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What is Etsy?

Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. We built it for those consumers conscious of the true value of handmade goods and their creators, as well as to give all independent artists the technology and information they need to make a living, making things. Our intention is to offer viable alternatives to mass-produced objects in the world marketplace, and to encourage consumers to be aware of the social and environmental implications of their purchases.

The connection between producer and consumer has been lost. We created Etsy to help them reconnect, and swing the pendulum back to a time when we bought our bread from the baker, food from the grocer, and shoes from the cobbler.

Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice: Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.

Etsy’s Beginning

Etsy was conceived by Rob Kalin (27) in early 2005. A painter, carpenter, and photographer, Rob found there was no viable marketplace to exhibit and sell his creations online- other E-commerce sites having become too inundated with fraud, overstock electronics, and broken appliances. Ever industrious, he, along with Chris Maguire (24) and Haim Scoppik (27), designed the site, wrote the code, assembled the servers, spliced the cables, and launched Etsy on June 18th, 2005 after only three sleepless months.

Now, at age two, Etsy has 45 full-time employees, offices in Brooklyn and San Francisco, and approximately 550,000 registered users, 60,000 of whom are individual artists selling more than 700,000 of their handmade creations.