M AGAZINE
NOVA
March 2021
THRIFT Y BUSINESS GBI magazine talks to Mark O'Hara, founder of Thrift, about the development of the business and how the support received from Nova has helped to underpin its success
WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE LIKE BEFORE THRIFT? I was passionate about Rugby League, playing for Scotland under-18s. I focused totally on sport, failing most GCSEs, but learning discipline and perseverance! I still managed to recover and get to university, studying Sports Development. I then went into sports nutrition and supplements, and soon found myself managing an online sports nutrition business for a subsidiary of Tesco. WHAT GAVE YOU THE IDEA FOR THE BUSINESS? While I was with the sports nutrition business, I had the idea for Thrift, as we wrestled with what would sell online and what would be most profitable. But at the time, I was too busy to do anything with the idea, and moved on to Simply Health, and then Holland & Barrett. I then became ill with pneumonia, and had an enforced rest for three months which gave me time to stop and think! SO WHAT DOES THRIFT OFFER? Very simply, Thrift lets you know what your unwanted and unused items are worth across the resale market, such as
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eBay, Amazon, Depop and Facebook, which platform is most appropriate and then lets you upload to your chosen Marketplaces. We are making the second-hand market transparent so that people can sell more and earn more themselves. Currently, there are 9 million people in the UK selling things online, forecast to grow to 12 million by 2030. And in the US there are currently 58 million people doing it, and growing. Yes, we are thinking internationally! Charities and other retail outlets are important as strategic partners for our early development, but the big market is that of these millions of general consumers. WHAT PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES DID YOU ENCOUNTER? I first took the idea to Lancaster University, but what I needed was too technically challenging for students. These were significant challenges and in the early days the tech team at Nova (Nova Cofoundery Limited) was not sure that they could produce the algorithm that operated cost-effectively. In fact, had I known the challenges we faced, I am not sure I would have started. But Nova persevered, and we now have the right working algorithm. The other major challenge was building a robust panel for user-testing to prove the effectiveness of what we were building. The turning point was when we got a charity
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