The story of United Wardrobe

Visionary, Entrepreneur

1 hour

NL, EN

Startups and Scale-ups,
Entrepreneurship,
Sustainable Business,
Fashion

Inspire,
Motivate,
Assertiveness

In this lecture I share how we grew as 3 students to become the largest clothing marketplace in the Benelux and how we were eventually acquired by Vinted. I cover the start-up phase, raising capital but most of all the story of how I personally experienced it. This was a giga rollercoaster with big ups but also deep downs.

With a few thousand euros in start-up capital, Thijs Verheul (1992), together with Sjuul Berden and Joep Dohmen, founded the second-hand clothing platform United Wardrobe as students at Wageningen University: a platform that allowed you to buy and sell clothes safely and socially. In the years that followed, Thijs and his associates raised millions in investments. United Wardrobe was used by more than four million people. In October 2020, the platform was sold to Vinted, a Lithuanian online marketplace that operates in more than 10 countries. Thijs takes you into the world of investments, building and selling businesses, the stress and uncertainty, and the happiness and perseverance of a young team with a dream.

Thijs was 28 when he sold United Wardrobe to Vinted. This is the story from idea to exit.

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