How Whatnot Built a Global Marketplace

对吧？

Right?

这实际上扩大了市场的需求特征。

Which is like, actually expanded the the demand characteristics of the market.

是的。

Yeah.

没错。

Exactly.

对。

Yeah.

完全说得通。

That makes total sense.

关于需求端，还有一点非常引人注目，然后我想详细谈谈供应端，因为我认为那是这个平台最令人兴奋的地方之一。在需求端，我了解到用户每天在平台上花费九十五分钟。

So the other thing that is so striking about the demand side, and then I wanna talk about the supply side in great detail because I think that's one of the most exciting things about the platform, Is on the demand side, I understand users spend ninety five minutes a day on the platform.

是这样吗？

Is that right?

对。

Yeah.

大概九十五分钟。

About ninety five minutes.

确实很惊人。

It's incredible.

这个数字太惊人了，已经跟那些娱乐社交平台差不多了。

That's like a shocking number and puts you on par with social platforms, like the entertainment platforms.

是的。

Yeah.

因为好玩嘛。

It's because it's fun.

对。

Yeah.

你知道，如果简单概括一下Whatnot对买家的价值，那就是购物体验很有趣。

You know, if you were if you were to sort of simplify whatnot down on, like, the buyer value prop is it's a fun experience to shop.

而且网上购物真的没什么好玩的体验。

And there's not a whole lot of fun experiences shopping online.

你知道，以前去商场购物，但现在那些情况都在变，所以连去商场都没那么有意思了。

And you know, historically, you'd go to a shopping mall and you know, the dynamics there are all changing, so it's not even as fun to to do that anymore.

而且我之前说过，大多数人其实并不买东西。

And and as I said earlier, most people aren't even purchasing.

他们其实就是去享受一下，体验一下。

They're actually just going to have a good time and experience it.

大多数人，超过80%的人，在一天内并不会购买。

Most people don't perk like, you know, greater than 80% people don't purchase on a given day.

他们只是在那里看，玩得开心。

They're just there watching, having fun.

太棒了。

It's amazing.

是的。

Yeah.

这真的是一个很奇妙的结合，回顾历史，就是把娱乐和满足购物需求结合起来，在需求端带来新发现，而且超过80%的人其实并不真正交易。

It's an it's an incredible sort of blending, if you go back to your history, of entertainment plus filling the shopping need on the demand side with new discovery and over 80% of people not actually even transacting.

这显然就是一种娱乐形式。

It's, like, clearly a form of entertainment.

我其实在上面花了很多时间，觉得挺有意思的。

I actually am I spend a lot of time on there in entertaining.

我也会买东西，但，是的，我理解。

I transact too, but, yeah, I I get it.

这说得通。

That makes sense.

好。

Okay.

所以这大概就是它的起源故事，以及市场的大致布局。

So that's like the origin story, like the layout of the market at a high level.

我不想深入讨论品类什么的，但我很想聊聊供应端，也就是平台上的卖家。

I don't wanna go into categories and stuff, but I'd love to talk about the supply side, like the sellers on the platform.

说说你们平台上的卖家规模吧。

Talk about the scale that you have of sellers.

而且你知道，作为市场平台，这是被低估的一点。

And, you know, this is sort of one of the underrated things by being a marketplace.

你让那些原本不会存在的新业务得以创建，或者让现有业务得以增长。

You enable all this new business creation or business growth of existing businesses that otherwise would not exist.

所以我很想深入探讨一下这个。

So I'd love to explore that a little bit.

对，我觉得Whatnot最有趣的一点就是它从根本上赋能小企业。

Yeah, mean I think the one of the most fun things about Whatnot is it's fundamentally empowering small business.

如果你看看过去二三十年电商的发展，它变得非常高效，而实现高效的方式之一就是模糊你从谁那里购买，以及模糊人们围绕它建立品牌和业务的能力，而Whatnot恰恰相反。

And if you look at a lot of what's happened again in e commerce over the past twenty or thirty years is it got so efficient and one of the ways to make it so efficient is to obscure who you're buying from and obscure the ability for people to like build brands and businesses around it and whatnot sort of the polar opposite.

如果你在Whatnot上，你会有自己的店铺，自己的品牌，自己的客户，他们会回来找你。

If you're on Whatnot, you're gonna have your store, you're gonna have your brand, you're gonna have your customers, they're gonna come back to you.

