Florent Peyre
BD and Strategy for GILT City, advisor for a couple of NY startups, affirmed geek
Profile
Summary
GILT City is part of GILT Groupe and headquartered in NY.
Experience
- Mar 2011 - PresentMentor / NYC SeedstartNYC SeedStart Media is a 12-week summer program designed to provide seed funding to technology companies to build a product and launch their company. SeedStart is interested in companies focusing on advertising infrastructure, e-commerce, digital content, and mobile technology. Companies will work with an incredible network of mentors, professionals, and experienced technology entrepreneurs. Venture Capital Partners include Contour Venture Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital/Genacast Ventures, NYC Seed, Polaris Venture Partners, RRE Ventures.
- Dec 2010 - PresentAdvisor / First Growth Venture NetworkFirst Growth Venture Network runs programs twice yearly. Over the five month session, participating entrepreneurs hone their business plans, work with advisors on product market fit, pacing and development milestones, customer acquisition, and recruitment and retention strategies. In addition, our entrepreneurs will discuss business strategy and share lessons with some of the best in the business while really ramping their networks and occasionally tipping back a glass of Chateuneuf, Napa Cabernet or Reisling. We even have a Broadway star work with our entrepreneurs on their presentation skills. Our core emphasis is learning and the expansion of a network of peers, advisors and financiers (but it doesn’t hurt to have some fun too).
The cornerstone of First Growth is the network of individuals involved. From some of the most accomplished entrepreneurs in the nation to leading venture capitalists, much of the power from First Growth comes from the participants involved. Each monthly session, admitted companies spend time with successful C-level executives and investors to discuss business issues, compare notes and ask advice. We may not have all the answers but we promise to help you find them. - Dec 2010 - PresentAdvisor / Time To Sign OffYou don’t have the time to search the web for news, deals and events, but you don’t want to miss anything either, count on SignOff’s nightly email to deliver the latest.
- Sept 2010 - PresentVP Business Development & Strategy / Gilt City
- Jun 2009 - PresentBoard Member Sciences Po Alumni / Sciences Po
- 2009 - Oct 2010Advisor / MyNinesMyNines is a free service that offers you one convenient location to discover designer products from various sample sale sites.
All products on MyNines are 40-90% off (except for wine and travel deals). Sales last for a limited time, only (24-72 hours).
As any avid shopper will tell you, online sample sales have put the thrill back into shopping. We'd much rather hit the refresh button on our computers at noon everyday, than push through the crowds of New York and LA. But imagine our disappointment when we started missing out on great deals just because we couldn't keep track of the dozens of sample sale sites out there. We were getting 12 emails a day and discovering new sites each week. So we decided to pull it all together and put the thrill back where it belonged... just so that you'd never miss a deal! - 2009 - Oct 2010Advisor / Totsy.comWhere the savvy mom shops
Totsy offers moms on-the-go and moms-to-be access to brand-specific sales, up to 70% off retail, just for them and the kids, ages 0-7.
Top brands for mom, baby, and child
Prenatal care products, baby gear, travel accessories, bedding and bath, children's clothing, toys, DVDs, and educational materials are just a sampling of a selection that promises only the best in quality and designer brands.
By invitation only
Membership is by invitation or request only. But the sooner you join, the better. Each sale lasts only 48 to 72 hours.
100% eco-friendly - Mar 2010 - Sept 2010Vice President Emerging Platforms / Hachette Filipacchi MediaRunning all mobile and emerging platforms operations and strategy for Hachette's brands, including iPhone, iPad, eReaders and mobile web
- Jan 2008 - Apr 2010Vice President, Business & Corporate Development / Hachette Filipacchi Media- Selected and implemented the best strategic directions to reach the financial objectives assigned to the Digital group, in close coordination with Hachette's SVP of Digital and Hachette's EVP/COO.
