25 x 25
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: David Shadrake | Aug. 5, 2016
Alexandra Shadrow
Entrepreneurship runs in the blood for Alexandra Shadrow, who spent summers as a child making cold calls at her dad’s metal distribution and recycling company. Now the 23-year-old is the founder of UNItiques, a website where college students can buy and sell gently used furniture and clothing. “I love that UNItiques has given me a way to carry on my family’s legacy of sustainability,” Shadrow says. She founded her company (originally called BUtiques) as a student at BU, after a “super scary Craigslist incident” when a man who responded to her post refused to leave her apartment. So she created a site that required a BU email address to join. “Over 1,000 students joined within the first two months, and students from other colleges were begging me to expand,” she says. Four years later, UNItiques has users on more than 400 campuses and a just-launched platform that allows members to buy and sell nationwide; Shadrow now has a team of three employees and more than 40 interns not much younger than herself. “It pushed me to grow up from a teenager to a CEO quickly,” she says. But Shadrow still maintains plenty of youthful optimism: “What kind of entrepreneur would I be if I didn’t see myself laughing with [Nasty Gal founder] Sophia Amoruso on a yacht in 10 years?”
Related Articles
-
Ready, Set, Glow
Chances are, by this time of the season, your otherwise reliable beauty routine is leaving you feeling a little lackluster...
[…] of founded-at-BC Jebbit, & my TA, BC sophomore and #TechTrekGhana alum @branickweix on making The Improper Bostonian’s 25×25 I can assure you they are not only proper, but most excellent, as […]