Vinted: 2am house party idea that became Lithuania’s first unicorn | Co-Founder Milda Mitkute

0:04At night, at 2am or 3am, I was telling him about, you know, I'm going to do some things in business. And then he just says, OK, let's do it. And I said, really? Let's see, at 2 a.m. I tell him the idea, at 2.30, it's like shaking hands. OK, let's meet. So we agreed to meet the next day. And actually in two weeks, we launched everything. Vinted is Lithuania's first ever unicorn and Europe's number one secondhand marketplace. With over 80 million users spanning 19 countries, Vinted has raised hundreds of millions of dollars. And it was all sparked by an unexpected exchange at a time and place where good ideas normally die.

0:48This is Secret Leaders with me, Dan Murray-Serta. Milda Mitkuta was at a party in 2008 when she ended up chatting to developer Eustace Janowskis. She'd come up with the idea for Vinted after she found herself with too many clothes for the small flat that she'd moved to for university. They decided then and there to make the idea a reality and launched the website just two weeks later, only to forget one critical detail. A decade later, despite many bumps in the road, Vinted was valued at$1 billion. dollars. Two years later, in 2021, their valuation soared to 4.5 billion dollars. In the meantime, Milda had actually decided to leave the business in 2017 because her approach to life is special.

1:38She compartmentalizes and focuses in a way I don't think I've seen from other guests before. Vinted is not a typical Lithuanian business story, but its roots are wrapped in the country's history. Milda was six when the Soviet Union fell, and Lithuania became independent. It was at a time of rapid change, and it challenged the society she was growing up in. In the Soviet Union, it was very difficult times. Everything collapsed. People used to go to a society where government gives everything. Now, totally different. Capitalism is in the world, you need to work, and you need to pay for water, for electricity, for everything.

2:18So I guess that for many people, my relatives, it was very difficult to adapt to the society. And my aunt was actually, I would say she was inspiration because she said, okay, I'm not going to give up. I want to do what I want to do. So my first job was at my aunt. So she opened a tourism agency and actually it worked. And at some time it was one of the top five or top ten companies in Lithuania with incoming tourism. So tell us about how the opportunity with Vinted came about. Who were the people involved? Where did you meet? Where did this idea come about? The idea came up when I was moving from my native town, Colas, to Vilnius, to the capital, to study my master's degree.

3:05It was the first time I was moving from my mother's apartment, which was bigger, to the rented one. So it was three, four times smaller than I used to live. So you can imagine if the apartment is smaller, so it means the wardrobe is also smaller, like three or four times. So I came up with a very full closet. And then I was moving to Vilnius, and it was, okay, it doesn't fit. Like, you know, I can bring like one third, or two thirds, actually one third of items to Vilnius, and that's it. And for me, like the craziest thing was standing there. Okay, I counted, like, I don't know, like 100. items that I haven't ever used or it was like some of them were almost new like even with text.

3:54So this is how I came up with the idea. And then I was actually just moved to to Vilnius and I was invited to my friend invited to housewarming party and I met Eustace the developer so it was a magic match and I told him it was at night at 2am or 3am and I was telling him I'm going to do some things in Vilnius I found a new job in PR agency but I have an idea we should open online closets for each girl each girl should have a chance to open the closet to upload all the stuff and any girl can browse in each girl's closet. So this was just the initial idea. And then he just says, okay, let's do it.

4:44And I said, really? Because at the beginning, I said, okay, I'm going to program it myself. He said, seriously? You need to study for years to learn to program. And he said, so let's do it together. So we agreed. So let's say at 2 a.m., I tell him the idea. At 2.30, it's like shaking hands. Okay, let's meet. So we agreed to meet next day to think about the name, about all the plan, how we were going to set up everything, the roadmap and so on. So we met next day. And actually in two weeks, we launched everything. So it was, you know, okay, it was launched. It was a terrible launch because, well, not that terrible, because it was just, I made kind of my own press release and shared with all the media.

