GigaOM » Brian Lee

From pedicures to pet grooming, MyTime wants to be your online booking solution

Eliza Kern — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 01:09:52 +0000

Getting local businesses on board with any kind of digital marketing or payment service can be a tough sales nut to crack. But how many people really want to call up a local hairdresser or nail salon to book an appointment if an online booking option existed? In our increasingly phone-averse society, online is usually far more popular.

Which is why one entrepreneur has launched MyTime, a site that lets small businesses create profiles and sync their bookings calendars to allow customers to discover their sites and book appointments through the website, eschewing the potential pitfalls of local deal sites like Groupon.

Entrepreneur Ethan Anderson, who was previously a product manager with Google and then sold his last startup Redbeacon to Home Depot in January 2012, started working on MyTime about a year ago and just launched the site this week. MyTime has about $3 million in funding from GRP Partners’ Mark Suster, 500 Startups, Brian Lee, Jason Calacanis, David Tisch, and others.

The site, which is starting out with businesses in L.A. but looking to expand, allows businesses to create a page for their company, sync up with Yelp reviews and ratings, sync appointment calendars, and set deals for particular slots to entice customers to less popular times. The service is free to join, but companies that let MyTime promote their offers through dynamic pricing, Google AdWords, Twitter ads, and other solutions give up 40 percent of revenue from bookings that come through the promotions (excluding existing customers). Anderson said about half the businesses so far have taken advantage of the marketing option.

The site exists right now as primarily a desktop website that’s optimized for mobile, but Anderson said developing native apps is up next. He points out that while local review and ratings sites are common (think Yelp, Foursquare, etc.), the actual booking component is not as well widespread.

“Our vision for the business is that you connect your calendar once and then everything is taken care of. We bring your customers back, and we allow you to later connect with your consumers. And for the customer, it’s the ultimate convenience,” he said. “I feel like no one else has brought together the calendar and the pricing and the actual e-commerce experience. “

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Shop Hers takes a stab at high-end digital resale

Eliza Kern — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 15:15:06 +0000

Jaclyn Shanfeld‘s venture into high-end fashion retail started where many women head when they’re ready to refresh their wardrobe — the consignment store. Having just quit her job at a model management firm but wanting to continue dressing stylishly in Los Angeles, she dropped off several thousand dollars worth of designer clothes at a consignment store. Several weeks later, she received a check in the mail for just $250.

“I literally feel taken advantage of,” she said. Shanfeld went on to try a variety of other options for resale, including eBay and Rent the Runway, but found that those options were either too expensive or inconvenient (some high-end Rent the Runway dresses can have long waits associated.)

“I came to this idea that I really just wanted to re-create what I had growing up, where I would buy a black dress from BCBG and it would be passed around and worn by ten of my girlfriends before it’s passed down to someone’s little sister,” she said. “But when your friends are grown up they have different body types and styles, and it doesn’t always work.”

So Shanfeld developed the idea of Shop Hers, which attempts to get high-end fashion to stop collecting dust in the closet and get it sold to others who might enjoy it. The company is attempting to re-create a luxury retail experience with online re-sales, and so far has impressive traction although it’s only been live about a month.

Shop Hers accepts only high-end women’s clothing (your brand must be listed on their site to sell), and the company vetts all clothing before it’s shipped out to buyers to be sure no fakes are sold. All items come with a return policy — if you buy something and find it doesn’t fit or you don’t like it, the company will refund your money and buy the item back themselves, charging just a five percent restocking fee — the seller won’t be forced to give a refund. Shanfeld said she thought it would be worth it for the company in the long run to offer a flexible policy, since women shopping online need guarantees.

Having a flexible return policy and a narrow focus on luxury brands is what’s going to set Shop Hers apart in a crowded area of fashion resale, along with the company’s effort to help women enter their exact measurements, and pair them with other sellers who size similarly. There are tons of sites doing fashion re-sale right now — Tradesy, Poshmark, Threadflip, and Twice are just a few — but none of those have the strict selling requirements that Shop Hers has.

“A lot of sites use the same thesis of luxery fashion merchandise, but then you find that it’s a lot of Gap and Forever 21 with one Louis Vuitton bag mixed in,” Shanfeld said. “That’s why we’ve spent so much of our time merchandising.”

And Shop Hers isn’t just a good idea and a website — it has the talent to back up its aspirations. Shanfeld’s creative director is Jenna Stahl, who used to manage the shopping experience on Nordstrom’s website, and her CTO is Thanh Khuu, who previously held the same role at ShoeDazzle. Shop Hers’ investors are just as notable: the company has backing from SV Angel, Ryan Steelberg, Paige Craig, Brian Lee, Jeremy Zimmer, Mike Hirshland of Resolute VC, and High Line’s Shana Fisher. Several of those, including Fisher and SV Angel’s Ron Conway, are investors in Pinterest.

The site launched in beta slightly more than a month ago, and Shanfeld said that so far, they’ve had more than 200 transactions, and every customer has gone on to buy a second item on the site — and the items are usually fairly high price points. The site was initially invite-only, but when it was working well and they were getting multitudes of emails from women asking to participate, Shanfeld said they decided to let everyone sign up.

“We decided, let the women have their Prada,” she laughed.

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ShoeDazzle… no longer dazzling

Om Malik — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 02:53:33 +0000

Denise Lee Yohn in a blog post earlier this year asked the question Has Shoedazzle lost its dazzle? She argued that the company, which had pioneered the shoes-as-a-subscription service, was making the fatal mistake of changing its business model and becoming a plain vanilla e-commerce player that sold shoes. Yohn didn’t say this, so I will: If my previous magazine Business 2.0 were still around, this move would most definitely qualify for “the dumbest list” we used to put out every year.

Ladies loved LA-based ShoeDazzle’s subscription service, which was cofounded by Kim Kardashian. Joy and love were the two emotions ShoeDazzle’s customers associated with the company. It was such a brilliant idea that it has inspired copycat after copycat. Startups are aping the model. I thought it was a brilliant model, aptly reflecting the times we lived in, though I wasn’t sure about their ability to make money. Maybe that is why the company thought it should switch its business approach!

Today fingers are being pointed at Bill Strauss, a ProFlowers executive who was brought in as the CEO to whip the company into shape. Sarah Lacy, a customer, using an acid-dipped pen writes:

I was happy with the way things were. But since my subscription was suddenly cut off? I haven’t bought a single pair of shoes. It may sound silly, but to buy shoes from ShoeDazzle now would feel like I’m spending $39 on each pair of shoes, rather than spending a free credit.

Effectively, I was saying: Please! Keep taking my money every month forever! And Strauss was saying, “No thanks, I’m going to stop auto-charging you and focus on these people who might want to give us money once or twice.”

While it is easy to blame Strauss, let’s not forget that these replace-the-founder-with-the-professional-CEO decisions happen because investors want those changes, and the board had to approve the business model shift.

What are the odds that ShoeDazzle will make a comeback? Like Lacy, I am betting that it is mission impossible for founder Brian Lee, who has been brought back as CEO to fix what is clearly a messy situation. The senior employee exodus, while not as acute as Zynga’s, is still a pretty big problem. And while Lee can attract new talent, getting customers like Lacy back won’t be that easy!

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