“But it turns out that concept really resonated with moms and people who were busy with their kids and families,” she said. Lake said she had expected her market to be busy women in their 20s and 30s who have no time to shop but want nice clothes for brunches and engagement parties.
But the service was received almost as well by women in Wyoming, Alabama and Minnesota - so much so that the company is considering opening a warehouse closer to those states to reduce shipping costs. Similarly, Katrina Lake, chief executive and founder of Stitch Fix, an online styling company that sends customers boxes of clothing tailored just for them, said her service was quickly adopted by people in New York and San Francisco who wanted help finding cool clothes. Thanks in part to the proliferation of smartphones, social media and e-commerce, and to the general Internet proficiency that is helping to change the definition of an early adopter, she has found that her service enjoys wider appeal than she had expected.
Ramamurthy’s company, Lumoid, is based in San Francisco, but much of the early adoption of its business occurred in states like Texas and Idaho. “The demographic is starved for a company that cares about it,” he said, noting that while blacks tend to be among the early adopters and consumers of social technologies, it is rare for companies to acknowledge that or to market to them directly. In addition, this new business, Walker & Company, would address a problem that he and his friends encounter.
His time at Andreessen Horowitz had given him insight into what makes a good company and what investors are likely to support. Walker, who helped build the social media darling Foursquare and held the coveted position of entrepreneur-in-residence at Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, it seemed a sure bet. Tristan Walker decided that his moon shot would be revolutionizing the skin-care and beauty-product industry for African-Americans. Entrepreneurs have a term for outsized problems they want to tackle or bigger-than-life bets they want to make: “moon shots.” Examples include Google’s driverless cars and Amazon’s delivery-by-drone.
0 kommentar(er)