5:31And it happened that like in one hour, like all the radio stations but almost of the radio stations started to call us asking for interview like even tv and also like news photos and everyone like started to call us and like ask like you know oh my god oh that's what are you doing and so on so and then we realized okay we forgot to add buy buttons so you know it was it happened like you see like i don't know uh two or three hundred items but it was just the catalog so everyone who wants to buy it's like okay so how can I do that so it shows that it was like we were so I would say very junior at doing things and developing products but I think it helped us because we did because we just felt passion and we didn't have time so much for making strategy, making business plan, thinking about is there any competition so it was you know, it was okay let's do it because we have normal jobs So it means that there's nothing to risk.

6:33You said, we launched, it was terrible. Well, actually, it wasn't so terrible, but we had no buy button. How was that not terrible? So, you know, Lithuania is very small. So some of my friends wrote me, like, how should I buy? Or at the same time, one journalist asked, okay, I wrote about you what I want to buy to check your website, but it doesn't work. I was like, oh, sorry. so I called to Ustaz and said okay give me like one hour and I will fix that and he did that so you know we were super flexible so it was like you know Ustaz was you know at his computer and for him it was a challenge because he had a full-time job like I did so we all like I don't know two three years of Vinted it was developed at nights and during the weekends because it It wasn't a full-time job.

7:27We were volunteers for three years, so we didn't earn any money. Why do you think it got lots of press when it launched? What was so different about it? Is it just because it was Lithuanian started in Lithuania? I think that some of them took that funny part. Oh, look, they are trying to make online secondhand, so maybe that's why they wrote. Maybe some of them, they just didn't have some news to write, so that's why they added our press list and called us. but the younger generation they understood from the beginning we noticed the traction from very young audience so i was 21 22 so my age group it was like super organic and super active to start with it i uploaded my about 100 items and i you cannot imagine how many requests i received about can we swap can i buy and so on in two weeks i met with maybe 20 30 people they saw that it's working so then they started to upload themselves so no it was at that time core members they were super influential and somehow i don't know my friends they are super active as well and it's very kind of creative and they are like open-minded so i think for them for my generation for my age group it was a let's do it for all the older generation like my mother my grandmother so it was like, what are you doing?

8:52You know, just wasting your time. Even after like five years or six years after Vinted was launched, my grandmother used to say, okay, tell me when you're going to find a normal job. So for her, it was still very hard to believe. But I think that for younger generations, well, they are online people. And for them, everything is online. But there's still a lot of it, you know, around changing habits and behaviors, which I think is the innovative part where you got onto a relatively new insight, right? Because I mean, eBay was around, they had a strong footing in the marketplace anyway. What is it about Vinted that actually stood out and helped you establish like dominance of your own?

9:34One of the things that was like, we were 100 % focused on fashion and style clothing. It was like, if you come here for dress or shoes, you will not find here cars or bikes. So I think it was, the thing was that you can see only fashion and style things at one place. They're saying, okay, it's like very like-minded community. You know, everyone seeks for the same things. We didn't have EDI, but we have similar competition here in the city. So for me, it was like far more convenient to upload and sell on Vinted. So, so it was, you know, I guess it's a practical thing. And I guess that we just saw the initial and we focused on that and it just worked.

10:20So I like, obviously often in this space, the best product does win and you're saying it was easier to use. And therefore that might be the reason why it was winning. But obviously that only takes you up into a certain point. And with something like vintage, which it's the first unicorn out of Lithuania, right? Yeah. So you are literally national royalty in your country one way or another. Started from two in the morning, kind of hacking stuff together, forgetting to put a buy button on. The part between becoming one of Europe's most valuable companies and that moment where you're hacking stuff together and forgetting the pure basics of what you're even meant to do to sell clothes.