所以，我认为这是平台最好的地方之一，我们为小企业创造了数十亿美元的收入，这些企业从一两个人的小作坊到最多几百人的规模都有。

And so, know, I think that's one of the one of the best bits of the platform is, you know, we're generating billions and billions and billions of dollars for small businesses, and these are anywhere from, you know, one and two person operations all the way up to maybe a couple 100 folks at the high end.

太棒了。

That's amazing.

是的。

Yeah.

我觉得你以前把它比作本地店主或者本地酒吧老板。

The I I think you've compared it in the past to, like, a local shop owner or, like, a local pub owner.

想想看，Whatnot能让这些人做到什么，而像亚马逊那样高度实用化的平台，嗯。

And if you think about what Whatnot allows that person to do compared to, say, Amazon, which is, like, highly utilitarian Yep.

你知道，高度游戏化，还有第一方、第三方、国际卖家之间的竞争，这完全是另一种销售体验，能让有创意、有抱负的人茁壮成长，也许在其他平台上他们做不到。

You know, highly gamified, and, like, competition among first party, third party, international sellers, like, it's just an entirely different experience on the sell side that will allow someone who's creative and ambitious to thrive, maybe in a way that they wouldn't otherwise on those platforms.

这么说对吗？

Is that fair?

对。

Yeah.

我觉得它确实赋能小企业，而之前的趋势几乎是在削弱小企业，让他们被忽视。

I think it just empowers small business in a way where maybe the the prior trend was almost disempower small business and obscure them away.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

说得好。

That's well said.

说得好。

That's well said.

所以，你对这些不同类型的创业者都有很独到的见解。

So, you have really interesting insight into all of these different types of entrepreneurs.

对吧？

Right?

所以，我想也许可以先从最初的品类开始，比如收藏品、卡片之类的，你观察到这个市场里的行为有什么特点？

So, I'd love to maybe start with just, you know, the original categories, like collectibles, cards, like, what are you seeing about the behavior in that market?

所以，我觉得我们看到的趋势，其实和我们刚开始做这个生意时是一样的。这也是我们重新回到收藏品领域的原因之一，我们看到很多人重新回到这个市场。

So, I think we're we're seeing a continuation of trends that we saw when we first started the business, which was one of the one of the reasons we we we came back into collectibles, we saw a bunch of people getting back to the market.

这些人就像我们一样，可能有点钱，买一些童年怀旧的东西，重新投入那些他们喜欢的东西。

It was people like us who were had maybe some money and were buying things that were nostalgic from childhood and getting back into unique, you know, things that they loved.

这个趋势基本上在过去六年半里一直没有停过。

And that trend's basically continued unabated for the past six and a half years.

所以，我觉得收藏品现在基本上已经变得主流了，找不到更好的词来形容。

And so, know, I I think collectibles is is largely going like mainstream now for lack of a better term.

现在有主流明星参与，有运动员参与，所以我觉得很多人以前觉得收藏品是小众的东西，但实际上它正在成为流行文化的核心部分。

You have mainstream celebrities in it, you have athletes in it, and so I think a lot of people thought collectible, thought think of collectibles like a niche thing, but it's actually becoming a core part of pop culture.

我觉得在过去六年里，我们看到的这种演变一直在不断增长，而且实际上，现在很多人收藏的新艺术形式就是交易卡，有些能卖到几百万美元。你知道，如果你的父母，如果他们玩高端艺术，或者你有幸有这样的父母，他们会买著名艺术家的作品，而现在人们买的是那种独一无二的卡，对。

And I think over the past six years we've just seen that evolution continue to grow and grow and grow and grow and you know, in fact, you know, a lot of the new art that people are collecting is now like trading cards with that are going for millions of dollars and you know, maybe your parents, if they were doing high end art or, you know, you were lucky enough to have parents who could do that, they're buying, you know, famous artists, and now people are buying, like, the one of one Yeah.

里克·理查兹。

Rick Richards.

你知道吗？

You know?

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

勒布朗·詹姆斯的折射卡之类的。

LeBron James refractor or something

超酷的。

super cool.

对。

Yeah.

而且显然，这里面也有娱乐的成分。

And it's obviously, there's an entertainment element of that as well.

我一直对Whatnot上一些业务的规模感到震惊。

I I I've been struck by the scale of some of the businesses that are on Whatnot.

所以，显然，你们是在赋能数百万家小企业。

So, obviously, you're empowering, I think, millions of small businesses.

