An Update From our Founder

Thank you.

Let's be clear— this was a groundbreaking campaign. We raised 1,200% of our original goal. And we did it without spending a single dollar on advertising. 

Instead, the success of our campaign was entirely organic— driven by word-of-mouth and grassroots support.

If it weren't for the legal limit set by the SEC, I fully believe that we would've blown past the $1M mark, driven solely by the natural momentum we generated. And had we kept the campaign going for 45 weeks instead of 45 days, I believe we would've easily broken the record for organic campaigns.

At this point, cynics might be tempted to point out how, in the grand view of the retail industry, $1MM (or even our overall funding of $3MM) is a drop in the bucket. But those cynics will be missing the point.

This was a seed round. Compared to the seed rounds of the World's largest retailers, it was a big one. But more importantly, these funds didn't come from a handful of uber-wealthy backers. Instead, they came from a coalition. As of today, the community is the single largest shareholder in Move.

The significance of that is huge. If we are able to replicate the success of these giants, we won't just be adding zeros to the already-huge net worths of a few investors. Instead, we will bring outsized and unprecedented prosperity to thousands of supporters— from our warehouse workers and customer service reps to school teachers, truck drivers, small business owners, artists and innovators (all of whom have invested in this campaign and are reading this update).

There's a lot more to be said and unpacked about what this means for the company, the industry and the fundamental business model of retail. But that's all for a future update. 

For now, I'll leave it at this— thank you so much. Each of you individually made this possible and you should be proud of yourself and of our community.

Here's what will happen in the next 30 days.

Perks, Launches, Back-in-stocks, Faster Delivery, New Hires.

Perks: Successful equity crowdfunding campaigns come with complicated paperwork. As I write this, the final investor list for this campaign is still being generated. Over the next few weeks, as we begin to receive the finalized rollcalls from Wefunder, we'll start to release investor perks from this campaign. Every investor in this campaign should expect two emails from Move— one about membership (and a link to activate yours) and another about credits (and how to use them).

If you don't receive yours by January 31st, or if you have trouble activating your membership or credits, please email us at [email protected].

Launches: We will continue our 30-week streak of new weekly launches. But the actual quantity and quality of these launches will be better than before. Boosted by the success of this campaign, we're now able to work with producers that were previously unreachable and order in quantities that were previously infeasible. So, in the next 30 days, you can expect to see better, bolder launches that stay in stock for longer.

Back-in-stocks: We're pursuing an aggressive restock strategy. Instead of allocating budget towards secondary and tertiary launches (as we did in the final weeks of 2020), we're instead investing the bulk of our sourcing budget towards bringing the entire store back in stock. We expect that this will take between 60 - 90 days, but I believe that you will begin to see results instantly.

Faster Delivery: We're ramping up our distribution capacity, with a new DC on the way and added capacity in existing DCs. The first sign of progress here will be the rollout of faster delivery times in our largest markets.

New Hires: We're a small team by design. We hire slow and we hire late— preferring instead to stay lean and solve problems of scale internally. And only once we reach a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities we're facing, do we like to hire someone tackle them. We've reached such a point with 3 key parts of our business— design, product development and fulfillment. Beyond that, with the huge success of this funding round, we also have the funds to bring on experts to help us tackle these. So, in the next 30 days we're working to hire a Visual Designer, an E-commerce Product Manager and Fulfillment Managers on both coasts. These positions will be posted here. If you or someone you know is interested, please send an email to [email protected]

A Vision for 2021

Next, I want to share my vision for 2021. Let's start here:

2020 was an experiment — and a successful one.

We proved that our model of vertically-integrated retail works— showing that it can be better for everyone from members (5K people paid us $95 to use our service and a 132K joined the waitlist), to producers (we wrote checks totaling $3MM to 70+ small producers around the country) and the company itself (we were profitable on every customer and every order). In short, we showed that a better version of commerce is not only possible, it's within reach.

But this was still just an experiment. Move is still limited to just 5,000 members, two categories and a tight budget.

Now, the time has come for us to build on the success of 2020. In 2021, must begin to realize our full destiny— to be the agents of a better model for commerce.

I believe that vision will break down to three large-but-simple goals:

1. Expand Move's reach: We must get Move into the hands of more members. A larger membership base will give us much greater weight with which to source better products, negotiate competitive prices and change more minds. In 2021, I believe we can push to bring our membership base up to 20,000. 
3. Expand our breadth: We must take Move from being just a specialty grocery store, to being a viable and better alternative for every purchase. In 2021, we will triple our catalog. We will do this through two parallel movements, one gradual and one sudden. Throughout the year, we will gradually add more products to the store (adding a new product every week and a new category every month). And towards the end of 2021, we will swiftly launch several new categories in one fell swoop.
5. Expand our arsenal: Everything above will require more resources. To this end, we recently received some help from an unlikely source: the US Government. Just a month ago, the SEC updated the rules for regulation crowdfunding, increasing the yearly limit from $1M to $5M. Once passed, the new law will allow us to run a dramatically larger crowdfunding campaign. Given the remarkable success of this campaign, I am filled with confidence about what we can accomplish when allowed to grow unfettered.

Finally, I want to add a personal note. 

While this is one of the first times you're hearing directly from me, it certainly won't be the last. I see my primary duty (and that of my team) as doing overwhelming justice to the support you've shown us. 

That won't be easy. There will certainly be moments when you will rightly believe that we're making a mistake or that we're not communicating enough. Often you'll be right and we'll be wrong. In those moments, I hope you'll make your voice heard. 

But I also know that we must all have faith in the team and the community. Faith — that we have a compassionate and competent team that is working its heart off, that we care deeply and know a lot about what we're doing, that growing pains are a natural occurrence, and that often the best path out of a giant challenge is through it. 

Truly,
Chai