11:03how did you like how did you get enough funding to take you through because also i can imagine lithuania is probably not the most liquid venture capital and angel investor market in europe at that time investors said lithuania goodness no no no so actually with our funding it was very interesting thing because the first two investments we reached we got without seeking that okay so everything started then okay we launched and the first two years we said okay we stayed at our normal jobs and we just keep going what we're doing and vintage is just our experimental platform for me as a marketing person for just as developer to do things what you like but then even though we're playing and doing lots of mistakes it was like one company calls us we want to buy and it was like i can in a few months another company is calling we want to buy it was okay, something is happening because in two years we got about five requests to sell the company.

12:07Well, company plus it's like project, I would say. But we decided not to sell the company because we saw that it was mostly the Australian players and they said, we see you as competitors and we want to close you or just to monetize from the first moment. And for us, we said, okay, money, at that time money, it wasn't that big. and said, okay, not worth it. We want to have a platform for ourselves. But in three years, one business angel, Mantas, and he said, okay, guys, do you know what you are doing? Because it's so popular. It was popular in Lithuania and already in Germany. So it was a big boom in Germany as well because we launched in 2010.

12:52And in one year, it was like skyrocketing. Three years into their journey, Milder and Eustace had expanded Vinted into Germany. But to continue to grow into new markets, they needed to get serious. And that's where Mantis Mikoukas came in. He was Vinted's first investor and is now Vinted's chief operating officer. Milder credits him as one of the founders of the company. He came to us and said, okay, can you imagine that we can go to Europe, You can go to the, you can do like the global movement. And for us, like seriously, like second hand, we thought that, I think it was like somehow self-esteem when you are from Lithuania, from post-Soviet Union, didn't travel so much at that time.

13:37And it was a small country, like it's a small idea and it can work. Okay. If it's worked in Germany, it's just the accident. Like it's not a big thing. So for us, it was self-esteem was pretty low. But Manta said, come on guys, let's try. because otherwise you don't know what will happen. So he convinced us and he said, I don't want to buy you. I want to invest and to work together. And for us, it worked very well because we said, okay, we don't want to sell it because we want to, you know, still to have this playground. So he joined as first business angel. He made a big impact to the company and I'm actually calling him as a co-founder.

14:13So he did a lot of things there. And then we said, okay, one year with month's money, we can let's try to enter new markets and to make more like perfect product. And how much money, sorry, how much was that investment? It was 600k euros. So he invested 600k personally and at what valuation at the time? Broadly 3, 4 million, something like that. Yeah, it's something like that. Yeah, it was something like that. So therefore a very good investment on a billion dollar company. Yeah, so it was very perfect. and yeah so he invested and and said okay so let's um let's do something like because as i said the product was really like very bad and design was like terrible now that i'm much more sophisticated in design user experience and so on i look back and i said okay the market the generation really needed this product because with such a design like disaster technical issues bugs and everything they they kept using and they just they didn't care so much so yeah and then after that year with mantas uh we spent lots of time for product development and to make a more smooth experience And then somehow, again, accident happened.

15:37That accident, as Milda calls it, was a call from Axel Partners, an American venture capital firm. Milda and her vintage team weren't that interested at the beginning. At that time, we didn't Google who they are. It was like, no, like, OK, so if you want, you can come to Vindas. That's OK. like so we are open we are not sure if you want to you know to if you're looking for for for funding and they flew here and then then they were coming to villas we googled who they are and it was like oh my god they invested to facebook drawbox angry birds and so on for us it was okay it's again something big maybe we don't understand that so for us it was a big like milestone

16:26noticed us. So it was also very nice. How much did they invest? I guess maybe 5 million euros. So with our first 600k it was, oh my god. So it was, you can do like, you know, like sky's the limit. Like you can do anything you want. And then Excel came with 5 million. So for us it was, it's like, so actually it was one of the challenge, like, you know, you're like no name company and you're all young. It was like, everyone was under 30. some of us had some experience some of us didn't have any experience in developing business so it was okay you get five million and of course you get some goals like you know in two years prove that you can enter letting markets can you do it more professionally and show us that you can enter new market professionally so for us you know it's like you have five million you have trust which is sometimes okay no pressure but pressure like for yourself but i think that it was nice because we were a pretty strong team together.