但是，如果做得好，一个商家实际上可以在Whatnot上建立起超过一亿美元的收入，并且利润非常可观。

But, you know, if done right, a business owner can actually build something north of a $100,000,000 of revenue and highly profitable on all on the back of Whatnot.

对。

Yeah.

你知道，Whatnot上最大的商家可能年收入超过一亿美元，而且EBITDA利润率非常强劲，能达到百分之二十、三十、甚至四十以上。

You know, the the biggest businesses on Whatnot are probably doing upwards of a $100,000,000 in in revenue and, you know, with, like, very strong EBITDA margins, twenty, thirty, 40 plus percent.

我们努力做的是，如果你看Whatnot，去年我们销售额超过80亿美元，今年到目前为止也超过了80亿美元，所以你知道。

What we try and do, so if you looked at Whatnot, last year we did over 8,000,000,000 in sales and so far this year we've done over 8,000,000,000 in sales, so you know

你们需要非常快的增长。

You need very fast growth.

我们只从中抽取很小的一部分。

And we take a small fraction of that.

我们不想提高费率或做类似的事情，重要的是商家能拿走大部分，然后我们的业务随着这些商家一起成长。

We'd like to, we're not raising fees or doing that, it's really important that the businesses take the majority of that, and then our business grows with all those businesses.

所以，我们只是把所有时间都花在帮助建立优秀的企业，并确保与这些企业交易的人有很好的体验。

So, we just spend, you know, all of our time trying to help build great businesses and make sure that people who are transacting with those businesses have a great experience.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

太棒了。

It's awesome.

这真的是一个很棒的故事，而且可能不太为人所知，报道也少，是关于美国小企业赋能的，现在在欧洲也越来越多了，这个我们可以聊聊。

It's it's it's one of the great and probably lesser known, less covered stories of small business empowerment in The US, and increasingly now in Europe, which we can talk about.

但真的非常令人兴奋。

But it's it's super exciting.

我想换个话题，刚才聊的有点偏向供应端。

I I wanna shift gears now, you know, that's obviously a little bit on the supply side.

聊聊你正在做的那些品类吧。

You know, talk about some of the categories you're working on.

很明显，你从收藏品和卡片起家，现在也做得挺成功的。

Obviously, know, you started with collectibles and and and cards, and then now you have success.

你在时尚领域也取得了很大的成功，这显然是商业中最大的品类之一，还有很多其他品类。

You've had a lot of success in fashion, which is obviously one of the biggest categories in commerce, and there's many others.

那就谈谈品类扩展的演变过程吧。

So just talk about the category expansion evolution over time.

对。

Yeah.

我的意思是，如果你看看现在的Whatnot，我们在100多个品类里销售商品。

I mean, I guess if you look at Whatnot today, we're selling things in a 100 plus categories.

而且我们一直在投资新领域，帮助人们发展他们的业务。

And then we're always investing in new areas to help people grow their business.

所以现在一些有趣的品类包括新鲜食品和饮料，比如你可以买到从圣地亚哥码头直接采购的新鲜鱼。

So some of the fun ones today are, like, fresh food and drink, where you can buy fresh fish sourced from the dock in San Diego.

顺便说一句，我是在那之后开始买的。

By the way, and I started buying it after Yeah.

就这样。

All that.

太棒了。

It's awesome.

还有一个我特别喜欢的，有一家烧烤店，能买到超棒的烧烤，我冰箱里囤了一堆。

Another one of my favorites, there's a barbecue restaurant where you can get amazing barbecue, and I have a bunch of it sitting in my freezer.

食品这块，对我们来说生鲜还处于早期阶段，但我很乐意去买，因为我觉得美国的食品供应链太不透明了，能知道你的食物从哪里来，还能了解背后的故事，真的很不错。

Food, it's early days in fresh food for us, but I'm excited to buy it because I think the food supply chain's so opaque in The US, and it's really nice to know where your food comes from and be able to get the story around it.

换个话题，不知道为什么，我所有的朋友现在都开始打高尔夫了，我也到了那个年纪。

You know, flipping gears, I don't for whatever reason, all my friends golf now, I'm at that age

因为你老了嘛。

in Your own my because you're getting old.

对。

Yeah.

髋关节不好，所以其他真正的运动我都做不了。

Hip's bad, so I can't do any other real sports.

所以高尔夫在Whatnot上正经历巨大的增长，年增长率有百分之几百，我们有好多高尔夫店铺在卖，所以这也是另一个我一直在买、团队也一直在投入的有趣品类，而且除此之外还有很多很多。

And so golf on Whatnot is having a huge surge, know, it's growing hundreds of percent year over year, we have all these golf shops selling, and so that's you know another another fun category that I've been buying in and the team's been investing in and you sort of there's so many beyond that even.

