TL:DR Peter Singer has just joined BOAS as an investor. You can quickly join from as little as €250 here. You can also find all financial and investment information there.
Peter invests in BOAS because we are both driven by the moral ambition to save lives, and because I believe he understands the impact multiplier and potential of BOAS and its profit for good model.
What is BOAS?
BOAS is on a mission to Save Jeans and Save Lives, but there’s a problem: vintage shopping is slow. Poor photos, vague sizing and endless back-and-forth with sellers you don’t know. So you buy new, fuelling the extreme pollution of the fast fashion industry (10% of global emissions, 93 trillion liters of water used yearly), leaving vintage jeans to be burnt or ending in up in toxic landfill. And that's where BOAS comes in.
BOAS makes vintage fashion buying 10 times faster. We’re fast vintage fashion. How? With our unique 'take the price or take the risk’ model - you either buy the jeans at the current price or take the risk and wait for the price to drop.
We also buy in bulk (with an 80% gross margin), ensuring unmatched quality, trendy finds, clear photos, accurate descriptions and fast shipping and returns. With BOAS, everyone can embrace vintage fashion in minutes, so busy people like you can now buy vintage fashion in minutes.
Results
We launched in march and have quickly grown revenue to €8K per month. Our product return rate is at 10% (fast fashion online retailers are at 40%+) and 16% of our customers have already bought again. Our last 10 verified reviews were 4.8/5. We have also recently opened up a store to combine online with offline. The company is valued at €1.62 million. We require significant funding to build the fastest vintage fashion platform. We are raising €584K to invest in the technology, working capital, operating expenses, marketing and personnel.
This market is more than €200 billion annually and grows at 25% per year. European legislation and the demand for sustainable and affordable (i.e. second hand) is likely to sustain this large growth %.
Why you should invest too
By far the easiest and fastest way to understand why we believe we should accelerate the Profit for Good systems change is Brad West's TED talk.
Businesses are money multipliers for investors. Their aim is to generate the maximum possible return for investors. They are the source of almost all the wealth and philanthropy in the world. BOAS is a money multiplier for investors too, but the recipients (for 90% of profits) are effective charities like The Against Malaria Foundation. This might make BOAS an efficient and sustainable money multiplier for effective charities. We believe initiating and accelerating the Profit for Good systems change might have even larger effects than the direct impact of our business and the profits it donates.
Without philanthropic investors this is not going to take off. Regular investors require maximum returns and impact investors invest in business that generate impact, but still generate returns for the investor. If you currently donate to effective charities, investing in a money multiplier like BOAS that returns profits to these effective charities could generate more impact in the future, and you would be investing in the Profit for Good systems change.
You can email me directly at vin at boas.co with questions (e.g. legal, fiscal) about investing.
Why you shouldn't invest
- EA's point out that global health in their opinion isn't as effective as other areas
- EA's point out that our team, idea, market or team could not be the best. Our team and background can be viewed in Eyevestor
- EA's point out that donating directly would be more effective. We believe this to be wrong because business have proven that they are some of the most effective money multipliers, and they are already the source of most philanthropy
- EA's point out that investing and donating the returns could be more effective. We argue that Profit for Good companies are more effective money multipliers because all stakeholders except investors seem to prefer business that work for a better world. The data suggests that foundation owned businesses live longer and are at least as profitable. Companies like Patagonia, Bosch and Carlsberg (only partly profit for good) that switch to the model seem to have better financial results with the Profit for Good model
- You want to have impact now rather than in the future
- You think it's fair to compare us to FTX. We point out that FTX was not a profit for good business (SBF was a philanthropist and part of a system we'd like to change) and BOAS operates a circular fashion platform, not a ponzi scheme. Our business is sustainable and affordable for our users and has a positive impact on its own that's multiplied by donating profits effectively. If you are not convinced: we have legally inscribed in our company bylaws that we will not harm people and the environment with our business.
- You believe there might be adverse or unforeseen side effects of the Profit for Good systems change
- You believe profit for good cannot work, reasons mentioned are lack of funding, lack of monetary incentive for founders/investors/employees. We believe the data suggests otherwise, but funding constraints are bigger for Profit for Good companies
- It's harder for BOAS to raise money because using profits to save lives is not as popular among investors as maximising returns for investors themselves. Competitors might have an easier time to raise more and faster than us, making it more likely to outcompete us
- Please add in comments!