17:28So it was okay. It's like, you know, passionate about building new stuff. And I guess in some way, we all were afraid and nervous about what we were doing, but at the same time, too enthusiastic and too visionaries about what we want to get. So it helped us to move on. So, yeah, but still, it was a challenge because they said, like, our ex-partners, okay, let's make a budget. And for us, oh, budget and like you know like uh what lines should we add here so so yeah it's but you know it's learning curves okay so what's the biggest risk you've ever taken and did it pay off actually there was a time when we almost got bankrupt so we had about six months to survive it happened because we were looking for our business model and you know with startups you get some money for from venture capital that's why you can you can grow you can develop your product but at the same time it was like no the thing that you don't think about your business model and then times changed and of course then you are like pretty mature business so it means you start to think you need to start to think about how you're gonna earn money so we were looking so for some some ideas and and said okay let's monetize everything members need to pay for everything otherwise we cannot survive and so we monetize very heavily and then what happened so we saw all the numbers decreasing and for us it was actually a difficult time because we kind of intuitively felt that we are doing something bad that it shouldn't work and actually didn't work and finally we made a switch like you know okay we have money for six months um we don't know are we going to survive or not but let's make a huge switch back to our core and let's make our product free of charts again so And then it got back to track and we started to grow and it was very like, grew like insane.

19:21Vinted today is obviously quite a special and quite enormous company by many measures, right? You've got offices in Vilnius, Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam, Utrecht. You operate in 16 markets. You've got over 1 ,000 members of staff and 75 million users. So it is a behemoth of success. You obviously seem archetypally humble and certainly very normal, very, you know, sometimes you meet entrepreneurs of these very successful businesses and there's a lot of bravado and confidence. and you did something unusual to the outside eye maybe. Like you stepped away a few years ago to pick a different career path for the time being, a different project as I believe you describe it.

20:19I'd love you, before segwaying like why are you left into it, I'd love you to just share your attitude as a person, as a human being about how you give things your focus and energy or not. For me, it's very important to have a playful environment, playful people. You know, it's kind of fun. It's like you enjoy being together and creating things. Also, I would say I'm very open. Like in this case, I'm not afraid to say that I don't know something. And, you know, I was 21. So, like for me, it was first business experience. And I was like, to do business? What? like to make strategy what like i i actually it was a tough journey for me as well like to to develop myself as well as a person and as a professional like you need to add discipline strategy like team like managing people leader and so on so so for me it was very like challenging i would say so i also think that my advantages were like no more people skills more like vision I'm very spontaneous and very creative.

21:35But at the same time, my weaker part is like the analytical part. So self-critic was pretty strong in me. So that's why I was able to say, okay, I need to fill knowledge of analytical skills, of strategy skills together in my team and then we can work together. So I think that that helps because then you don't have to pretend to be the most important or most knowledgeable person in the room. your choice to leave vented like you're kind of saying you know you want it to be fun reading between the lines is it that it stopped being fun for you it stopped being as much play for you like no okay so why why leave it's a gender thing i would say what happens so like it's for me so i said okay maybe it's time for family like you know i possibly won't be able to have kids than I am 50.

22:27So it's like a very practical, like very practical things. And it was okay, when? And the answer was always when. Then when I would be ready to step away. And I realized that okay, that the answer, if you ask for the right time, it might never come. A company is like a child and you can dedicate yourself like 1000 % and it will take you as much as you get. So for me, it was the question like, okay when is the time to leave but it seemed okay maybe it's also like the other part i started to feel that you know i guess that like like ceos it's there are like war ceo startup ceo um scale ceo and so on so i felt that i can shine in the company small or or small enough not like no 2 ,000 people not just 3 ,000 people then you know people you know the processes you can you can create many things and move fast and do many experiments because then you're big enough so it means that processes need to be implemented in the company and you need to follow those rules and for me it's kind of that's okay because all the big companies they need to have those processes but you know I guess that I just had to answer to myself that okay maybe I'm not shining in such environment though I still enjoyed it and I had lots of challenges.

