David Sobie
CEO
at Happy Returns
David Sobie is the co-founder and CEO of Happy Returns in Santa Monica, CA.
Happy Returns was founded in 2015 and pioneered box-free returns for e-commerce retailers,
speeding customer refunds and reducing return shipping costs. The company was acquired by
PayPal in 2021. After a period of exponential growth, UPS acquired the company in 2023.
Happy Returns now operates as a subsidiary of UPS, accepting millions of returns each month on behalf
of thousands of retailers, at a network of over 8,000 Return Bar locations around the country.
Prior to co-founding Happy Returns, David served as the Chief Marketing Officer of REVOLVE
and the SVP of Marketing & Business Development for HauteLook, a Nordstrom company.
He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Content & Articles by David Sobie
LA Tech Week 2025 Day 2 Recap: Startup Growth – Tuesday Oct 14
After a packed AI Building Day, we continued LA Tech Week with Startup Growth Day, a full schedule of sessions focused on go-to-market strategy, founder journeys, and scaling startups in...
LA Tech Week 2025 Day 1 Recap: AI Building – Monday Oct 13
We hosted three full days of events during LA Tech Week, each one focused on helping founders learn, connect, and build with the latest in AI and startup growth. Day...
Using Customer Feedback to Build a Product that Customers Will Love
Customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful product development, but many startups struggle with collecting, validating, and prioritizing the constant stream of input from users, advisors, and internal teams. In...
How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...
7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself
The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out
A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....