Achievements: Initiated a new strategy around the development of alternative revenue streams from mid-2008 to partly offset advertising weaknesses. Main partnerships cemented then included Stylefeeder (Highland-backed / Time Inc. acquired company) and Rue La La (GSI acquired) to boost ELLE eCommerce revenues;
- Supervised all aspects of business development, including partnerships with portals, mid and long-tail publishers and social networks.
Achievements: Contributed to the largest increase of Hachette’s websites audience to date - multiplied by ten to reach an average of 10 millions unique visitors in 2009. Main partnerships included content vs. traffic partnerships with MSN Wonderwall, Yahoo! Shine / Buzz / Metro, Google Flip and AOL Living and content vs. revenues with Hulu, YouTube, MSN Autos and My Space;
− Oversaw M&A, including acquisition sourcing, acquisition strategy, due diligences, valuation and financial evaluations of contemplated targets; negotiations with the bankers, lawyers and sellers.
Achievements: Spearheaded the first major Hachette acquisition in the US since 1995 of Jumpstart Automotive, an online ad network specialized on the Automotive space, bought for $120 million (April 2007), nurtured Hachette relations with major VCs, bankers and entrepreneurs to aliment potential deal pipeline;
− Initiated and concluded a major multiyear and multimillion dollars partnership and JV with Microsoft and BermanBraun to launch Glo, a new lifestyle site for MSN (www.glo.com)
Achievements: Negotiation of the JV and contract with both Microsoft and BermanBraun principals, financial modeling, strategy and negotiation for all content partnerships and alternative revenue streams. Launch forecasted in Q2 2010. - Jan 2007 - Jan 2008Director Business Development Digital / Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.
- Nov 2003 - Jan 2007Principal / Lagardere SCAOne of the world’s leading media groups with four distinct, complementary business lines: book publishing (#2 worldwide), distribution of cultural products (#4 worldwide), print and audiovisual media (#6 worldwide), and management and marketing of sporting rights (#2 worldwide). Publicly listed in Paris with 2008 revenues in excess of $12bn
- In charge of corporate mergers and acquisitions at the Lagardère level:
* Advised Lagardère major business units at the management level on their acquisition strategies and prospects;
* Supervised acquisitions processes: liaison with bankers and lawyers, drafting of financial due diligences, valuation and business plans reviews of contemplated targets.
- Oversaw internal reviews of large Lagardère subsidiaries in several countries: review of internal processes; formulation of recommendations to improve business and financial policies; advise local teams as they implement changes.
- Recruited and trained of a team of 3 directors-level and junior staff. - Sept 2000 - Nov 2003Senior Team Lead / Ernst & Young
Education
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2005 - 2007Université Panthéon Sorbonne (Paris I)Master in Business and Law in Broadcast Medias
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1998 - 2000Institut d'Etudes politiques de ParisMaster's Degree in Business, Finance, Accounting
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1994 - 1998Université Panthéon Sorbonne (Paris I)Law Degree in International Business Law
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1992 - 1994Lycee Francais de Los Angeles
- Lycee Moliere
Additional Information
Posts
Saw David Cancel present the other day at Dogpatch Labs New York his data driven startups thesis. That guy goes straight to the point, no time lost on details. The whole presentation is really a must-read: how you need, from the start, to install a data driven culture in your startup (or in any project you’re starting to that matter). Test everything, get data for everything, and then iterate, iterate and iterate.
The 3 stages you need to go through (and in that order, this is critical) is to first get yourself operational dashboards (simple please! the simplest the better, if not nobody pays attention to it).
Once these are working reports used throughout the organization, you can move to getting yourself some funnel analysis and then move on to cohort analysis.
It’s all pretty clear in his presentation that I’ve embeded below. Direct link to David’s original post here.
Filed under: Technology and Web, Venture Capital
30 slides of explanation on where we stand on the ad ecosystems and the intersection of data / display / search / ad optimization.
Presented at the IAB, this is from Terence Kawaja, an MD at GCA Savvian.
