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“ We believe, more than ever, that Etsy can help fundamentally change the way the world works by making it possible for individuals to make and sell things to other people around the globe — a people-powered economy. We have been effecting that change in small but increasingly meaningful ways. Not that long ago, in September 2011, we ran Hello Etsy in Berlin, our first conference which took on the broader focus of small business and sustainability. The description of Hello Etsy that we published last fall provides an inspiring blueprint for the better world that we envision: Decades of an unyielding focus on economic growth and a corporate mentality has left us ever more disconnected with nature, our communities, and the people and processes behind the objects in our lives. We think this is unethical, unsustainable, and unfun. However, with the rise of small businesses around the world we feel hope and see real opportunities: Opportunities for us to measure success in new ways… to build local, living economies, and most importantly, to help create a more permanent future. More than 500 independent business owners from 17 countries came for sessions on building “human-scale economies” and social entrepreneurship, while satellites beamed the programming to smaller gatherings in six other cities. Angela D’Alton (one of the attendees, and now an Etsy employee in Australia) called Hello Etsy, “possibly not only the best conference ever, but potentially one of the most important to the global economy.” Hello Etsy helped us fully realize that Etsy is more than just an online marketplace. Etsy is a beacon in the world for running businesses sustainably, responsibly, and profitably, with people at the center. The kind of sharing and cooperation you see on Etsy — what has been called a “sharing economy” that is part of a broader “quiet revolution” — can help businesses change the world. Etsy is helping power that revolution, and although we’ve been at it for seven years, it feels like we are just getting started.
Notes From Chad: Funding Etsy’s Future | Etsy News Blog
