Hi, I’m Katie.

I’m building TRACE.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of TRACE. We just raised our seed round to rethink resale from the moment you start shopping.

See what we’re building ↗Read our Inc. story ↗
Katie Pfleger wearing a green jacket against a bright green background
THE PRESALE MARKETPLACE

Moving resale from the closet to checkout.

We’re building TRACE for shopaholics like me.

People already use resale and rental to justify purchases. But so often, those future sales never materialize. TRACE takes the guessing out of it by connecting the next buyer or renter before checkout.

We’re not inventing a new habit. We’re building around one that already exists.

Explore the marketplace ↗

A little about me.

I’ve always loved shopping. Resale made me want to build.

01
MIAMI

I grew up believing small ideas could matter.

I was born and raised in Miami. In 2011, I started Bake A Wish from my family kitchen to make birthdays feel special for kids across Miami-Dade.
Meet Bake A Wish ↗

02
COLUMBIA · CLASS OF 2019

I learned how to build things.

I majored in computer science at Columbia, with a focus on human-computer interaction and web design. I liked turning complicated systems into something people could actually use.

03
THE REALREAL + ETSY

I learned marketplaces from the inside.

A summer at The RealReal showed me how complicated resale can be. Then I spent five years at Etsy, eventually as a senior software engineer working on the seller listing process.

04
RENTOUI + POSHMARK

I kept running into the same problem.

I started RentOui, a peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace. I also listed more than 700 items on Poshmark. I loved the hunt. The work after the purchase was another story.

05
HBS · CLASS OF 2026

Then the idea clicked.

At Harvard Business School, I met Ella Rubin. We started asking what resale could look like if demand showed up before the first purchase. That question became TRACE.

FEATURED IN INC.

“These Harvard Business Students Want to Change How You Shop”

Inside the idea behind TRACE, our founder story, and why we believe shopping can work differently.

Read the article ↗