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Filed under: Advertising, Technology and Web
At last night’s NY Tech Meetup, the show got kicked off by some demos from university students. I particularly liked the mashup of Steve Lehrburger leveraging Foursquare API and showing a heat map of your checkins.
Here’s the heat map of my 759 checkins in Foursquare. As I could expect, the 2 big heat points are midtown, where my office is based, and Soho / Nolita / Bowery where I spend most of my time outside of the office. I couldn’t include Brooklyn where I live (doesn’t fit on the map). Anyway, little but neat app…
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Filed under: Social Networks, Technology and Web
This was the past year of my life. Thrilled to see it launched today and amazed by the look and feel of the site! Check it out for yourself on Glo.
It’s all about bringing personal “me-time” and personal time for women on the web while presenting that in a visually very aspirational design package.
Full press release there.
Filed under: Business Development
I was listening to the Technology Podcast from the NPR that relates results of a study from Laszlo Barabasi, a human behavior researcher from Northeastern University. Laszlo negotiated access to full blind data from 50,000 cellphones subscribers to study their travelings and movements throughout a defined period (all cellphone signals transit through nearby cellphone towers, enabling the tracking).
The key finding is the extremely high percentage of predictability in day-to-day patterns. On average, he was able to see a 93% rate of predictability. That means that in 93% of the cases, you could in theory predict where that specific user would be. A lot of us might tend to believe that we’re fairly diversified creatures but when it comes to daily patterns, you’re pretty much the same as the one sitting next to you in the subway.
But what caught my attention was that phrase from Laszlo:
“We were seeing an average of 93 percent predictability across the user base. What does it mean? That means that for the vast majority of the people, you could, in principle, write an algorithm that could predict 93 percent of the time, correctly, their present location.“
Now imagine what you could do with that, once your algorithm is build and you don’t have to rely anymore on actual data (hence getting rid of the immediate issues of privacy, data collection and storage and other Big Brothers driftings). The services you can bring to any organization managing large infrastructures, being it roads, trains, subways, local development etc. If somebody could convince carriers to open all anonymous and blind data through an APIs and let the hordes of developers coming up with applications on top of it, it would probably spur a great deal of innovative services.
The full 4 minutes of the interview are there.
Filed under: Technology and Web
Upon the sharing of a friend on Facebook (ahhh… the power of social recommendation…), I discovered a new service called in Flavors.me which enables anyone to build a personalized page on himself or anyone else and then link to it the main social content production factories. They currently carry 14 services including Facebook, Tumblr but also your DVD queue from Netflix, your checkins from Foursquare or the last tracks you’ve been listening on Last.fm.
Once you’ve added all services, the user coming to your page can click on the services you’ve added and a window will display whatever stream of activity you’ve had on that specific service.
Testing it yesterday, I mechanically added all the services I’m using including Netflix and Foursquare. Once I realized that everybody could then follow my physical traces around NY through Foursquare or all photos that I posted to Facebook (and where these only get displayed to a selected list of people), I freaked out and decided to limit that to only the safer LinkedIn and other Twitter feeds.
Well, boy, it was easy to add services but it was a nightmare to remove them. Flavors.me doesn’t include a “Remove The Service” option… Sure, they’re in beta but given the nature of their business, that should probably be part of your MVP feature… So then I went to all the services I wanted to get off my Flavors.me page and remove the authorization for Flavors.me to access these data. But even with that, Flavors.me kept the latest stream of data imported. Sure, nothing new was going to get published but all of the content previously imported was visible.
I ended terminating my account at Flavors.me to clean it. Don’t get me wrong, I think the service is pretty neat (rebuilding a page right now), but I was a little taken aback by the difficulty to keep track of all your social traces. That comes around a fairly large debate, initially provoked by the launch of PleaseRobMe which list empty homes by tapping into Twitter API. While Foursquare is a closed network (you need to approve your friends), more and more people link it automatically with their Twitter account which is an open network, all of a sudden revealing to anyone who wants to find it whether you’re at home or not. Foursquare countered back on that issue but this is just the beginning of more and more debates around open systems.