对。

Yeah.

这就像任何需要仔细考虑的东西，对吧，都应该适合Whatnot，你知道，有解释，有个性，有背后的故事，对吧。

It's sort of like anything that's highly considered, right, should be a fit for Whatnot, where, you know, an explanation, a personality that goes along with it, you know, a story behind it, like, would Yeah.

那肯定合适。

I'd be fit.

我觉得任何能让人开实体店的东西

I think anything that someone would build a retail shop around

在Whatnot上都能行。

would work on whatnot.

任何任何会出现在

Anything anything that would be in

购物中心里的东西。

the shopping mall.

对。

Yeah.

真的是什么都可以。

Literally anything.

因为如果你想去逛实体店，其实你坐在沙发上用手机就能搞定。

Because if you were going if you were going to go visit a store, well, you can do it from your couch on your phone.

对。

Yeah.

那太棒了。

That's awesome.

那服装和服饰方面呢？

What about clothing and apparel in particular?

我觉得女装，女装现在是我们最大的品类。

I mean, women's fashions, women is now our biggest category.

哇。

Wow.

而且，你知道，这里面种类非常丰富。我觉得占主导地位的其实有点像TJ Maxx那种感觉。

And, you know, there's a there's a huge range of of stuff I'd in say that, you know, the dominant is is actually sort of looks like almost TJ Maxx like.

对。

Yeah.

就是那种过季的库存，价格很实惠，所以你能用很好的价格买到一些大牌子的好东西。

Which is like old season inventory, really good pricing, and so you can get some like amazing deals on like great brands.

运动鞋什么的也一样。

Same with sneakers and whatnot.

这几乎就像……我忘了那个名字。

It's almost I forget the name.

比如我小时候，有那种折扣鞋店，你能花大概40美元买到耐克鞋之类的。

Like, I when I was growing up, there'd be those, like, discount shoe stores where you get, like, the Nike's for, like, $40 or something.

对，就是那种。

There's Yeah.

这种店很多，就是很划算。

There's a lot of that, it's just, like, great deal.

我以前经常逛那种店。

I shopped I shopped at a lot of those.

对。

Yeah.

就像，确实。

It's like did.

对。

Yeah.

你知道，购物的时候，没有什么比买到划算的东西更让人开心的了。

If, you know, you there's there's nothing that beats a good deal when you're shopping.

DSW。

DSW.

对。

Yeah.

就是那个。

That's that's the one.

就是那个。

That's one.

就像TJ Maxx的鞋子那样。

It's like the TJ Maxxer shoes.

对。

Yeah.

所以在时尚服饰领域，这种模式大量涌现，而且直播效果真的很好。

And so there's there's a a ton of that popping up in, like, the fashion apparel side, and and live's really great.

它能帮你大量出货，当你能卖出那么多货时，你就愿意打折，这样顾客也能得到很好的价格。

It helps you move a lot of volume, and that when you can move that much volume, you're willing to take the discounts, and it gives customers a really good price.

对。

Yeah.

百分之百。

A 100%.

百分之百。

A 100%.

扩张的另一部分，显然你在美国取得了巨大的成功。

The other part of, you know, expansion is obviously you've had a tremendous amount of success in The US.

聊聊向欧洲扩张的事吧，哪些做法有效，哪些不行，你们学到了什么？

Talk about the expansion into Europe, and what's worked, what's not, what are the learnings?

对。

Yeah.

所以现在，我们大概在10个国家有业务。

So today, think we're in about we're in 10 countries.

包括美国和加拿大，还有北美，欧洲有五个国家，我们现在也进入了日本和澳大利亚。

So US and Canada and and North America, five countries in Europe, and we're also now in Japan and Australia.

所以，我们基本上覆盖了全球很大一部分地区。

So we're we're sort of, you know, have a good chunk of the globe covered.

我觉得最有趣的一点，可能大家会觉得出乎意料的是，我们在所有这些国家看到的情况都一样，就是在美国我们帮助创建的那些小企业，在那里也能成功创建，而且收藏品、时尚、电子产品这些领域的动态都极其相似。

The the I think the most interesting thing that I I don't that I think would be counterintuitive to folks is that we've just seen it work the same way across all of those countries, which is there's all the small businesses that we've helped create in The US, we've been able to help create there, and collectibles, fashion, and electronics, and a lot of the dynamics are incredibly incredibly incredibly similar.

