Startup Snapshot
Startup name: Strade
Industry: RetailTech
Business Model: C2C Marketplace
Founder: David Estrada & Javier Lavida
Operates: Worldwide
HQ Location: Monterrey, Mexico
Team Size: 8
Founded: 2022
Stage: Pre-seed
Investors: Platanus Ventures, AngelHub, Pato Bichara (Collective Academy), José de la Luz (Delt.ai), Rogelio Zambrano & Guillermo Garza
Website: stradeworld.com
What does Strade do?
Strade is the first sneaker marketplace in LATAM. It helps exclusive sneaker resellers easily manage and share their inventories. For buyers, it ensures a 100% secure purchase, even if the product is fake or in bad condition. They protect buyers completely.
They centralize inventory from all resellers on one platform, allowing comparisons of resellers (reviews), prices, etc.
In LATAM, this market usually operates through resale groups on FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp, with sellers managing their inventories and businesses in Excel. This approach doesn't provide good customer service, creating buyer distrust. People often hesitate to buy, fearing scams or fake products.
Strade shoes are highly visual; people love them because they reflect their personality.
What's Strade’s backstory?
David, 19, launched his first business when he was only 14, creating and selling courses on Facebook and Instagram ads. He later joined a marketing agency, where he learned valuable skills by collaborating with people with a wealth of experience, both at the agency and with customers. David then ventured into drop shipping, starting with fidget spinners and gradually expanding into other trendy products.
Inspired by his uncle, a basketball player passionate about sneakers, David launched Strade in May 2022, initially specializing in custom sneakers. The business quickly gained popularity, attracting over 100,000 followers and achieving impressive sales of USD 350,000 within a year. However, the hand-painted nature of the product presented operational challenges, limiting the scalability of the business.
According to David, scams and problematic purchasing experiences are the norm for both sneaker buyers and sellers in LATAM.
In May 2023, David realized that there was a massive informal market for luxury sneakers in LATAM, worth around 9 billion dollars. He saw an opportunity to build a scalable marketplace but needed a technical co-founder and a CTO. After an extensive search, he met Javi, a software engineer with experience at Netflix and Klarna. They shared similar values and aspirations and decided to venture together.
Together, they launched Strade 2.0 in August 2023, focusing on gathering feedback from their first 50 resellers in Mexico. As they strive to achieve Product-Market Fit (PMF) and reach USD 200,000 GMV and 2,000 active users within the next six months, David and Javi remain committed to realizing their vision of disrupting the sneaker market in LATAM.
How did you acquire your first customers?
Starting a company is never easy, especially when selling a high-end product without an existing customer base. After a month of no sales, the realization hit that they needed the support of influencers. They contacted Poncho Denigris and sent him a pair of custom sneakers inspired by the song "La Cobra.” The requests started pouring in once Denigris shared his new set of kicks with his audience. That same year, they collaborated with over 50 influencers, and sales continued to rise.
What's your motivation?
Upon entering the market, David noticed the prevalence of scams and problematic purchasing experiences for sneakers in LATAM. The inadequacy of available tools has resulted in frequent negative encounters. With Strade David and Javier aim to reinvent the sneaker buying and selling experience in LATAM, with the goal of becoming the leading brand in Latin America and competing with established global brands like StockX, GOAT, and others.
What's next for your startup?
Short-term: Becoming the #1 sneaker buying and selling platform in Mexico. Mexico has the highest transaction volume for sneakers.
Medium-term: Expanding to Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil. Growing the team and diversifying product categories like clothing, collectibles, and accessories.
Long-term: Expand Strade to other markets, such as the US and Asia, and either be acquired or reach unicorn status within 5-6 years.
Tips for other founders:
Setting aside sufficient time to develop training programs from the beginning is crucial. Founders often undervalue the importance of training, and David didn't prioritize this aspect initially, but retrospectively, it should have been a top priority.
Whenever you have a new idea, jot it down in a to-do list, but allocate time to transfer tasks to your calendar. Tasks that take more than 30 minutes should be scheduled in the calendar, and those that take less than 30 minutes can be fit into your free time.
Don't hesitate to ask for help from other founders. Especially as a young founder, you might feel that support won't come your way, but the startup ecosystem is quite open. If you ask the right way, people will dedicate time to help you, just as someone likely enabled them.
Don't give up. In April, when the marketplace ideas started taking shape, David was in the process of fundraising in the US. Even though most rejected them, he believes that by sharing investor updates and showing progress, seeking fundraising from those same investors will be much easier.
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