One of the key improvements there would probably be for the main companies that offers to link your accounts to open systems like Twitter to state clearly that you pushing out data on the open. I also think that the details of permissions given to 3rd-party services should be much more detailed on networks like Facebook and Twitter. You basically should be able to have the same detail of what you’re authoring and to whom as you have in your Facebook privacy settings. For once, I might be pretty ok (actually I know I would…) to display on Flavors.me my Foursquare badges, but not necessarily all my checkins…
The photo above shows my welcome screen on Flavors.me with my Tumblr blog feed open
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Filed under: Social Networks, Technology and Web
I’m the new happy owner of an iPhone. One of the first thing that I did was trying to find the right application to bring back all of the feeds that I carefully manage on my Google RSS reader. Because living in Brooklyn means sometime fairly long commutes, reading trade news and the bloggers that matter to me when traveling was critical.
And the app that I found works fairly well (seamlessly download all of the latest articles when I’m connected, that I can then “comfortably read” while commuting).
But the problem that I have is that a bunch of publishers (never bloggers I have to say, either by lack of tech knowledge or maybe because they’re just more open to the social web) think it is smart to parse their feeds and only include abstracts. Here are the usual reasons brought on and why it doesn’t make sense:
- “We need to have the user on our site, if not, people tend to not go anymore to our site…”
Who cares where the media is consumed? The key thing is make sure that you aggregate all of the analytics (and not only your site’s analytics). Most of the analytical packages now include that as a standard. And you might even learn interesting things about your audience (where is the media consumed, through what device or what platform etc.). In the end game, what matters is that the user is in contact with your brand, whether connected or disconnected.
- “We’re losing money since we can’t serve ads…”
While that was true for a long time, there’s more and more solutions coming down the road for publishers to monetize their RSS audience (see the good article from Dosh Dosh on that). And even if it’s not fully perfect, you can actually come up with new interesting packages for your advertisers that would, for example. include location-based services / promotions / coupons etc.
- “Our content is beautiful and should really be consumed on a full screen rather than a micro device…”
True again for a long time but the irruption of smart phones and e-readers is going to revolutionize that radically in terms of media consumption usage while potentially increase the rendering of your content (you might even stretch that argument to say that in some large e-readers that include color, the rendering will be ultimately better than through the current web experience).
There’s also a couple of downsides on the abstract method. The main one (realized from my own use) is that I tend to skip the feeds that are just a couple of lines long. It’s very very frustrating to start reading the abstract, get excited and then being unable to finish the article. Sure, I can always save it for later, but unless that 3 lines abstract was crazy interesting, I’ll never go back to it. So, first effect, I don’t use these feeds anymore (and therefore, I actually stop reading that specific publication, relying on the rest of the feeds to get me informed – good example at Silicon Alley Insider).
You have to follow your users instead of trying to shoehorn them into what you believe is good for you.
In the long run, I realized that with the help of an e-reader and/or a smartphone, I actually consume more media than before. It’s an exciting feeling to board on a plane with no internet connection (that’s getting rare though) and know that you’ll be able to catch up on all these great articles you’ve been saving for a moment like that, a moment when you’re not connected. And that’s also probably a moment where you, as a media company, want to be in the mind of the mind-free user, especially when that user is actually available to connect with your brand.
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Posted in Advertising, Social Networks, Technology and Web
- Image by Evan Hamilton via Flickr
We’re getting together (my friend Juan Lopez Valcarcel and myself) before the SF-based TC 50 that starts on Monday September 14th.
We’ll be all at the Hotel Vitale’s bar (Mission and Embarcadero) for informal drinks on Sunday night (starting 6:30 PM).
Join us!
All info there: http://tc50europeans.eventbrite.com
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Posted in Uncategorized
Posts
Virgin America-Gilt Offer: Jumbo Jet With Your Name on It | Fox Business: Continued coverage!
Virgin America and Gilt City Will Let You Name a Plane : Daily Traveler : Conde Nast Traveler: How...
