: Gregg Brockway's new startup is a furniture marketplace. Chairish