Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How do you assess the TAM? How big is the bridesmaid dress category?

Ilana Stern: Bridesmaid dresses itself is about a $2 billion category housed within the $14 billion wedding fashion industry. Overall, the wedding industry is $100 billion.

Sramana Mitra: Your growth strategy is wedding industry merchandise or collaborative e-commerce?

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Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What has been your inventory strategy starting from the beginning to where you’re now doing private label. Can you step us through how the inventory strategy has evolved over time?

Ilana Stern: The brands that we launched with are special occasion dress brands that are all made to order. Essentially, it’s a non-inventory business because the dresses are produced for a specific customer. What’s special about that is there’s a tremendous amount of variety that we’re able to offer a bride with the made-to-order model. >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: This is not exactly a wedding planning site? It’s a bridesmaid shopping site.

Ilana Stern: No, it’s not. It’s a rich collaborative shopping experience.

Sramana Mitra: Yes, but your focus is still on bridesmaid dresses or has it broadened?

Ilana Stern: Our focus is still on bridesmaid dresses and we’ll be expanding beyond that. Earlier this year, we launched our own private label. We started to vertically integrate, which gives us the ability to get even closer. We’re so close to understanding what our customer wants and what she’s missing. We’ve got the power to serve that up to her through our private label collection. Over the next couple of years, we’ll be launching new categories of merchandise that’s still focused on the wedding industry. >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How did you select whom to put in the private beta? How were you finding these beta customers?

Ilana Stern: It started with my network. The fact that I am in the target audience is really helpful because I am the customer and the people around me are too. The first few customers came during the last quarter of business school. It was before the website even existed. One was my classmate from business school who was getting married after school. She approached me in the parking lot and said, “I’m getting married during the summer after graduation. I live in Palo Alto. Our friends live all over the place and are super busy. We are getting married on the East Coast. The logistics of managing all this is really difficult. I don’t know how to go about the bridesmaid dresses.” She knew that I was working on this idea. >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 2)

Ilana Stern: What was really interesting was that I saw this disconnect between the supply side and the demand side. If you took a millennial bride and looked at how she lived her life in general, it’s very different from how her mother lived her life in terms of how she consumes media, how she connects and stays in touch with friends, and how she shops. If you put a millennial in the position of being the bride and planning a wedding, she could actually take her wedding and hand it over to her mom. Her mom could plan it the same way she did 30 years ago, and not much has changed. It was this disconnect between consumer behavior and what the industry was offering the consumer that got me really excited about the industry. >>>

Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DefinitiveDeals Founder Mattias Larson (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: From 2012 to 2014, what are the highlights of the journey?

Mattias Larson: We doubled the revenues in the first year and a half. We grew the business from 2 to 14 people. We really managed to crack paid search. We managed to get some big brands on board that were difficult to get before.

Sramana Mitra: What is the portfolio of sites that you now manage? Are they all deals kind of site?

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Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DefinitiveDeals Founder Mattias Larson (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Until 2012, it was you and your wife. In 2010, the travel stopped but you still continue in the same model and the same mode of just the two of you in the business?

Mattias Larson: Yes, correct.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of revenue ramp, what were the numbers for 2009 to 2012? >>>

Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DefinitiveDeals Founder Mattias Larson (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Were you working with an affiliate network?

Mattias Larson: Yes, I started with Commission Junction. Right now, we’re probably a member of most of the networks out there.

Sramana Mitra: I suppose there is a certain intelligence that you apply to selecting what you want to merchandise on your site. Did you have any algorithm or philosophy around that?

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