Rolanda first used eBay as a casual seller when she purchased a pair of Nike shoes from an outlet that she ultimately never wore. She listed the item on eBay and, on the third attempt, sold the item successfully. She found it an exciting experience and began to purchase things for resell before pivoting into buying liquidated items. Rolanda retired in 2022 and now sells a variety of items on eBay, operating out of a 1500 sq. ft. basement. She is a 2023 eBay Up & Running Grant Award recipient, and would like to hire employees in the future to help manage her listings on the platform.

Stanley Kvitko is the owner of Kracked Screens, an eBay storefront that specializes in phone replacement screens and other cellphone replacement parts. His eBay journey started when he began to fix phone screens for friends and family, then expanded into a broader business with a need for an e-commerce platform. He first began using eBay as a casual seller in middle school when he began to sell his personal card collection and other extraneous items around the house.

Before pivoting to selling online full time, Victoria “Vikki” Eagan worked as a mortgage broker for fifteen years, but loved selling on eBay as both a hobby and form of supplemental income that paid for her child’s extracurriculars, vacations, and all the ‘extras’ in between. During the 2008 financial crisis, Vikki needed a new form of consistent full- time income, and was able to build a thriving small business on eBay. While attending a seller meetup, Vikki met her future wife, and they got engaged at an eBay Open event a few years later.

For the two decades she served in the US Air Force, Liz O’Kane was used to taking orders. So, when she was deciding on a post-service career, she knew she wanted to be her own boss. While serving in the U.S. Air Force and raising a family, Liz O’Kane fell in love with eBay and started selling in 2002. After retiring from the military in 2016, Liz decided to turn her passion from a side hustle into a full-time entrepreneurial venture, mastering eBay and expanding to nine platforms.

Raised in DC, Katelyn moved to Oklahoma over six years ago to serve as a full-time caretaker for her three grandparents. She focused on reselling as a way to make an independent income, while still having the time to spend with family. She started selling everything from cosmetics to clothing & accessories. Her storefront, Beauty On Point, took off quickly: within her first six months, Katelyn was able to hit $10K in one month’s sales.

Daviti Gachechiladze operates eBay storefront MLSource, which specializes in selling name-brand shoes and accessories. He started reselling as a teenager in his home country of Georgia, where he had a successful brick & mortar business selling electronics imported from the United States. After he graduated from university, he immigrated to the United States and decided to invest further in his online sales. He transitioned to an exclusively e-commerce business in 2018. MLSource has sold over 25,000 items to date and has a 99.9% positive feedback rating.

Husband and wife team, Angie and Joe Nelson, founded Angie’s GreenGo Surplus on Earth Day in 2008 to divert electronic waste from landfills. Initially, the Nelsons focused on collecting broken and retired electronics from businesses and selling the materials to various scrap recyclers, but they soon realized they could list marketable electronic items for resale on eBay. The business took off and over the years has managed to consistently evolve and increase its profits.