After an accidental encounter at a thrift store, former Apple engineer Alex Ruber and former Twitter and Asana engineer Parth Chopra joined forces to establish the second-hand goods search engine Encore, aimed at addressing the challenges consumers face in finding desired items within the vast second-hand market. This emerging startup has successfully been selected as one of the inaugural fall startups in Y Combinator's history. The two initially met on Y Combinator's founder matching platform, and later at an event.