Twin Cities entrepreneurs aim to eliminate stranger danger from online resale market

In 2016 while living in Texas, Timi Ogundipe found himself staring down the barrel of a gun trying to sell his slightly used iPhone.

A stranger who responded to Ogundipe's online advertisement pulled a gun on him in a parking lot where they agreed to meet. The person demanded Ogundipe hand over the device, which he did.

Ogundipe was planning to use the cash, about $300, toward the launch of a new business. The unwanted encounter gave him an idea for a different one.

"I was driving [away] and I thought to myself, if this person would have paid for my phone beforehand, this wouldn't have been the issue," he said.

Ogundipe eventually moved back to Minnesota and began researching the online resale industry. Using bridge capital from Minneapolis-based Brown Venture Group, he launched in 2019 Safe Resell, a cashless, e-commerce web application where payments are processed prior to the in-person exchange of used goods. He paused the platform in 2022 to completely rebuild the system with Olayinka Afolabi, his co-founder and cousin.

To access the platform, buyers and sellers must attach their personal bank accounts or debit cards to Stripe, a third-party payment processing system. Payment is processed once the exchange of goods is completed.

At the in-person exchange, the seller uses their smartphone to scan a QR code given only to the buyer. After the scan, a one-time, encrypted passcode is sent to the seller, who gives that code to the buyer to enter into the Safe Resell system, signaling the completion of a transaction.

If the buyer is not satisfied with the condition of the item at the exchange location, the buyer or seller can cancel the sale. Once canceled, Safe Resell releases its hold on the buyer's funds, Ogundipe said.

Safe Resell earns revenue on 5% of the sellers' sale and 5% of the buyers' purchase.

So far, most of the sales on the platform are electronic devices like cellphones, laptops and televisions, Ogundipe said, but people are also selling clothing items, fitness equipment, furniture and lawnmowers. Vehicles also can be listed on the site.

Though they knew of each other, Ogundipe and Afolabi had not met or spoken prior to this year. Through other family members, Ogundipe learned Afolabi was proficient in technology and was in the process of relocating to Minnesota.

After a few phone conversations, they decided to become business partners.

"She's been a godsend," Ogundipe said.

Afolabi's first order of business was scrapping the initial platform designed by a freelance developer and leveraging technology to create a safe system for reselling. Afolabi, who has a master's degree in both information technology and management information systems, built the new platform from scratch, implementing a better prepayment system and use of a QR code and passcode process for in-person exchanges.

"We tried to mimic what would happened in live store environment," Afolabi said. "If you go the store, you scan your product and there's this confirmation of payment."

Ogundipe plans to raise a seed capital in 2023 to grow Safe Resell. Afolabi, meanwhile, wants to enable a location feature where users include the address of the exchange site. When the passcode is generated, the system will automatically determine the user is at the predetermined location.

"I want to grow this to be the face of the buy-sell marketplace," Ogundipe said.