Grant LaFontaine

LaFontaine said Whatnot has multiple sellers doing well over nine figures, with its largest operation growing from three or four people to 150–200 built almost entirely on the platform.

“It's now probably 150 to 200 people, almost completely built on Whatnot”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 58:36

LaFontaine gave the revenue trajectory as $2.3 million in total sales at the end of 2020, rising to $163 million the following year with about 100 employees.

“By December of 2020, we sort of ended the year at $2.3 million in total sales”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 34:58

LaFontaine said Whatnot did about 30 sales in its first month of December 2019, many of them mispriced items.

“So sort of the journey for us was December 2019, we started it, and I bet you we did 30 sales”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 29:21

LaFontaine said Whatnot deliberately defined itself as user-driven rather than vision-driven, staying willing to change the idea if users did not love it.

“One of the things we always said is we're not a sort of vision driven company. We're a user driven company”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 13:50

LaFontaine said the company maintains an extreme bias to action because doing things is how you learn, provided you admit mistakes and change course.

“we try and have an immense bias to action because you just learn things by doing things”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 10:02

LaFontaine said he funded the earliest work himself with roughly $100,000 to $200,000 in savings, paying check by check.

“Yeah, probably, I don't know, $100,000, $200,000 in the bank. Okay. Not including my 401k”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 8:56

LaFontaine argued that anyone who has to talk about moving fast is in fact moving too slowly.

“If you have to talk about it, you're moving too slow. If you don't even have time to think about it, you're moving too slow”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 54:31

LaFontaine said smart employees use big words that obscure meaning, and he insists on explanations a middle schooler could follow.

“And if you can't explain it to me like I'm in middle school, you probably actually don't know what you're talking about”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 47:02

LaFontaine said blunt early-stage feedback no longer works at scale and he has had to soften his approach to get the best work from people.

“Someone might cry today if I do that. We don't want anyone to cry. And so you just sort of have to like know how to flex a little”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 39:03

LaFontaine said scaling to 1,400 people forced him to build an explicit operating system and rhythm for running the business.

“the company's 1,400 people today, as an example, and you do need really good systems and process to run a company at this scale”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 37:49

LaFontaine said an early mistake was hiring executives from big-name companies on the assumption that a good résumé meant competence.

“oh, you ran such and such at this big company. You must know what you're doing”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 38:44

LaFontaine argued that business stories are mostly a device for recruiting followers rather than substance.

“stories are sort of BS. You know, a lot of stories in terms of like business are really a mechanism to convince people to follow you versus something of like real substance”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 15:13

LaFontaine said the first giveaway failed completely, with 104 raffle entries and no purchases, but the second roughly 2.5x'd entries.

“So we gave away this like $500 item and I think 104 people, there were 104 entries total in the raffle”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 26:28

LaFontaine argued early-stage startups must find unconventional advantages because copying obvious channels like paid ads leaves them outgunned.

“which is if you try and copy the obvious pathways, you're basically going to get stonewalled because you don't have the resources”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 25:34

LaFontaine said a weekly giveaway of high-value 'Grail' Funko Pops with share-based raffle entries let Whatnot dominate Funko subreddits and Facebook groups.

“once a week, we'd give away like a $500, $1,000 Funko Pop. And in order to be able to enter, you would have to share it”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 23:08

LaFontaine described building a pricing algorithm from scraped listings with a liquidity floor so items could be secured and resold profitably.

“we ended up having to build like a pricing algorithm. We basically scraped all of the sites that had various Funko Pops”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 21:27

LaFontaine identified wholesale marketplaces supplying live sellers and multi-channel networks as major adjacent business opportunities.

“wholesale marketplaces directly supplying our sellers is a really big opportunity because they need a lot of inventory”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 59:11

LaFontaine cited China, where live shopping is about 40% of e-commerce, as the comparison for where Western markets are heading.

“So in Asia, in China, it's about 40% of e-commerce”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 57:25

LaFontaine predicted live commerce will exceed 30% of all e-commerce within a decade, up from single-digit percentages today.

“I think you're going to see over the next decade that live commerce will be 30 plus percent of all of e-commerce”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 56:48

LaFontaine said Whatnot solved the chicken-and-egg problem by being the only seller itself, listing authenticated items it sourced after purchase.

“So we were initially the seller on whatnot. And so all of the early inventory was us”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 20:29

LaFontaine argued that nearly every great company begins in a very small niche because small teams cannot create value in a mass market.

“And almost every great company starts an incredibly niche or small area and then takes that and catapults it forward”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 16:36

LaFontaine said a product review in which the leader yelled at everyone was one reason he left Facebook, convincing him hostility never produces good work.

“the way that was handled was never going to make me want to do more great work”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 50:51

LaFontaine said A/B tests are unreliable on network systems because changing the feed alters seller behavior and pollutes both arms of the test.

“So A/B tests are notoriously bad on network systems”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 42:52

LaFontaine said Y Combinator backed Whatnot repeatedly and added money when better-known investors were passing.

“they were like tremendously helpful and helped put in more money into the business ahead of when many of the other investors who you would know their names were passing”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 31:18

LaFontaine said eBay sales data showed every collectibles category growing and more Funkos selling than comic books, which drove the category choice.

“there were more Funkos being sold on eBay than comic books, which is one of the reasons we ended up choosing Funkos over, say, comics”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 12:45

LaFontaine said the team abandoned their 'full-service Craigslist' idea after calls with delivery executives showed the cost per delivery exceeded the margin on used goods.

“the cost per delivery relative to the value added on the used item is just, there's no margin there for the business”

My First Million: Whatnot founder: This is the future of e-commerce (Sep 21, 2026) · Listen from 7:13