Google Offers partners with Gilt City to offer subscribers time-sensitive deals: I’m a woman...
Partnership With Gilt City Shows Google’s New Focus On High-End Shoppers | paidContent: Great piece
Google Offers to Partner with Luxury Experience Site Gilt City : Thanks to Stephanie Tilenius for...
Google: More local deals, personalized to your interests: Lookout for sweet @giltcity...
Gerard Depardieu Pees on Carpet of Air France Plane - The Hollywood Reporter: Ah… French...
Gilt City Sells 3,300 Virgin America Flight Packages in 24 Hours - Tricia Duryee - Commerce -...
Virgin America | Gilt City National: Startup ceos! this is your time to buy 10 return flights coast...
Fred Destin: European VC Needs Revolution, Not Evolution: Refreshing look at the European VC desert
Gilt City Expands Into Four New Metros - Executive Style - Portfolio.com: Launch day!
Gilt City and Foursquare Partner Up - WSJ.com: Another fun one!
Mad TV - Can I Have Your Number: BD hustlin’ - overkill…
Ben Widdicombe, GiltCity EIC and now amNY Columnist | The New York Observer: Read it! It’s a...
Learning to Be French in Brooklyn - WSJ.com: Great article!
Unique Sweets, The Gilt City Tour! | Devour The Blog: Cooking Channel: Exciting partnership with our...
Gilt-ii Takes Top Prize At The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon: Pretty cool hack
Updates
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Ok - it's crazy but first time using the Bart in SF and the process of purchasing tickets is not that intuitive...
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Good metrics on mobile apps usage inside of @facebook - Facebook Platform Roadmap in 2012 http://t.co/EKPS3ybW via @InsideNetwork
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Watching again Snake Eyes from Brian de Palma. That long opening sequence is still crushing it...
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Such a smart and nimble acq - been a fan of @Rapportive - @LinkedIn Picks Up Rapportive For Around $15m http://t.co/6vCzXnv3
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NYTimes: In Data Deluge, Multitaskers Go to Multiscreens http://t.co/Lz74FWpW
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Spooky commercial about Downton Abbey Airs on Spike - HI-LA-RIOUS - great way to start the week. Thx @tobyhervey http://t.co/XyRzcm3G
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NYTimes: Significant and Silly at @BuzzFeed - significant scaling happening http://t.co/uAARp2rW
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As was singing Bob Dylan, "time is a jetplane"... Not sure where this weekend went but it went fast...3 days ago from web | Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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I'm having a 2nd epiphany with @foodspotting since it integrated into @facebook. The guide function is also pretty pretty awesome!
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2nd time in the same day. Is that reasonnable? Thinking of @robronanea while ordering a Tito dirty martini... http://t.co/QJNz0PHX
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@robbiesalter thanks - great article!
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Just a couple of coasters and @marcelpeyre is good for the day... No drama Cc: @nathanr http://t.co/IAJUNf9C
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@nathanr @ovitz @madelinegarber @maewow my personal fave: your last year "costume de matelot" with high heels
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Orange sanguine donut from Dough - best ever @ Bittersweet http://t.co/6XCO29SS
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Ok now I have to admit it - insanely hooked up on Downton Abbey - thanks for the tip @TobyHervey @Ovitz
Posts
Good recap from Ad Age on the tensions underlying the online advertising. Basically, when a traditional publisher finally get to identify a high quality audience, that he managed to brought on his site through content investments etc., he’s only getting the smallest piece of the pie (the amount monetized on the site itself)…
The “long tail” of the monetization is then usually captured by the ad networks for a cheaper rate, helped on that by the many behavioral providers (Revenue Science, Tacoda etc.). It’s ironic because what makes these users valuable to advertisers is precisely the fact that they’ve been through and interact with the original publisher site.
The only way to escape the vicious circle is for publishers to concentrate vertically. That’s what we’ve done at Hachette with the acquisition of Jumpstart Automotive that offers behavioral targeting solutions, enabling us to capture most of the monetization long tail.