所以，我们非常看好直播这种购物方式，它真的是一种非常持久的价值媒介。

And so, you know, we're just incredibly bullish that live is an incredibly durable value medium in which to shop from.

我特别喜欢的一个故事是，你最近跟我们讲的那个海鲜经销商，他在LinkedIn上给你发消息。

So one of my favorite stories is the is the recent one that you've you told us about the the seafood distributor who messaged you on LinkedIn.

首先，这真是个好机会。

And first of all, like, what an inbound.

然后他下周就开播了，在试播阶段就卖出了大概三四千美元的鱼。

And and then he went live the following week, and he sold, I think, between three and four thousand dollars of fish during the pilot Yeah.

对。

Phase.

那是什么原因促成的呢？这又是怎么发生的？

So what happened that caused that, and, like, how did that even come about?

我觉得关键点还是直播真的是个很好的发现好东西的渠道。

Again, I think the punch line there is that live is just a really good medium to discover things.

他的故事是这样的，他在鱼行业干了很久，非常了解自己卖的东西，他会给你带来当季圣地亚哥最新鲜的鱼，而且会根据季节轮换供应。

And so his story is, he's been in the fish business for a while, deeply knows what he's selling, he's gonna bring you the freshest fish from San Diego at that time of year, and he's rotating this stuff in when it's seasonal.

他知识渊博，你看他的直播，能看到你从未听说过的鱼，他会讲这种鱼怎么可持续，今天刚下船，还有捕到它的渔民，这体验太棒了。

He's so incredibly knowledgeable, so you can watch a show and you see this type of fish you've never heard of and you talk about how it's sustainable and that it just got off the pier today and here's the fishermen who caught it, that's just a great experience.

所以，我们现在可以把他推给庞大的买家群体，有了这样的体验，每小时卖出几千美元就很容易了。

And so, you know, we can take him and we can push him to it and whatnot now as a large, you know, buyer base and and, you know, it's pretty easy then to generate thousands of dollars an hour in sales with that experience.

所以，是的。

And so Yeah.

想象一下，他要在整个互联网上卖鱼。

And imagine him trying to sell over the Internet at large.

他可能只能接触到本地市场，但基本上没办法真正触达全国市场。

If they're actually, like, is like, he can access his local market, but there's probably no way for him to really access a nationwide market

对。

Yeah.

除非有像这样的平台。

Except for something like this.

我觉得在网上买食物，尤其是生鲜鱼，真的很难。

And I think it's really hard, like, buying food on the Internet, like fresh fish, like Yeah.

因为这是那种你会想，哇，网上买生鲜鱼，我怎么知道它好不好，会不会吃了生病？

Because it's one of the it's one of those things you're like, wow, fresh fish on the Internet, like, do I know if it's good, if I can get sick from it?

所以视频真的能大大增强信任感。

And so video just really enhances the trust.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

再加上卖家的真实身份。

And like a a real identity of the person together.

你可以直接和他聊，问他问题。

You can talk to him ask questions.

你能知道他会怎么包装。

You can know how he's gonna pack it.

但如果是在一个静态网站上，那就只能希望东西是好的了。

And if you're on a static website, like, well, I hope it's good.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

确实。

That's true.

非常对。

That is very true.

好的。

Okay.

所以，如果你想想这个平台，还有你提到的你们运营的规模，那真是巨大的规模。

So if you think about the platform and you've talked about the scale that you guys are running, it's just massive, massive scale.

所以，我用来形容你和Logan的一个词就是“坚持不懈”。

And so you one of the things I've used to describe you and Logan is relentlessness.

就像，你们在执行上非常坚持不懈。

Like, you guys are relentless in execution.

在这么大的规模下，你经常需要处理哪些问题？

What are some of the things that you encounter with that amount of scale that you constantly have to be on top of?

我觉得这很重要，显然，现在你们规模很大，有网络效应。

And I think this is a big like, obviously, now you're big and you have a network effect.

但我觉得这是早期让你们获胜的一个被低估的重要因素，就是你们总是能及时处理任何可能出问题的地方。

But I think this is one of the big underrated things that allowed you to win in the early days, is that you guys were constantly on top of anything that could break.

所以我很想了解那些重要的事情。

So I'd love to understand some of those big things.

对。

Yeah.

我的意思是，这确实很有挑战性。

I mean, it's it's it's challenging.

