What Grant LaFontaine has said about Growth hacking

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 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 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 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