I’m very excited to announce our investment in YAA. You can read the update from the company’s CEO Zach here, and we are excited to be partnering with our friends at Flybridge and Long Journey on this investment. 

YAA is a service that empowers consumers to have more confidence and success in purchasing and owning an automobile. A car is likely the second largest purchase in a consumer’s life with significant downstream costs of maintenance and ownership.  YAA utilizes, software, content, and community to help buyers navigate their confusing process and get the most out of this significant purchase.

A number of years ago, I wrote a post about “The Retail Apocalypse” and identified three sectors where there was surprising robustness in traditional retail. These were: home repair, thrift, and autos. We are pleased to have been able to make very successful investments in the first two areas (and are looking for more), and have been on the hunt for something in the autos category for quite some time. In particular, I was hoping to find a company focused on auto ownership in addition to helping to facilitate the purchase, and potentially something that aligns more closely with consumers vs. monetizing through dealers as most other businesses in the category have done. 

YAA was one of those businesses that we fell in love with at first pitch.  The company has very impressive signals of early PMF and growth.  It fits beautifully into our thesis of the digital redesign of the Everyday Economy.  The founders are steep-slope, magnetic learning machines. And the company has been able to create an early distribution wedge through their excellent and authentic presence on Youtube that reaches millions of end users.  

There is a huge amount of potential for this business, but also a huge number of unknowns and pitfalls ahead.  I’m very excited that we have the opportunity to join Zach, Arash, and their team on this exciting adventure.