Listia was born of the simple desire to give away a pair of snowboard boots.

As Listia co-founder Gee-Hwan Chuang tells the story, his college buddy and Listia co-founder James Fong had a pair of boots he wasn’t using anymore. He listed them for free on Craigslist and chose one of the 20 respondents to give them to. But the guy was a no-show and Fong was left with the boots. He then listed them on eBay, but no one bid on his auction.