“The fact that Teach for America — which pays almost nothing and can place its hires far from cosmopolitan hot spots — is one of the few recruiting systems competitive with Wall Street suggests that graduates are open to paths that aren’t remotely as remunerative and aren’t based in New York or San Francisco.” — Wall Street Steps In When Ivy League Fails
I have become increasingly bullish on the future of e-commerce, particularly because I think we’re about to enter a period where social shakes up the industry. There are a couple of emerging trends we’ve seen over the past year: content & curation first, commerce second (Fab); celebrity endorsements (Beachmint & Shoedazzle); subscription models (Birchbox); flash sales (Gilt Groupe); and innovation in the peer-to-peer marketplace (SideTour/Vayable/Gidsy). As we see innovative companies emerge across these different models and create new ones, we are just beginning to see them utilize the power of social.
Social has disrupted many industries from publishing and gaming to advertising and the news, but we’re only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the impact of social on e-commerce. Pinterest is a massive step in that direction, providing an incredibly powerful curation network and social layer across the “things” on the internet.
Another company that’s pushing the boundaries is Fab. They have been crushing it, literally launching a new product almost every other week for the past two months. Their pace of innovation is astounding. Just look at this timeline:
For a site and business that’s still so young they’re shipping product and growing remarkably fast. One thing I love is CEO Jason Goldberg’s insistence that “Social is a fact, not a feature.” We’re beginning to see that belief spread across all of Fab’s products, especially the Live Feed. I’ve never seen a commerce site incorporate so many sharing and communication elements. It’s beginning to look less like a storefront and more like a network of design lovers. What began as a flash sales site driven by daily emails has gradually morphed into a social commerce site where direct traffic from Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook has outpaced email referrals. That’s not a feature, that’s a fact, and that’s just the beginning.
Kudos to Fab for being bold, experimenting, innovating, and pushing the envelope on social commerce. What’s inspiring is that this is only just one example of one company bringing social elements to, and building a network on top of, their commerce business. Many others are in the same boat. It’s going to be a wild ride watching this space grow over the course of the next several years.
This past week’s tech journalist public smack down has been interesting to watch. The public exchanges got me thinking about something we’ve always practiced at GroupMe, which is to never talk negatively about competition, individuals, or other companies.
Since we launched GroupMe we’ve been part of a very competitive space. Between messaging, group messaging and private social networks, we’ve seen a whirlwind of activity from new startups to incumbents launching products in the arena. We were also fortunate enough to have amazing press coverage during a lot of the early storm. One of the things that would always bug me was when I saw people take direct shots at GroupMe publicly and through the press. It’s always a gut reaction to defend yourself and shoot back, but I’ve found it’s always best to take the high road. Keep calm and carry on.
Last year around SXSW we were asked every other day what we thought about specific competitors. Our messaging was and is succinct around the key differentiators between our company and the rest of the space, and we never have to cite “competitors” to get our points across. No one wins in a public fight, and your company has more important things to worry about than trash talking. Being negative is also a huge waste of energy that can be better spent doing something positive and productive for your startup.
If it drives you mad when your competition publicly talks negatively about you, it probably drives them even crazier when you don’t acknowledge them back.
“It is not, as it turns out, necessary to be a micromanaging psychopath with narcissistic personality disorder (or even to pretend to be one) if you just hire smart people and give them real authority. The saddest thing about the Steve Jobs hagiography is all the young “incubator twerps” strutting around Mountain View deliberately cultivating their worst personality traits because they imagine that’s what made Steve Jobs a design genius. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc, young twerp. Maybe try wearing a black turtleneck too. For every Steve Jobs, there are a thousand leaders who learned to hire smart people and let them build great things in a nurturing environment of empowerment and it was AWESOME. That doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It doesn’t mean letting people do bad work. It means hiring smart people who get things done—and then getting the hell out of the way.” — A VC: The Management Team - Guest Post From Joel Spolsky
(via buzz)
Believe it or not, one of the most frustrating things to deal with at startups is office space. Unless you absolutely have to, do not sign a lease for your first office space. There are so many variables in determining what a good first office space is for you: but the most important is if or when you will outgrow it. It makes no sense to sign a 2 year lease on a 2,000 square foot space when you’re going to be 20 people in 12-18 months.
These things are nearly impossible to plan for, which is why I’m an advocate for subleasing space as long as you can. The pay-per-desk model limits the types of things you need to worry about: internet access, legal work, cleaning, maintainence, insurance, furniture…the list goes on. The less trivial stuff you have to deal with early on, the more you’ll be able to focus on the important things without distractions.
GroupMe subleased from Jumo’s office space in SoHo from September 2010 to April 2011. It was amazing for us and we stayed there until we outgrew it. We paid for each desk on a monthly basis (~$500/desk), and even though that may seem pricey, it was still far less than leasing our own space and the overhead costs associated with it.
Leasing our office space was an arduous process, but we did it when we needed to. Had we leased in September when we first stating subleasing from Jumo, we would have most likely had to find new space within 9 months. That would have been a pain in the ass. That’s why it’s easiest to sublease until you have a better idea of how fast you’re going to grow, and what kind of space you’re going to want to accommodate your needs. I also think it’s important to sublease somewhere where you can be yourself. We loved to play music over the office speakers (and GroupMe has interesting taste in music) and Jumo was cool with it, in fact they supported it. We are also a talkative team, and it was important that we could be somewhere where people wouldn’t be upset at us for being…us.
So for your first startup office, just find a good sublease / pay per desk space so you can focus on what’s important, and don’t worry about signing for own space until you’re absolutely ready and have to.
john:
Tumblr including summer intern George and Topher’s Mom
July 2009
Thanks for the throwback, John. And thank you for giving me my first job out of college :-)
“Good luck is often with the man who doesn’t include it in his plans.” — Fortune Cookie
I was talking to a friend who is getting his startup off the ground and we started discussing working with law firms in the company formation stages. I think a lot of first-time entrepreneurs shoot from the hip when dealing with selecting and working with a corporate firm early in the lifecycle, so here are a couple simple things I learned along the way that I recommend to people doing startups:
Picking a legal partner to work with is important. You want someone you can trust who also has a strong reputation and track record in the startup community. You won’t (and shouldn’t) interact with him/her in the early stages, but you want them by your side, engaged, and fighting for you when you need them most.
*For more information Chris Dixon has written some great posts on the topic, and I recommend you read his blog particularly when it comes to raising capital and startup formation.