Here’s the full article: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=133523
Last day on the boat 7:30 AM
Julie Morizet
Cultural Affairs
Director, Special Events
French Institute Alliance Francaise
22 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
(646) 388-6669
jmorizet@fiaf.org
Last day on the boat 7:30 AM
Julie Morizet
Cultural Affairs
Director, Special Events
French Institute Alliance Francaise
22 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
(646) 388-6669
jmorizet@fiaf.org
So I finally tasted the first of the 6 bottles that I bought the other day at Morrell for a very cheap price (http://tinyurl.com/6j49a7).
The wine was a Chateau Longueville from the Baron Pichon Longueville (usually called Pichon Baron to distinguish it from the Chateau Pichon from the Countess of Lalande…) 1988.
I was a bit weary of what to expect since 1988 is clearly not a great year in the Bordeaux area, far less known than 1990 or even 1989. It’s a Pauillac (Medoc area).
Well, I have to say that Julie and I were blown away by the quality and texture of it.
With 20 years of maturing, the wine had a very soft, silken texture on the first mouth. But then the wine was very powerful after a couple of seconds in the mouth, with a long finish of red berries, some flavors of licorice and even gingerbread. First nose was very discreet but after 30 to 45 minutes, it opened dramatically.
Overall, it is probably in my top 20 of the past 12 months at a very reasonable price. Parker gave it a 90 and referenced it as a Past Glory of Pichon Baron.
Looking forward tasting the remaining 5 left…
Brilliant site from the highly buzzed Seth Godin's empire that make you spent the day arguing on stupid (or passionate) debates.
Just like Squidlit (you're getting paid to do book reviews), The Ever Project (aggregations of topics around "what's the worst", "the biggest ever" etc.), Squidwho (mashups and aggregations around fan pages), Hey Monkey Brain uses the Squidoo engine to power the site.
Squidoo is a content aggregation engine that lets user create "lenses" i.e. ways to look at a specific subject (let's say, you're a huge fan of laptops bags, you're going to create a page around these bags and, obviously link to the pages where you can buy these bags). Heavily viral and engaging, the site launched less than 2 years ago is already close to 10m UVs worldwide and close to 5m UVs in ComScore. This growth has been achieved with very little SEM investment (if you check Spyfu, you get to an investment under 100 grands a year - check here).
The whole team is under 10 peoples, mostly technical and including Seth himself.
You can find an pure ecommerce application of the concept in France through Zlio which lets its users create personnalized shopping pages. So let say you're a huge fan of Saint Therese of Lisieux, you'll create a page that will aggregate all of the products available on this well-known catholic saint (see the page here). The more targeted is the subject, the biggest conversion rate you're going to achieve and the more money you'll make (Zlio users get a rev share on the affiliation revenue).
Seth's model enables users to choose between keeping the money or giving it to a charity.
Knowing how much transformation rates are affected by the contextual relevance of the pages, Stylefeeder (a recommendation engine, mostly focused on fashion) applied these teachings by letting the user drives the type of products that he might be interested in. Stylehive has the same goal but emphasize the social aspect of shopping to get there. And Like.com is approaching it through a visual recognition application.
For now, there's still no clear winner on the social shopping space but that could evolve very quickly knowing the pressure that all of these companies have from their investors (to the exception of Squidoo).
Here's ComScore's chart showing Squidoo constant growth over the course of the last 14 months:
I was reading the coverage from PaidContent regarding the recent funding of Total Prestige, a social networking site aimed at the richest (see full post here) and was curious to see what it looked like.
Obviously, since they currently have only 650 members (a good or bad sign), I don’t have access to the back-end site, only the demo (anyone out there?). Other than the classic cheap 80’s pictures and cliches very St Tropez meet Dubai, the value proposition wasn’t very clear. It comes with an “online magazine“, which is a cheap version of the Robb Reports, Dealmakers and Traders Magazines, by the way all on the block currently. You can always spend some time in luxurious places after you buy fractional ownerships of Richard Nillson’s “Residence Superieur” (sic).
