betashop

I recently wrote a post on Medium on how Pepo Campaigns evolved from a hackathon project to the robust product that we are so proud of today. I thought you might want to read it.

https://medium.com/@betashop/when-a-hackathon-project-become...

Pepo Campaigns is the first enterprise-grade email marketing platform built on AWS Simple Email Service — enabling organizations of all sizes to harness the power of AWS without writing a single line of code.

Pepo Campaigns is a single robust SAAS platform for both campaigns and transactional email.

By leveraging Amazon’s vast infrastructure, Pepo Campaigns on AWS is exponentially more reliable and scalable that other email solutions, yet at a fraction of the cost.

Pepo Campaigns builds on our team’s 6 years of experience sending >1 billion emails through campaigns, transactional, and targeted trigger emails (for large e-commerce companies like Fab.com), offering you enterprise-level features at startup speed. -Create gorgeous emails with our drag-and-drop template tool; -optimize your campaigns using insightful reports and analytics; -target your campaigns with advanced segmentation and A/B testing; -Leverage powerful marketing automation to create sophisticated trigger flows; -utilize our API’s to send transactional emails — all made simple with no code required on your end, so your developers can stay focused on the technology while your marketing team can focus on the message.

Workflow marketing automation is ready to be rolled out in a couple of week.

Simply sign up for Pepo Campaigns - https://pepocampaigns.com - and try it out for free until mid October. No separate AWS account required. You’ll be up and running in minutes.

What it's really like to work at any fast growing startup. http://betashop.com/post/53908788656/what-its-really-like-to...

What if it's not a dumb move? Meaning, what if it's a good thing to be honest with people that working at a startup is hard, that it's emotional, that it's human, that people make mistakes? I think opening up a bit about our culture -- which is hard driving, passionate, etc. isn't a dance in the park and can break some dishes along the way? That's pretty true of all startups.

Hi. Jason Goldberg, CEO of Fab here. @betashop. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

I must say that given my involvement in the Y-Hacker community it saddens me a bit to see you eat one of your own, but that's life I guess.

Is it smart to joke about people getting paid and getting fired? Of course not. Yes, we know that getting fired isn’t the sort of thing to normally joke about. But before haters hate on us, come visit Fab’s offices. We have this thing at Fab called “do your one thing” - the notion that everyone should focus on doing the one thing they are the best at above all other things and that the accumulation of everyone’s one things creates a great organization. No one’s one thing at Fab is to be a professional model.

Email me Jason@fab.com so I can check it out please.

Hi. @betashop here, CEO of Fab. Happy to answer any/all questions.

With regards to the "was it a pivot" comments below.

Fab was first fabulis, for 13 months. We built a ton of product and a small but loyal following. We then shut it down to pursue our passion. That's a pivot.

Regarding Fab's 2nd pivot in 2012, we pivoted our business from a drop-ship model to an inventory model. That's quite a pivot.

Hah! Make that 91 things learned.

Maybe I'm ignorant but who is OP?

Btw. Making it to #1 on HN is huge! So humbled. Not worthy! Thanks for reading. I truly hope my mistakes and lessons leaned help other entrepreneurs get a leg up.

Smile, you're designed to.

Jason

This has been our biggest blind spot. Until now.

We're been making great progress on it and 70% of Fab orders will ship within 1-5 days anywhere in the u.s. in Q4 2012.

Agree. 90 times over.

Thanks!

Hi. I'm the author. I like it as it is. 10 is a list. 90 is a compilation of lessons. Thanks for your input though! Don't stop learning.

I'll defend this position.

I'd rather someone be deep that shallow. In my career I've found that people who have unique talents tend to rise to the top because they offer that unique something that others dont.

Now, that unique talent can also be something broad like being a general, or being the the guy whose best at code reviews.

My point is that you've got to be really good at something, not just kinda good at a lot of things.

nonsense.

I didn't do it for traffic. I'm there answering questions the last 2 hours.

When we take inventory we can ensure fast delivery times and a consistently Fab experience. Also, most drop shoppers are not setup to handle the type of volume Fab generated. Drop shipping maxes out at a relatively small number of orders.

Hey, Jason Goldberg, CEO of Fab here. I just looked into this.

This was just our standard process of making sure that every order is completed properly. A critical part of our long term differentiation is making sure every customer interaction with Fab is a good one.

We want nothing short of every Fab customer to LOVE Fab. That's a big goal. People like a lot of websites but not many people LOVE an ecommerce site. That's our ambition.

Smile, you're designed to. And, keep challenging us to make sure we deliver fantastic service.

Actually, more than 70% of Fab.com's products are not drop shipped, and we've cut our delivery times in half the past 2 months and are making tons of progress there.

I'm jason, the ceo. chat me up.

fuck competition. just out-execute.

design is a lifestyle.

In order:

1. iPad signups. 2. friends inviting friends. 3. facebook ads targeting interests and demos. 99. google display 10001. google search.

I'm a big fan of transparency. I really do believe that the more other people know about your business the more they are able to truly understand it and get behind it. The data is the data is the data. If it's bad, you need to improve. If it's good, you can use it to tell a story. Either way, it is what it is. And, never stop learning.

Search - 1 month.

Links: We're working on something big there, mainly to showcase the designers. Give me 2 months ;-)

Sold out? ummmm, we're working on getting more inventory too. basically the rule is: First sale is an emotional test, 2nd sale is based on predictive data, 3rd sale is based on history.

We didn't use a launchrock page. We built our own viral mechanics. But, honestly, it's the products that get people to share.

AMA: Jason Goldberg, Fab.

Ah. By faster I meant faster time in days to first purchase and faster conversion of users overall to purchasers. We don't track speed of cart to placing order.

Exactly.

Absolutely. I would bet we are one of the few mass market companies trying to think mObile first in terms of marketing , product, etc.

Excuse typos I'm on a plane on my iPad ;-)