STARTUP
uptraded
Uptraded is an app that offers the cheapest and most sustainable way to keep your wardrobe up to date in a playful way. It is a novel online clothing marketplace where your own unused garments become the currency. An intelligent matching system based on a swipe mechanism identifies exchange options for your uploaded garments. An algorithm evaluates the user behavior and can therefore suggest the best possible exchange options (e.g. suitable style, similar market value of the items to be exchanged, correct size, etc.). Users can then change their clothes and win-win situations arise. Through this form of transaction, our customers achieve the maximum added value for their clothing from their subjective point of view.
Uptraded consists of a young team of four founders with an economic and IT background. It is complemented by an Austrian startup consultant from the impact sector and a mentor who is a professor in the field of entrepreneurship and serial entrepreneur.
The team has been working full-time on the company for 5 months and has been able to achieve the following goals: validation of the idea, website, marketing concept, app prototype, two MVP iterations, business model, networking and competition participation (1st place MCI/Startup Tirol Creativity Award).
The next milestones are the execution of a second comprehensive MVP test with 150 participants and 1500+ pieces of clothing, the expansion of the uptraded community until the app launch and the completion of the Alpha version of the app by the end of the year. Negotiations for a seed investment by an Austrian private equity organization are currently underway.
uptraded's Story
Uptraded: a world with more win-win-win situations.
Our vision is to provide a transaction model with which the drawbacks for society and the environment can be reduced to a minimum. We want to show the world, that there are alternatives to the way things are done at the moment. We want to give people the feeling of making someone else happy. We want to bring people together and strengthen communities. We want to prove that sustainability is possible without tradeoffs. We want to establish exchange transaction as an exciting alternative. We want to celebrate fashion.
For us, win-win-win means: Two individuals make each other happy and the environment benefits as well.
It is not only the “what you get” that makes you happy. It is also the “how you get” that defines a shopping experience. Both things need to be equally valued to create a good customer experience.
We always knew that buying clothes had negative consequences for the people making them as well as the environment. As we started to research the problem more closely, we were blown away by the magnitude of the negative impacts.
Masses need to be convinced to truly fight current developments. To do so, the picture of sustainability in the minds of people needs to be changed as it is currently associated with tradeoffs. To move masses towards a more sustainable lifestyle a service that outperforms other alternatives needs to be offered. This is how we see our business. We are motivated by the fact, that uptraded can be more than another micro movement towards a more sustainable world because it has selling arguments to even convince people that would not change their behavior for a greater good.
Having a positive impact on society and the environment on a big scale is the main motivator to put our time and efforts into uptraded.