Episode 05: David Kalt
About David
David Kalt is a quiet legend but if you ask him how he does it, he will tell you that his ventures just needed to happen. He is simply solving for pain points.
After co-founding OptionsXpress taking it public and its ultimate sale to Charles Schwab for $1 billion in 2011, he decided to return to his love of music and buy the Chicago Music Exchange, the legendary guitar store in Lakeview that counts Tom Petty among its clients. He grew the store’s revenue over 10x and embraced content, creating a YouTube channel that has videos like 100 Riffs (Brief History of Rock N’ Roll), with 38 million views.
But he was just getting started. His next move was launching Reverb.com, a marketplace for used music gear. After raising nearly $50 million from the likes of Summit Partners, rock stars such as Brad Paisley & Rick Nielsen, and tech entrepreneurs such as Max Levchin and Eric Lefkofsky, he was able to grow annual revenue to over $50 million, and then sold Reverb to Etsy for $275 million in the summer of 2019.
And now that he’s dominated finance and music? Next up is… health. Naturally. David likes to remove friction from scalable processes and his next venture, Stretch, will do just that, helping people find yoga and Pilates instructors to practice in the comfort of their home.
He’s starting the venture quietly, at home. Writing code. But if the past is any indication, this too will see legendary status. After all, he is two for two.
As for guitar? He still plays. Every day.