The fact that Rose only injected $1m there is an indication of the limit of the new project.
Another investment probably going down the drain…
Ok so after spending so many hours at the Barney's Sample Sale twice a year - battling my way through crazy amount of people, trying a suit pant in the middle of the room while keeping an eye on these John Varvatos pants so I'd secured later - the emergence of the online-only sample sales sounded like a great revolution.
Nothing new there though since it's been going on already for close to 10 years in France: for example, check out the absolute leader there (close to 90% market share) at www.vente-privee.com. With an estimated valuation over 800m euros (above $1bn), the company was doing close to $500m revenues in 2007 and, given its business model, is clearly cash flow positive.
Following the appealing model, a couple of startups were created in the US, most of them distincts from each other in terms of market positionnement or marketing tactics. Still an early stage market here, it's obviously the right time given what's happening on the economy (after all, one of the best current marketing tactic for KMart and now for Sears is to push a refreshed version of the layaway business model - check out http://tinyurl.com/5fxt5h).
The market
Before we actually take a look at the competition outlook, I want to define clearly what I'm meaning by online sample sale: it's the business of selling online only apparel (clothes, accessories etc.) at discounted prices. The items sold can be part of current or past collections, from well-known or less-known designers and for men, women or childrens. It's different from the business of using online as a marketing tool for physical sample sales (think any newletter alert for physical sale or any advertisement on websites). It is also different from the business of selling discounted goods on retailers sites (Barneys.com, Saks etc.) or the occasional 20 to 30% off at the end of the collections.
The companies that are currently struggling to eat each other market shares are (by order of importance / size / credibility
- Gilt Groupe - backed by Kevin Ryan's Alleycorp and Matrix Partners and now headed by ex-Marta Stewart Susan Lyne. See a full description of the site by Miss Olive there)
- Rue La La - backed by the guys behind SmartBargains.com (Retail Convergence)
- Hautelook - no funding info
- ideeli - currently funded by the founder and CEO Paul Hurley and Kodiak Ventures
- The Top Secret - no funding info
- Editor's Closet - no funding ingo
- Regent's Secret - no funding info
There's other providers that are smaller but these are the main ones.
Key levers to success
Obviously, the first one is the inventory. How to secure highly desirable inventory (think blue-chip names) at low prices so that you can attract people on the promises of 50 to 70% discounts. Securing the right inventory is both a guarantee of wiping out the competition, positionning your emerging brand at the right level and the promise of securing new designers by becoming reliable.
The second one is the logistic. Again here, the audience is coming for the discounts but you'll get them addicted if you can provide the closest to instant gratification.
The third one is refunds / returns and any other after sale services. Since you're going to end up returning 50% of what you bought, either because it was too small, too expensive or you just changed your mind, this part is playing a large role on the return usage metrics.
Far behind are the interface and the website since people don't care too much about shopping in a beautiful environment when they're looking for these $50 sweaters from James Perse.
The role of the first 2 criteria is highlighted by the fact that most of the people behind these companies usually have a background around physical sample sale (or ecommerce) and/or logistic expertise. For example, Alexis Maybank from Gilt Groupe, comes from eBay. Regent's Secret company has been founded through the alliance of a physical sample sale provider and the head of a logistic company etc.
Segmentation
The key potential segments are going to be:
- Upscale / Low end: where do you position your store. That assumption will very quickly determine the type of inventory you want to secure, the total potential market size and your own projections in terms of sales, revenue per user etc.
- Customer: to who are you selling. That's clearly a moving target since most of the actors actually started on the women side (highest probability of scoring sales) to men, accessories, jewelry, travel goods etc. Vente-Privee in France now also sell electronic, wine etc.
On these two segments, see the attached Powerpoint slide showing how these guys are vs each others.
What's the future?
