Reverb.com is an online marketplace to buy and sell new, used, and vintage music gear. The website was founded in 2013 by entrepreneur David Kalt shortly after he purchased music instrument store Chicago Music Exchange and became frustrated with the then-current options for buying and selling guitars online. It has since grown into a multimillion-dollar business with more than 10 million monthly visitors and $47 million in funding.
The website allows anyone - from large dealers and popular manufacturers to small shop owners, boutique gear builders, and individuals - to create free listings for musical instruments and other related equipment. The company has also been known to sell gear from popular artists such as Wilco, Green Day, Billy Corgan, and Ray Lamontagne. At any given time, the site has roughly half a million listings ranging from electric, acoustic and bass guitars to effects, studio gear, synthesizers, drums, DJ equipment, orchestra instruments, music-making software, and more.
To help users determine fair market values for instruments, Reverb provides a price guide of real-time transactional data. The company also offers iPhone and Android apps, which include the site's main features, and as of 2017, it has on-the-ground support in the UK, The Netherlands, Australia, Germany, France, and Japan. In late 2017, the company launched Reverb LP, an online marketplace for buying records and other physical music, and the Reverb Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to creating more musicians by supporting programs and initiatives that increase access to music education, gear, and opportunities to play.
Video Reverb.com
History
Serial entrepreneur David Kalt created Reverb shortly after purchasing renowned local guitar store Chicago Music Exchange. While working to find unique vintage guitars online for his shop and to sell gear online for extra revenue, he found that available options were cumbersome, expensive, and not tailored for musicians and the nuances that come with buying and selling music gear.
Prior to launching Reverb, Kalt made a name for himself as co-founder and CEO of online broker optionsXpress, which he took public in 2005 before the company was sold to Charles Schwab, and as founder of ClientBASE, the first CRM solution for the travel industry. He began his career as a recording engineer/producer. Today, Kalt still owns the Chicago Music Exchange, but he hired a separate CEO for the store so that he could focus his efforts on Reverb.
Funding
In November 2013, Reverb secured $2.3 million in funding from investors including Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Lightbank co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky, David Lowery of Cracker and Camper van Beethoven, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Eric Ries, and country music star Brad Paisley. The company raised another $4.2 million in January 2015 before announcing an additional $25 million led by global growth equity investor Summit Partners in December of the same year.
In August 2017, the company announced another $15 million in funding from 65 investors, including Paypal co-founder Max Levchin, Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee, former Twitter COO Adam Bain, and Jon Oringer, CEO of Shutterstock. Including seed funding, the latest round brings Reverb's total funding to $47 million.
"As a regular user of Reverb.com, I am witnessing first-hand the positive impact that the company is having on musicians and the way instruments are bought and sold," Oringer said in a statement. "I'm excited to support not only a successful marketplace - as that business model has proven itself powerful - but a company that's uplifting an entire industry."
Growth and international expansion
In August 2017, Reverb was named No. 18 on the Inc 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies due to its 12,327 percent three-year growth (2013-2016.) In 2016, the company generated $16 million in revenue and supported $240 million in sales of new and used gear through its platform. As of December 2017, the company anticipated closing out the year with close to $400 million in sales. In August 2016, Reverb hired its first on-the-ground employees in the UK, France, and Australia. In the same month, the company launched its mobile app outside of North America. Within a year of its expansion into Europe, the company grew its users in the region by 700 percent and its sales in the region by 300 percent. As of 2017, the company has additional team members in Germany and Japan.
Maps Reverb.com
Business model
Reverb charges a straightforward 3.5 % commission fee to the seller and a small percent for credit card processing, making the platform's fees among the lowest of any online marketplace. Kalt has said that the growth of Reverb.com is rooted in low transaction fees and transparency of pricing provided by the Reverb Price Guide. "When we started Reverb.com, musicians were getting 50¢ on the dollar when they sold something and paying 100¢ on the dollar when they bought something. By cutting fees and offering more information about comparable sales, we've narrowed that gap - and gotten millions more instruments on sale," Kalt told Inc Magazine. The company's success has also been attributed to its live customer service team and that roughly 85 percent of employees are musicians. "My experience has been 100 percent positive. You can just tell it's run by people who are musicians or who care about musicians' experience", Dave Depper, touring guitarist for Death Cab for Cutie, told Billboard. Depper also cited the website's community feel as a positive, and that he is able to buy an instrument before a tour and sell it for about the same price after. Finally, the company prioritizes content in the form of demo videos, how-to articles, and more to drive traffic to the website. The original content gets buyers excited about gear, helps foster interest in potential buyers, and drives sales.
User tools
- The Reverb Price Guide uses real-time transactional data to help users understand the value of the gear they're buying and selling.
- Reverb Sites - Reverb Sites enables sellers to easily create their own website -- synced to their Reverb.com shop and powered by the marketplace's technology -- in a matter of minutes.
- eCommerce Integration - Reverb currently supports e-commerce integration with Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce, and it continues to support do-it-yourself comma separated value integration.
- Reverb Bump is an option available to every seller to get preferred placements within Reverb's search results, handpicked sets of gear, and front page.
- Reverb Mobile App - Reverb offers iPhone and Android apps, which include the site's main features.
- Affirm gives Reverb customers the flexibility to pay over time for their purchases on a schedule that fits their budget.
Artist Shops
In addition to shops from individuals and dealers, Reverb has hosted gear sales for a number of notable artists. To date, Reverb Artist Shops have included sales from:
- Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins
- Bill Ward of Black Sabbath
- Nils Lofgren of the E Street Band
- Wilco
- Ray Lamontagne
- Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins
- Steve Albini (sold mics from Nirvana's "In Utero")
- J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.
- Steve Vai
- Mike Gordon of Phish
- Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails
Awards
2017
- Built in Chicago Moxie Awards
- Inc 5000 List - Ranked No. 18
- Chicago Innovation Awards
- Crain's Chicago Business Coolest Offices
- Built In Chicago's Top 100 Digital Tech Companies in Chicago
2016
- Crain's Chicago Business Tech 50
- Chicago Inno 50 in Fire
- Music Inc Magazine - Company of the Year
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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