melanie_io

Do you think that is a marker for success in life? A photo sharing app 'geared for massive growth'?

So, profitable business, totally bootstrapped, growing at 20% a month. I guess you could call that "taking it easy." If you think my argument is not well-reasoned, then you should refute it, not just insult me. Lastly, and I don't think the crowd on HN really gets this, I was using the absolute most conservative assumptions possible to prove my argument. Which is, 'even just working 30 hours a week, you still have a better chance at making millions of dollars by NOT raising VC.'

So, under this reasoning, you are saying all bootstrapped entrepreneurs are average and a waste of life, simply because they choose to go it alone, and not take funding. Hmm, what was that? Something about man, made of out straw...

OR, most people realize that building a wildly successful photo app / car sharing service / daily deal site does not 'make a dent in the universe.'

I think you either did not read the article, or did not understand it. I am certainly not advocating 'giving up' in any sense. I doubt you would say that DHH or Tim Ferris have 'given up' and 'settled in their twenties.' I even say outright, that my point is to follow your own path, and make your own rules, rather than listen to the hype and tech press.

I am advocating for a worldview where getting VC funding is not an accomplishment in and of itself, and does not necessarily mean you are successful. By taking funding, you are giving up the opportunity to work for yourself. You are 'hiring a boss,' so to speak. And for me, after working for others for years in finance, and then as a CEO of a funded start-up, I decided I would rather forge my own path in life, prestige and press be damned.

That is a fair point. However, even if you adjust the assumptions for expected value to be 3% (vs 25%, which is what I use), it is still an expected value of $43,000, over 14x greater than that of your average "I want to be the next Instagram" app. I wanted to use 2 hypothetical examples with some reasonable assumptions just to show the staggering difference in probabilities of each scenario.

Thank you Eric.

TechStars is an absolutely amazing program, and we had a fantastic experience. I could not be more complementary of the program itself. My post was only commenting on the TV show, and trying to clear up some events that were portrayed by Bloomberg.

I agree. I think TechStars had nothing but the best of intentions, and they were sold a bill of goods from Bloomberg that the show would be a documentary. I think this is why they were so adamant about each company participating: because they honestly believed the exposure would be good for our companies.

Please do not let the show color your opinion of TechStars. I would do the program over in a heartbeat, and made lifelong friends and mentors along the way. Tisch / Cohen / Feld and the entire organization is fantastic.

Check out The Founders series mentioned above - it is fantastic.

Every company was required to participate: the choice was (1) do the show or (2) drop out of TechStars. Bloomberg followed all 11 (not 10) companies throughout the entire program, but focused only on 6 companies because it was impossible to follow 11 different story lines in 6, 22-minute episodes.

No, they literally just made it up, and paid a narrator to do a voice-over.

I did not have to show up last night. But I also did not want Bloomberg to be able to guide / direct the last word on ToVieFor. In addition, Tisch and Cohen fought VERY hard to make sure the finale episode was positive, which I knew ahead of time. They felt just as disappointed and betrayed by Bloomberg as I.

You are right - this is exactly what I DID expect would happen - even though it was sold to us as a documentary on a business channel. Unfortunately, every company in our TechStars class was forced to participate. So, the decision for all of us was: drop out of TechStars or do the show.

Back in the real world, it is actually happening the other way around. Retailers and brands (which have all the power and money) are becoming the content creators and poaching talent from the publishing industry. Quote below from a Business of Fashion article earlier this year.

"What began as a trickle is now starting to look more like a mass exodus. Jeremy Langmead, formerly of Esquire, is now at Mr. Porter. Andrea Linett, formerly of Lucky magazine, is now at eBay. Dennis Freedman, formerly of W, is now at Barneys. Fiona McIntosh, formerly of Grazia, is now at My Wardrobe. And the list goes on. It seems that there are almost weekly reports announcing that yet another magazine veteran has fled a traditional publishing company to take up a position at a brand or retailer. Recently, it was British Vogue that was in the headlines, when creative director Robin Derrick and fashion director Kate Phelan both announced within days of each other that they were leaving the magazine. Phelan is set to become creative director of Topshop, while Derrick’s plans have yet to be revealed.

By now, it’s a well-known fact that times are tough for traditional, ad-supported editorial outlets. For example, from 2007 through 2009, Condé Nast — publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair and others — saw about $500 million in revenue disappear, a decline from which it has yet to recover. In fact, Condé Nast CEO Chuck Townshend recently admitted to the Wall Street Journal, “My eyes are wide open. I don’t consider [the traditional ad-revenue model] to be a perennially sustainable stream of revenue.”

Yep - there is a huge market for this, one that Net-A-Porter and Mr. Porter dominate (~$200 million in revenue). They take care of the sizing issues with flexible returns and personal stylists. Since 80% of their revenue comes from only 2% of their client base, they can afford to hire personal stylists for higher-volume clientele. Check it out.

You are missing a very key point here: consumers do not decide what they wear, the fashion / PR machine decides that for them.

Think about this: while a girl may discover a cool, new designer on Pintrest and buy a dress from that designer, trust me, she will still scratch out some girl's eyeballs to get the new Louis Vuttion bag. And why? Branding. And hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing to create an image, an illusion, and an object that conveys status. LVMH is the most powerful and profitable luxury conglomerate in the world for a reason (it is about 3x more profitable than Amazon with 20% less revenue).

Brands either die or thrive based on their ability to do two things: create a desirable brand and manage inventory. The entire function of branding and marketing is not going to be replaced by Svpply. Or Pintrest. Or whoever.

Lastly, it's comical you keep mentioning Amazon. One of the biggest reasons for their success is their ability to manage a supply chain better than almost anyone else.

Huge fan of what you guys are doing. It speaks volumes that Carmen choose you as one of her first investments post Net-A-Porter. The products are really well-curated and it is one of the few sites I have seen that might actually have a shot at closing the 4-6 month production gap and reducing remnant inventory.

As anyone in the apparel business knows, you have two businesses: one full-price business and one remnant inventory business. The key to success is keeping your remnant inventory business as small as possible by closely matching production with demand, this balance can be difficult for an emerging designer with no experience, so I applaud you for trying to fix this problem and make it easier for a new designer to start a business. Good luck with everything!

I was actually discussing this very point with a good friend of mine who also runs a fashion startup the other day.

To refine what I said: it's not that discoverability is not a problem, it's that all of the new fashion apps (from Lyst to Fashism to Inporia to Svpply to Google Boutiques) seem to have only increased the "noise" versus decrease it. In fashion, customers pay for the edit: a small, curated collection of products that an editor has determined best fits her customer's profile. To argue that we can somehow replace this very right-brained activity with crowdsourcing or algorithms is untenable.