Nyx Founder Interview, What Comes After TV?, Blitzfail Go off the Rails, Real Life Retail, Brooklinen raises $50M, Shopify Angels
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Toni Ko was in her mid-20s when she started her makeup company, NYX Cosmetics. With seed money from her mother, the Korean immigrant transformed the business from a solo operation into a company that was eventually acquired by L’Oreal SA LRLCY 1.79% for a reported $500 million.
Ms. Ko says the early lessons she learned from her parents about entrepreneurship and money shaped her into the businesswoman she is today. Although she worked hard for it, she found early retirement boring and disappointing.
She recently sat down with The Wall Street Journal for an interview for the Secrets of Wealthy Women podcast.
Snapchat is making hypercondensed shows specifically to watch on a smartphone. It’s harder than you’d think.
YouTube videos, for instance, can be of any length, and they’re made for a standard horizontal frame; Snap shows are designed for a vertical one, and they play without asking viewers to flip their phones sideways.
Unlike theater or poetry, novels made space for scenes that didn’t directly move the plot forward, make moral arguments, or advance the aesthetic design of the work.
BlitzFail: How Not to Go Off the Rails
Every year, the tech ecosystem witnesses once-promising startups go off the rails. The speed with which a unicorn can go from hot startup…
But in the early stages, it’s a slippery slope that is easy to rationalize: Eventually, the startup believes, it will go back and automate the human pieces; in the meantime it would be foolish to turn down real customers and revenue.
As the company grows, it is also wise to create more structure around HR and culture, such as by adding formal onboarding and training programs, surveying employee happiness, and stressing the virtues of operating with integrity.
E-commerce is always in focus at eTail West, but it's clear that these days even digital natives are in search of ways to meet customers face to face.
The chief executive-founders of activewear company Carbon38, (which has tapped fitness instructors to be its "ambassadors"), and jewelry maker Stella & Dot, (which, like Avon and Tupperware before it, encourages home-based parties to make sales) discussed how their brands have fostered face-to-face interactions to boost the top line.
Yet, while Spector told the eTail audience that the ad was "a very important step for us" and a marketing opportunity, he insisted that the company has always been more focused on improving its fit tool and its merchandise, designed to include all body types, than on its much larger, if struggling, rival.
Brooklinen raises $50M to open more stores and expand internationally – TechCrunch
Brooklinen, a startup that sells bedding and other home goods online, has raised $50 million in new funding from growth equity firm Summit Partners. Recent headlines are spurring bigger questions about the direct-to-consumer retail business, with Blue Apron exploring a potential sale.
When Brooklinen first launched in 2014, it had to be profitable, because investors were skeptical about the idea, leaving Rich and Viki Fulop (they’re husband-and-wife co-founders ) to bootstrap the company until raising $10 million from FirstMark Capital in 2017.
For example, he said that the company lowered its customer acquisition costs by taking “a hard look” at its different marketing channels and cutting back on the ones that “weren’t carrying their weight.” It also “invested in site analytics and A/B testing platforms,” while launching new products like robes, shower curtains and bath rugs.
While most of these angels are successful entrepreneurs in their own right, there is no guarantee their investments will turn out to be winners. But it’s a risk they’re willing to take
“One of the reasons I’m investing, besides the fact that I’m very curious and I think it’s a great way to learn about different industries and to help entrepreneurs, is that I want to give back,” says Mr. Jama, an angel investor and senior product lead at Shopify.
The brothers, entrepreneurs who also worked on Facebook’s e-commerce team in Toronto, spent about a year consulting with pet nutritionists about the right food to feed different dog breeds to help them live longer.