你知道，信任有很多方面。

I mean, you know, there's so many dimensions to to trust.

比如，平台是否可靠，是否正常运行，是否稳定，是否快速。

So there's sort of like, is the platform reliable and is it working and is it stable and is it fast?

所以，你知道，我们几乎什么都测量。

And so, you know, we measure just everything.

是的。

Yeah.

我觉得关于信任，核心就是什么都测量，我们在这方面投入了很多。

Like, I I think the the punch line on trust is measure everything, and we have invest a lot in it.

所以我觉得在Whatnot上，信任和安全相关的员工大概占了40%。

So I think trust and safety, particular, on Whatnot, is about 40% of employees.

哇。

Wow.

所以这对我们来说是一笔巨大的投入，因为这是个难题，你不会想把信用卡信息放在一个你不信任的地方。

So it's a huge it's a huge huge investment from us because it's it's a challenging one, you don't wanna put your credit card in a place you you don't trust.

你当然不会从一个你不信任的地方买新鲜鱼。

You certainly don't wanna buy fresh fish from a place you don't trust.

对。

Right.

所以呢，我觉得大量的数据测量、大量的用户反馈，再加上大量的人力投入，才能把事情做好，这大概就是驱动这一切的关键。

And and so so so those you know, I think a lot of measurement, a lot of user feedback, and then a big just people investment to get the thing done is is sort of what drives it.

而且呢，问题五花八门，你得确保自己建对了工具来应对。

And then, you know, the problems are are pretty diverse and you have to make sure you're building the right set of things for it.

举个例子，我们后台有个系统，我们叫它规则引擎，它现在能在一秒内处理数十亿条数据，用来发现或打击平台上的各种不良行为。比如，如果你在直播里骚扰别人，大语言模型会检测到，然后接入我们的行动规则引擎，它会查看卖家的历史记录，根据其他信号，自动采取行动，比如下架、暂停、封禁或警告。如果你没有按时发货，规则引擎也会做同样的事情。

So as an example, we have a system in the background, we just call it our rules engine and it takes in billions of data points at this point in sub one seconds to be able to take down or find any range of bad behavior platform so if you harass someone in a live stream the LLM will detect it, it will get plugged into the our action rules engine, we'll look at the history of the seller and based upon other signals programmatically take them down, suspend them, ban them, warn them, If you are not shipping on time, the rules engine will do the same thing.

如果你退款率很高，规则引擎也会做同样的事情。

If you have a high refund rate, the rules engine will do the same thing.

而且，这些问题和情况是不断变化的。

And look, these are ever changing, you know, problems and issues

因为评分权重之类的总是会变，对。

because Weighting of scoring and things like that will always change, yeah.

所以，你得时刻盯着这些事儿。

And and so, you constantly have to be on top of these things.

对。

Yeah.

是啊，我是说，你想想看，你有多少并发用户，每天处理多少笔交易。

Yeah, I mean, you know, if you think about just how many concurrent users you have and how many transactions you process per day.

对。

Yeah.

我讲信任与安全时，总喜欢用一个类比，就是，你知道，几千万人每天都在用Whatnot。

I I always the the analog I like for trust and safety is so, you know, tens of millions of people use Whatnot every

每天。

day.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

所以，信任与安全团队基本上就是Whatnot的警察和司法系统。

And so, the trust and safety team is basically the police force and the the legal system of of Whatnot.

你得制定政策，还得有人去执行这些政策。

You gotta write your policies, you gotta have your people who enforce your policies.

而且，你知道，在一个有一两千万人口的城市里，那就像东京那么大，我觉得更好的类比可能是，相当于几个纽约市。

And, you know, in a city that has ten, twenty million people, you're looking at a city the size of Tokyo, I mean, maybe a better analog would be like, I mean, a couple of New York cities.

对，两个纽约市。

Yeah, two New York cities.

两个纽约市。

Two New York cities.

而且，你知道，纽约也不是管理得完美无缺，所以总会有些坏事发生，有人被逮捕，但以我们的规模，在我们构建的一些系统里，实际上问题要少得多。当然，Whatnot 是面向小企业的业务，所有东西都在视频上。

And, you know, in New York, it's not perfectly run, and so there's gonna be some bad things that happen, people get arrested, but at our scale, of some of the systems we've built, there's actually far, far fewer And then of course, Whatnot is a business for a small business, everything's on video.

如果你是小企业，你想建立一个伟大的企业。

If you're a small business, you wanna build a great business.

