#33: Burnout is real. Big leadership changes at Beni.
Updates on a big change within our company leadership and a look back on some Beni milestones from the first chapter.
We have news.
Our CEO and co-founder, Sarah Pinner is stepping down for personal health reasons. Her role will be filled by our CMO and co-founder, Kate Sanner.
While we’re energized for this new chapter and excited to stay close with Sarah as she cheers Beni on as an Advisor, we want to take this time to acknowledge some big wins that wouldn’t have been possible without Sarah’s leadership.
Beni was her idea. Her passion for sustainability spurred her desire to solve the clunkiness of shopping secondhand online and set out to make resale as easy as buying new.
She put together a talented AND female-founded team to bring her vision to life.
After winning funding from pitch competitions and programs, she spearheaded fundraising and secured $5M between a Pre-Seed (2021) and Seed (2022) from Buoyant Ventures, Better Ventures, XYZ, Chingona Ventures and Starting Line (for context: only 2% of total capital went to female founders that year 🤯).
She launched the Beni MVP…then the beta…then the desktop extension…then the mobile app/extension…then the searchable site…all the while engaging with users to ensure that the product we’re building meets the needs of
50k+ shoppers.
She partnered with 50+ resale marketplaces to build a live database of over 200M resale listings (effectively 80% of online resale!).
She spoke on countless panels and podcasts (check out our Spotify playlist) that helped us get noticed and featured by the TODAY Show, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Marie Claire and more!
This work put us on a path toward our mission of transforming the norms of consumption, and we look forward to realizing Sarah’s vision.
If you’d like to join the movement and help accelerate this transition, please subscribe to and forward our newsletter as we continue building the future of fashion each and every day.
Beni users, we want your thoughts:
If you’ve been enjoying using Beni these past few years, we’d love to share your experience with Sarah. Simply respond to this email, and we’ll pass the message along.
OR, if you really want to make her day, leave us a review in the Chrome Web Store or App Store — it helps us show more people the magic of Beni and get one step closer to our mission 💚.
Just for fun…
Here are some of our favorite memories with Sarah these past three years.
Hi! Sarah (Beni *former* CEO here). Wanted to pop in to reiterate how incredibly grateful I am for this community of Beni users and supporters! THANK YOU for being part of the future of resale and for believing in our vision. I've also shared a bit more about this decision here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sarahepinner_we-have-news-our-ceo-and-co-founder-sarah-activity-7184575020650680321-xtem?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop