Jet was co-founded by what we firmly believed to be the best startup e-commerce team in the country at the time: Marc Lore and his former Quidsi colleagues Nate Faust and Mike Hanrahan. Even with an all-star founder lineup, Jet’s go-to-market strategy was bold. Lore and his team were looking to persuade online shoppers, who were at the time quite satisfied hunting for bargains on competing websites, to try something new. There was a lot of consumer education to be done around how the service worked, including discounts, shipping, etc. And beyond consumer education, Jet had to execute it well at scale with very complex systems, logistics, pricing and marketing.
But in the end, Jet is what venture is all about: backing smart teams who are building disruptive products in large markets.
Price is still the most important factor to online shoppers, and Jet had created an innovative, variable and dynamic pricing engine that solved the problem of rigid and fixed pricing to deliver a completely new, low price shopping experience for consumers. Jet’s technology was being built for massive scalability and would be a highly valuable asset.
Were there huge risks involved with investing in Jet? Sure.
But in the end, Jet is what venture is all about: backing smart teams who are building disruptive products in large markets. Learn more about the Jet journey and why Norwest got on board.
Jet was acquired by Walmart in 2016.