任何好的企业都知道，你得有回头客，得投资于客户体验，所以我们的卖家会强化这一点。

Any good business knows you gotta have repeat customers, gotta invest in the customer experience, so our sellers reinforce it.

然后你就在直播视频上。

Then you're on live video.

在直播视频上，你不可能太过分，事情总会发生。

You're not gonna get away with too much on live video, things happen.

然后你就会想，好吧，我们实际上把公司40%的人手都投入到执法和信任安全团队上了。

And then you sort of go, okay, we put 40% of the company on law enforcement effectively, a trust and safety team.

所以，你知道，这依然很有挑战性，因为如果你在管理纽约市的警察和立法系统，那是一项艰难的工作，你必须时刻保持警惕，不断寻找新的领域去投入和改进。

And so, you know, it still means it's challenging because if you're running the the the police and legislative system of of New York City, that's a challenging and hard job that you always have to be on top of and be, you know, looking for what the new areas are to invest in and and improve.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

确实。

Absolutely.

这完全说得通。

This makes total sense.

这其实是个很好的过渡，可以聊聊AI的话题，因为很明显，你们在用最前沿的AI来做很多信任和安全方面的工作。

The so it's actually a good segue into the topic of AI, because obviously, you're using cutting edge AI to to do a lot of the trust and safety work.

不过，关于AI，也许我们可以退一步，从产品前端来看，而不是后端。

Maybe taking a step back with AI though, you know, maybe front facing on the product side, you know, not not the back end.

你知道，你的平台本质上非常人性化，买家和卖家都是作为真实的人在互动。

You know, you have a very inherently human platform where buyers and sellers are engaging as humans.

在有效运用AI的同时，又保持这种人际连接，你有哪些经验或心得？

What are the learnings about how to employ AI most effectively while also preserving that human connection?

对。

Yeah.

我觉得好的一点是，这个平台有自我调节的机制。比如说，如果有人做得太过火，比如搞个AI虚拟形象，人们就不会再回来找他们了。

I mean, I think the good thing is some of the platforms self reinforcing, which is, you know, if someone goes over top on, I don't know, build an AI avatar, people aren't gonna come back to them.

没错。

Right.

那这生意就做不成了。

It's not a business.

因为Whatnot的核心就是，你去一个店铺，你认识店主，然后你也认识那些常去这家店的人。

Because the core of the core of Whatnot is you visit a shop, you know the shop owner, and then you know the people who frequent that shop.

是的。

Yeah.

正是这种体验让一切变得有趣，也让你愿意一直回来。

And that's the experience that makes it fun and and keeps you coming back.

所以，真正做得好的人不会试图去掉这种人情味。

And so anyone who's good is not trying to rip out the human experience.

真正做得好的人会去增强这种体验。

Anyone who's good is is gonna enhance is gonna try and enhance that.

所以AI的作用就在于，怎么帮你在保持人情味的同时，更高效地经营生意。

And so then where where AI comes in is, well, how do you help someone keep it human but run their business more efficiently?

对。

Yeah.

比如上架商品，我们可以让这个过程变得好得多。

So whether that's like listing items, we can make that much better.

你知道，在设置直播用于发现系统时，你常常需要添加很多元数据。

We, you know, when you're setting up a live stream for the discovery systems, oftentimes you need to add a lot of metadata.

我们可以用大语言模型来推断所有这些元数据。

We can infer all of that metadata with LLMs.

我们也在数据分析方面投入，所以我们会告诉你，你的业务哪里做得好，哪里做得不好，哪里可以改进。

We're investing in it from an analytics perspective, so we'll tell you where your business is doing well, where it's not doing well, where you can improve it.

所以，说实话，简单来说，我们通常的做法是看我们在哪里部署了AI，哪里对我们来说效率高，然后试着把这些能力开放给卖家。

And so, you know, honestly, in like a fairly succinct way, what we what we generally do is look at where we're deploying AI and where it's being efficient for us, and then try and expose it to the sellers.

对。

Yeah.

完全说得通。

That makes total sense.

如果我没理解错的话，这并不涉及给卖家提供虚拟形象工具之类的，对吧？

And if I hear you right, that doesn't involve, like, giving sellers avatar tools or something like that to No.

我的意思是，不是要搞那种规模化扩张的东西。

I mean, look at to try to build scale or something like that.

你看。

Look.

归根结底，我们会……

At the end of the day, we'll we'll

把精力放在对买家和卖家都有好处的事情上。

put energy into what's gonna be good for the buyer and what's gonna be good for the seller.