23:54And if I had stayed, I think I would still have lots of pleasure there. So, yeah, so I'm that kind of person. But I guess, so this is maybe a secondary goal, but still important. But the primary goal was that, okay, when is the time to create family? And if I decide that, okay, I'm 50 and I want my first child, maybe it's too late. So my husband, he tried to reduce his job at his company. so he said okay if we suspend our business activities so let's do it not for one not for two but let's say for four or five kids in a row so this is our plan okay if we leave so and especially if i leave it should count and so that's why like in six years now i have four kids and i'm closing this project as well so wow four kids in six years yeah so four boys no girls oh no not that you ever want to admit you'd be disappointed but are you tempted for a fifth just in case um we were thinking about and we said okay maybe let's close that deal as well maybe it's time you have to shine in other projects as well you know so it's nice okay if that fifth would come we would be happy but somehow like i like to live my projects my life the whole life is divided into projects so it was business like like winter's project the second part was uh was family project and now i don't know now i don't have a plan yet but you know like for me it's like it's very fragile because like six years in six years four kids five cats two master degrees so so for me it was no very intense time and I say, okay, maybe it's time to take a rest.

25:46Like, you know, like I would like to have six or 12 months, like, you know, reading my books and maybe like I'm practicing pottery. I flew sometimes to Barcelona to learn more from some masters to build more beautiful pots. And, you know, this is like what I enjoy now. So it's like, you know, to have some more time for myself. Just in terms of leaving your company, like how did you handle financially that choice? So obviously when you're in the company, you can take salary, you have equity, but when you've raised that much money, I guess where I'm really saying here is I'm hoping that you've taken secondary.

26:26Yeah, well, to an extent, right? Because this is the one thing that comes up so often with our guests. What we've learned on this show is like the smart ones, when they have leverage, they take secondaries in the big rounds and make sure that they're sorted because they fucking deserve to. And there's some real horror stories on this show as well where people don't and, you know, it ends badly. So what's your story? Yeah, so in our case, it was all the good case, all the team members. So I'm still a shareholder, but we all managed to do some exit. So it was a decision. Do you want to make full exit or just partial?

27:08So, so, and how much it depends on you, like personally. So, so, you know, so, so we, we had that, uh, that's a luxury, I would say. I was going to say that's a luxury of a business going well. If your business is going well, if it's really flying, you get to choose your circumstance. So congratulations to you. That's fantastic. Um, and it's a really great example of like, you know, um, knowing what to negotiate when you are in control. like maybe things don't always go amazingly but when they are super important that you make sure that you know you're in the driving sea and that those are the times to negotiate for what you deserve very important lesson for any listener I guess I want to touch on something that you said as well which is your project based you're all in or nothing so you're all in on the business um what about relationships friends family you know you seem like you were talking with a lot of intensity like i'm all in on this intensity or not at all so were you able to find some kind of balance did you struggle with friends it was ups and downs i would say so the first six years so i would say there was like no i would say like sorry to say that but i was no lifer so like no no going to birthdays like no not even having time to send message like happy birthday to my best friend so so it was like you know i was like kind of about five six years of no i think but it also it also was necessary i guess it helped me as well because before i was like no i couldn't say no so with a very intense agenda i forced myself to learn to say no and ask myself whether i want to meet that person or whether i want to to get into this project or to mentor this person or someone.

29:02We get lots of requests because I feel like I like those meetings with friends or with colleagues where you meet and you brainstorm, you create, you build new things. Because it gives me energy and power to move further. So this is how it helped me to choose what I want to see in my life and what I don't want to see. But now I'm actually very stubborn in this case to have more time for my important people. Because you can say, I love my kids, but I don't have time for them. I love to meet some inspirational people, but I don't have time for that. But it means that maybe they're not your priority or you don't know how to make priorities.