A couple of heavy hitters are starting to understand the potential of the market. I heard that Net a Porter was working on a project currently called TheOutnet to start a sample sale service for their already upscale audience in UK and the US.
Also, Vente-Privee might be looking at the US market as a potential for additional growth since they are close to saturation in France and already pursuing growth opportunities in Europe. It's going to be interested to see the founder and CEO speaking later this month at the french LeWeb 08 conference (see the program here).
Finally, another big threat is obviously the possibility for either the brands or their key retailers, to directly handle this sale channel. Could be by creating dedicated sections on their sites or by creating new brands but if the business is growing steadiliy, they'll probably start thinking that giving away 50% of the margin is a bit high...
The key issue for the Gilt Groupe of the world is going to be the growth in terms of users. Most of them are reaching to larger media companies to tap their audiences and lower their cost of acquisition. So probably more to come in terms of partnerships for these companies (my guess is that's the main reason of the appointment of Susan Lyne at the head of Gilt Groupe).
In the meantime, start shopping there and testing, it's a fun landscape...
I was reading the extensive coverage regarding the french Socialisr Party election in Paris last week. A lot of noise around a replay of the 2000 recount between Buch and Gore.
Given the result in the US, I hope that France will do as usual and adopt the opposite position of the one selected by the US...
Recent tracks
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Outro by M834 hours ago
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Klaus I Love You by M834 hours ago
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Echoes of Mine by M834 hours ago
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Steve McQueen by M834 hours ago
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Fountains by M834 hours ago
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Year One, One UFO by M834 hours ago
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Splendor by M835 hours ago
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Another Wave from You by M836 hours ago
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OK Pal by M836 hours ago
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New Map by M836 hours ago
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Posts
Launch day!
Very cool song ♫ Listening to Wait Up (Boots Of Danger) RAC Remix by Tokyo Police Club on exfm http://ex.fm/s/nXw2l
Amazing song - perfect with clear blue sky! ♫ Listening to Trust by Generationals on exfm http://ex.fm/s/qK8wk
Fantastic Rainy Sunday track! ♫ Listening to Aberdeen by Felicia Atkinson & Sylvain Chauveau on exfm http://ex.fm/s/p3D16
♫ Listening to Aydio – Deltitnu on exfm - Chill out Sunday baby! http://ex.fm/s/p3D0Z
Massive Attack feat. Hope Sandoval - Paradise Circus
Out of their latest album, Heligoland, this is a song that goes perfectly with today’s tormented and dark weather over New York…

Audio
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Very cool song ♫ Listening to Wait Up (Boots Of Danger) RAC Remix by Tokyo Police Club on exfm http://ex.fm/s/nXw2l0 plays
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Amazing song - perfect with clear blue sky! ♫ Listening to Trust by Generationals on exfm http://ex.fm/s/qK8wk0 plays
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Fantastic Rainy Sunday track! ♫ Listening to Aberdeen by Felicia Atkinson & Sylvain Chauveau on exfm http://ex.fm/s/p3D160 plays
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♫ Listening to Aydio – Deltitnu on exfm - Chill out Sunday baby! http://ex.fm/s/p3D0Z0 plays
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♫ Listening to Pickup Truck by Kings Of Leon on exfm http://ex.fm/s/nX3KJ0 plays
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Arnaud Fleurent Didier - France Culture WARNING - French attack!0 plays
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LCD Soundsystem - You Wanted a Hit My favorite from the last album21 plays
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Miles Davis - Flamenco Sketches Long summer nights…220 plays
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Iron & Wine with Calexico - Sixteen, maybe less2 plays
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Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life Unlike my precedent posting, this fits perfectly in the pre-summer vibe that I’m getting right now… Thanks to @fabfunk…13 plays
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Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks8 plays
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Lupe Fiasco - What You Want Aerial groove light-hearted little musical object14 plays
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Massive Attack feat. Hope Sandoval - Paradise Circus Out of their latest album, Heligoland, this is a song that goes perfectly with today’s tormented and dark weather over New York…11 plays





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