但今天，我们不觉得需要虚拟形象，因为那不是人们来Whatnot的原因。

But today, we don't see a need for avatars because that's not why people come to Whatnot.

对。

Yeah.

他们来是为了人与人之间的联系。

They come for the human connection.

对。

Yeah.

对。

Yeah.

完全同意。

Totally agree.

这很有道理。

That makes a ton of sense.

我们聊了很多内容。

We've covered a ton of ground.

比如，我们谈到了今天的平台、创始故事、供应端和需求端。

Like, we've talked about, you know, the platform today, the origin story, supply side, demand side.

Whatnot 绝对是我们投资过的最有趣、最独特的公司之一，而且，你知道，我很幸运能参与你们的旅程。

Whatnot is definitively one of the most interesting and unique companies that we've invested in, and, you know, I've been very fortunate to be part of your journey.

最后，我想听听接下来有什么计划。

In closing, I would love to hear just what is next.

比如，未来十二个月里，你们最想推进、最想发展壮大的事情是什么？

Like, what are the most exciting things that you're building towards that you wanna grow into over the coming twelve months?

对。

Yeah.

我觉得，从某种程度上说，这其实挺简单的，就是还有大量工作要做，帮助越来越多的商家在 Whatnot 上成长。

I mean, in in some ways, it's it's relatively simple, which is there's just an incredible amount of work to do to help more and more businesses grow on Whatnot.

所以，在接下来的十二个月、二十四个月、三十六个月里，很多工作就是确保卖家能在 Whatnot 上更好地经营，给他们提供更好的工具，同时开放更多品类，让更多品类的体验变得更好。

And so over the next twelve months, twenty four months, thirty six months, a lot of it is just like making sure sellers can run better businesses on Whatnot, giving them the tools to run better businesses, opening up and making the experience better for more categories on Whatnot.

我一直特别想做的一件事就是在Whatnot上卖车，因为你应该能在Whatnot上买车，而且如果能体验整个流程，看到背后的视频，那该多酷啊。

So one of the ones that I've been dying to do is like I wanna do cars on Whatnot, Cause you should be able to buy a car on Whatnot, and how cool would it be to be able to like see the full experience, get the video behind it.

哦，这个主意太棒了。

Oh, this is, that's an awesome idea.

对，肯定会很棒的。

Yeah, it's gonna be amazing.

不过可能对我的银行账户不太友好。

It might be not good for my bank account.

而且我肯定得亲自试试。

And I'm obviously obligated to try it out.

你得准备很多产品。

You gotta take lot of products.

你得囤货。

You gotta hog food it.

所以我觉得，我们还要投入大量精力，继续帮助人们把生意做得更好。

And so I think there's just a huge amount of investment just continuing to make sure help people build better businesses.

然后，你知道，要做到这一点，我们必须有非常好的买家体验。

And then, you know, in order to do that, we have to have a really great buyer experience.

是的。

Yes.

因为要建立好的业务，人们必须回来。

Because in order to build a good business, people have to come back.

所以我们会继续确保在客户支持、信任和安全方面进行投资，降低运费，改善平台上产品的选择和品质，就是这样。

And so we're gonna continue to make sure we're investing in customer support, trust and safety, bringing down shipping prices, improving the selection and quality of the products on the platform and that's that's really it.

也许我们会在更多国家推出，做一些酷的事情，比如汽车，最终我们想进入酒类、啤酒和葡萄酒领域。

Now maybe we'll launch in some more countries, we'll do some cool stuff like cars, know eventually we'd like to get into liquor beer and wine.

所以有很多我们期待做的事情，但根本上归结为帮助更多人建立业务，并确保在这些业务中交易的人有很好的体验。

So there's a whole litany of things that we were excited to do but fundamentally it boils down to help more people build businesses and make sure that the people transacting in those businesses are having a great experience.

这是一个很好的结束方式。

That's an awesome way to close.

你对卖家体验的疯狂、不懈的关注显然推动了买家，而让买家体验尽可能实惠和优质显然正在奏效。

Your maniacal, relentless focus on the seller experience obviously drives the buyers, and then making the buyer experience as affordable and as good as possible is clearly working.

格兰特，谢谢你抽出时间。

So, thanks for the time, Grant.

是的。

Yeah.

很高兴和你一起。

Thank to be with you.

感谢收听本期a16z播客。

Thanks for listening to this episode of the a 16 z podcast.

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Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.

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