29:50So it's just like, again, you can become more sound bitchy for someone, but sorry. It's like, it's, it's your life. So you need to say no, and you need to prioritize what you're doing in business, but at the same time in personal life. Yeah. I often say to people, you know, people will always say I'm too busy for this. I'm too busy for that. And I always say, you're not too busy. You just have different priorities and that's absolutely fine. However, you're projecting that onto me. You're projecting that you're too busy and you're trying to create this whole narrative that actually lacks some self-awareness.

30:28And simply people who are too busy are picking to do other things. You know, for example, I'm currently too busy to do lots of work stuff because I'm prioritizing being a dad to my daughter. And it was a conscious choice. And other times I've definitely been too busy to be conscious with my friends and family because I've been prioritizing work. And it's never been a case of being too busy. it's just always been a case of what am I choosing to put first? And so long as you're honest about that stuff, I also feel like you don't get as stressed making those choices. If you are making choices about where you're spending time and you've thought about it and it's in alignment and you look at your calendar and these things all match up, you also don't feel so stressed and guilty about it because you're like, I'm doing what I should do with who I should be doing it with and I'm where I should be.

31:17I always say, okay, this is the stage. At the moment, my priority is this one. but one day it will change and i can switch my priorities back to because when i was at winded for me it was okay i don't have time for friends for people for culture like you know for theaters festivals like i didn't have any time of time of that and for me it helped okay so this is the stage like i'm doing business now later i will do something else what i like but now i'm just like consciously choose to do that so then you know that it's not for you know not for like not eternity yeah i totally agree it's all about just being honest with yourself and giving it the thought okay so what widely accepted business belief do you think is just not true in your opinion don't share information with someone else because it will be stolen so i think this one is like i don't understand this because you're like i'm doing lots of mentorship and like i once i met like one guy who said i have i'm looking for mentor but i cannot tell you the idea uh because you know, I'm afraid that someone can steal it.

32:21I was like, seriously? Like, so I think it's a very wide problem of being afraid to tell idea. I completely agree. I absolutely cannot stand stealth mode, which is what people call it. No one cares about your idea. Yeah. And actually, actually like with Vinted, there was a, when we launched Vinted, I got so many messages. Oh, I had the same idea. I was thinking about the same business. Okay. So, you know, idea wasn't unique. It was just, you know, it was just on the right time. But also the team was there who made it. And that's it. Like, you know, so idea plus team and work that makes it happen, but not just the idea.

33:03Absolutely. Execution is 99 % of the law. Yeah, exactly. Totally agree. Yeah, because I had the same idea as Amazon and I can't believe it. I should be that guy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I thought about selling books online. What the hell? Okay, final question. What is one piece of advice you'd give to other people who, I guess, just like you, want to break out, want to do something different? They want to give it their full focus and create a really meaningful business. and I mean I'm just so inspired by the fact you did this obviously from a place where entrepreneurship wasn't really the thing right as in perhaps you know people listening to this can relate not necessarily from being in a country like Lithuania but in an environment surrounded by people who aren't into entrepreneurship and you know from family and friends who just don't think of this at all like what is your message to people like that?

34:00don't build the cosmic ship from the beginning like iterate like step by step and like even the twin that we work like agile with agile systems you work in sprints it's better to to release something in two weeks actually it's one of my motto like you know start with small iterations step by step don't try to make perfect thing you can build you know the plane while driving it and that's okay maybe it's more like chaotic chaotic or like no more stressful but at the same time it's more relaxing because you don't put very high ambition. I want to be the first, the biggest, the best. I was like, okay, I'm going to go step by step and I will see what will happen.

34:42Milda Mitkuta, who taught me that work doesn't always have to be the top priority and that I really shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes. If you enjoyed this episode and found it useful, please can you do me a favor and write us a review and subscribe to the show. Thank you. I've been your host, Dan Murray-Surter, and we'll be back next week with more lessons for entrepreneurs and leaders. The episode was produced by Ruth Edwards and Sol Harris, and all brought together by our head of podcast, Will Stollerman. See you next time.