Oct. 31, 2024

A new online auction site for vintage, collectible and high-valuable instruments is beginning to connect buyers and sellers from its headquarters in Sioux Falls.

StringTree, which is online at stringtree.co, is the brainchild of Peter Burghardt, a lifelong musician whose collection of instruments began with a guitar at age 14.

Now approaching 40, “it’s just been a passion of mine my whole life,” he said.

He earned a master’s of fine arts and creative writing at St. Mary’s College of California, but finding a job led him to downtown Berkeley, where he became a general partner in a group that blended everything from real estate and apartment management to running a bookstore and restaurant.

“I winged it and discovered I really loved business,” he said. “I just sort of fell in love with business unexpectedly after my arts education.”

He went on to serve as executive director of an accelerator in California in 2015, The Batchery, where he worked with about 200 startups and received his own “great education” working on taking products to market and raising capital.

Then came 2020, and he and his wife – an epidemiologist – were working from home with child care shut down, and “we were totally overloaded and decided to come back to Sioux Falls to get a little family help,” he said.

His wife, Nicole, is from Sioux Falls, and “we just got an Airbnb and fell in love with it,” he said. “It turned into ‘Let’s look at houses,’ and it turned into buying a house and ending up here and viewing it as where we want to be because it’s a great place for families.”

He continued to work remotely for The Batchery until earlier this year, when he began thinking about what to do next.

“I’m a collector of a lot of things,” Burghardt explained.

He had experience with classic cars and online auctions and had discovered online platforms that were “very community-powered and transparent,” he said. “The community comes around things that are really cool and has a conversation.”

He decided to see if he could create something similar for collectible musical instruments, so late last year he mocked up what a platform could look like, put together a list of 1,500 instrument stores nationwide and sent out a survey framing up the challenges he saw in the market and how an auction platform could be a benefit.

“It was sort of a Hail Mary to see what happened,” Burghardt said.

Forty stores signed up right away – “stores I’ve bought from or admired from afar a long time,” he said. “That was when I got serious.”

Ready to launch

Burghardt began assembling the team that would become StringTree. His original business mentor became his CFO. One of his best friends from middle school – they were in their first band together – also had gone to Silicon Valley and became the chief technology officer. Head of operations Jennifer Falkenstein was hired locally through an adviser, John Meyer, a Sioux Falls-based business coach and the co-founder of Lemonly.

“And we just started building the product, building the waitlist, building a little bit of a brand presence,” Burghardt said.

The website launched earlier this month, with its headquarters on the east end of downtown above the office of Stone Group Architects.

“It’s been a great landing pad for us,” Burghardt said. “We’re a Midwest company through and through, and our intention is to build the company here in Sioux Falls.”

Josh Rieck, owner of J Rieck Music in Sioux Falls, has supported StringTree throughout its launch and sees the e-commerce startup filling a niche in the music market.

“There’s a level of expertise about the product they’re taking with that you don’t get with eBay or something that’s a generic platform,” he said.

“They’re able to better make sure the listings are accurate and that kind of thing. They have to build their reputation, but I know Peter, I trust him, he has a deep knowledge of guitars and instuments, so I know he will represent things accurately and in a trustworthy way.”

So far, StringTree has completed five auctions since launching.

“Overall, they’ve all gone smoothly, and folks are bidding and engaged as the system comes online,” Burghardt said.

“Each auction continues to get more bids than the last, and we’ve had about 35 unique bidders on the items which completed — more when you count the live auctions on right now.”

Items listed include collectible guitars and synthesizers, though Burghardt previously has bought and sold everything from a 1920s saxophone to a 600-pound organ.

All items are auction-style, with the average auction lasting seven days, though bidders can get a preview of what’s coming and sellers can set a reserve price.

Rieck already has sold one collectible guitar through the site and has others listed.

At the guitar shop, “we list everything online,” he said. “Just being a community of this size, it’s unrealistic to expect to sell everything locally. We have our own e-commerce site, but again people this day and age want to deal with a larger, nationally known entity, and that’s what Peter is gunning for.”

The site’s niche is in bridging the gap between eBay and instrument marketplace Reverb.com and individual music shops.

“To my knowledge, we are the first what we call transparent auction systems specifically for musical instruments,” Burghardt said.

That means when an auction goes live, customers can ask questions, the seller can comment, and histories can be seen on buyers and sellers to help foster a community.

“We’re looking for things that have a really great story,” Burghardt added. “We try to tell the story about the instruments we’re selling. Maybe it’s the history of the model or a guitar someone took to World War II, stories like that.”

Rieck’s first auction fetched “very close to what we would have been asking in store, so I was very happy,” he said, adding he expects the user base for StringTree will only grow and provide even more competitive bids. Add that to lower fees for sellers and an auction-style approach that avoids inflated “buy it now” pricing and Rieck said the model makes sense.

“I’m just excited to see where they go with it,” he said. “I think they’re onto something cool.”

StringTree has a waitlist of 110 stores to join the site after doing its proof of concept with six stores “providing premium inventory, really special stuff you can’t find anywhere else,” Burghardt said.

“We want to be really hands-on in how we service our initial sellers, and we’re starting to get organic submissions through the website already.”

Long-term individual sellers will be able to list on the site, he said.

“Our strategy has been to partner with established brands because they have a track record of trust and validation, so it’s less work to onboard the inventory. But as we grow, we are going to certainly expand.”

The stores “have been rock stars in co-promoting,” he added. “We know where these (buyers) are, so we’re running banner ads on their forums, or people who have certain interest on Meta or watch certain YouTube videos.”

StringTree has raised some funds local from angel investors, Burghardt said. He’s also an entrepreneur in residence at Startup Sioux Falls.

“The Sioux Falls community has been incredibly supportive and welcoming,” he said. “Part of the reason I wanted to start a company here coming from California is I feel like it’s such a cool moment here in Sioux Falls, where there’s this hunger to build new startups and support the local business ecosystem. I think it’s a city brimming with potential, so we’re just excited to be here.”