It’s the eve of Wayfair’s Initial Public Offering, and I’m so excited for the company.  Big congrats to the entire team there, especially NextView Venture Advisors Niraj and Steve (who were among the first people to get behind NextView in the early days).  Congrats also to my wife Nancy, who is VP of Brand Marketing at Wayfair, and was the first person to believe in me in the early days too 🙂  And congrats to my friend Alex Finkelstein who led Spark’s investment in the company several years back.

Wayfair stands in stark contrast to so many other tech companies you read about.  Where other companies chase hot sectors, Wayfair started in the midst of a burst bubble selling speaker stands online.  Where others raised millions and millions of venture money before they had a business, Wayfair built a business on its own cash flow, and only raised money after they had profitably grown to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.  While others chased the wealthy, or the hipsters, or the fashionistas, Wayfair eclipsed them all by focusing on mainstream consumers. While others loudly beat their own drums about vanity metrics, lavish perks, or bold claims of grandeur, Wayfair has allowed their results and execution do the talking.

What an amazing company.

As I said a week or so ago in a tweet, I think that the best years are still ahead for this business.  The company is going after a near limitless market in home goods that has been very slow to transition online, and they have built a highly defensible moat around their excellence in logistics and operational efficiency at scale.  And this is all bolstered by a humble, scrappy, and hungry culture that pervades the entire company.

Congrats Wayfair!  I hope every employee and alum feels immense pride about having reached this milestone.  But contrary to how I feel about most tech companies that go public, I think the future holds even more potential.

The best is yet to come.