What inspired you to start your venture?
The inspiration for Skiply came during the COVID e-commerce boom, when I saw mountains of returned goods quietly heading to landfills.
My years at Nike leading supply chain and procurement operations gave me a front-row seat to this invisible trillion-dollar crisis, a reality I unpacked in my TEDx talk. After ordering shoes online and seeing how easy it was for a perfectly good product to go to waste, I realized the system was broken for both retailers and the planet. I founded Skiply to reimagine returns as a force for good, using AI and logistics to keep products in circulation and out of landfills. My mission is rooted in a lifelong love for sport and consumer products, and a drive to make recommerce the default option when a consumer chooses to return a product.
What impact are you hoping to achieve?
Skiply turns returns into a strategic advantage for online retailers and marketplaces by automating what's largely done by hand. Most returned products still get manually inspected and sorted, even items that could go straight back to inventory or donations. Our AI-driven solution makes instant decisions at the product level, routing returns directly where they need to go and skipping unnecessary manual touchpoints. This reduces operational headaches, speeds up the process, and maximizes asset recovery. Imagine a world where before you take your product back to a courier, you scan the item with your phone in five seconds. Then, you are instantly given a QR code for shipping, and depending on numerous data points (i.e.: location, product quality, demand for item) that product gets sent directly to the location best positioned to maximize its resale value and finds the next customer. By making returns more efficient, transparent, and sustainable, Skiply not only improves the bottom line but also helps retailers reduce waste and move toward a more circular economy. We envision a retail future where every return drives value, customer loyalty, and positive environmental impact.
What's been the hardest part of building your venture?
The hardest part of building Skiply is navigating the complexity and inertia within the retail industry. There is not one key team or stakeholder who is responsible for returns, which makes it difficult. Convincing retail partners to rethink how they manage returns and integrating with legacy systems that weren’t designed for change are major challenges. There are days when slow progress and resistance feel overwhelming. Yet, what keeps me going is the belief that we’re solving a problem that gets worse every day and matters deeply for retailers, the planet, and consumers, who deserve a better experience. Every small win, every story of a product given a new life, and every step toward making returns less wasteful give us the motivation to push forward. Seeing our vision come to life, even in incremental ways, reminds us why we started and fuels our determination to make a lasting impact.
Have you always been involved in climate?
I didn’t start my career in climate or sustainability, but over time, I became increasingly aware of how critical these challenges are to our shared future. Gradually, it became clear that making a real difference meant rethinking how we do business, especially in areas like retail, where small changes can have a big ripple effect.
Working on Skiply has given me a way to merge practical problem-solving with a growing sense of responsibility to help create better outcomes, not just for companies but for the world we all depend on.
What's been the most unexpected moment while building your venture?
The craziest moment so far was visiting a furniture manufacturer in Western Michigan and seeing firsthand how manual the returns process is. Watching products come back in every imaginable condition— sometimes damaged from frenzied deliveries, other times tied up in endless communication loops — made it strikingly clear how much opportunity there is for improvement. It was eye-opening to witness the sheer volume of effort and coordination required just to get one item to its next destination, and it fueled my determination to build a smarter, more efficient solution.
What's been one of the coolest moments?
What’s been fascinating is seeing how every retailer approaches returns so differently. Some rely on spreadsheets and manual tracking, others have cobbled together custom software, and a few are experimenting with automation or third-party platforms. There’s a lot of variety in how returns are managed, based on company size, product type, and internal priorities. But regardless of the technology or process, everyone I talk to recognizes that returns are a major pain point. There’s a real acceptance that this challenge isn’t “solved” yet, which creates both camaraderie and healthy competition as we all work toward smarter, more sustainable solutions.
Any lessons learned?
One lesson I wish I could share with future founders is that people are everything—choose your co-founders, early team, and investors with the same intentionality and scrutiny as you would evaluate a business plan. The people you surround yourself with will make or break your venture.
Another lesson is never to rush through customer discovery; it’s tempting to jump ahead, but the time spent truly understanding and validating the customer’s problem is the best investment you can make. Going deep to solve a real, burning need is the difference between building something that lasts and something that fizzles out.
Tell us about your involvement with the i-lab.
Being part of the i-lab has been an incredible catalyst for my journey. The opportunity to connect with fellow founders, mentors, venture capitalists, and industry experts has pushed me to think more deeply and critically about the problems I’m tackling. The ecosystem is rich with real-world insights and practical advice, allowing me to learn directly from those who’ve been through similar challenges. This community of support and idea-sharing has not only sharpened my entrepreneurial instincts but also given me the confidence and tools to approach big problems with creativity and resilience.
