When Jodie Snyder and her sister Danielle Snyder started their luxury jewelry brand Dannijo six and a half years ago, they weren't prepared for the Beyonce effect. When the pop queen bought a statement necklace from the fledgling company at Bergdorf Goodman in New York -- the first large retailer to stock Dannijo jewels -- the press attention was unprecedented.
"We started getting all these calls," Jodie Snyder told a roomful of young entrepreneurs and achievers at Forbes' Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia on Tuesday. "We had to put a lot of infrastructure in place more quickly than we thought. Neither of us had a grand five year plan."
Snyder was joined on a panel called She-Commerce: The Retail Revolution by Rent the Runway co-founder Jennifer Fleiss and Birchbox co-founder Hayley Barna, moderated by ForbesWoman executive editor Moira Forbes. The three shared advice gleaned from their time in the start-up trenches and now as successful entrepreneurs, running companies with cachet and revenues to match.
L to R: Moira Forbes of Forbes Media, Jodie Lynn Snyder of Dannijo, Jennifer Fleiss of Rent the... [+]
Like the Snyder sisters, Barna and co-founder Katia Beauchamp found their company, monthly subscription beauty product service Birchbox, growing more quickly than the duo could handle alone.
"Early on, we didn't make enough time to hire," she said. "We couldn't scale, just the two of us. We felt guilty and scared to share the responsibility."
That Barna and Beauchamp's first hire was a director of content might seem surprising at first for a makeup company. But Birchbox, like any successful retail start-up in today's market, needed a compelling, engaging e-commerce site. It had to feel authentic and to tell the story behind the beauty products for sale.
"Customers can see through it if it's too capitalistic from the beginning," said Barna. Soon enough, the site took off, as did Birchbox's unusual (but now widely copied) subscription model. Today the company boasts 800,000 subscribers, who each pay $10 a month for a sampling of personalized beauty, grooming and lifestyle samples. Birchbox sells full sizes of each item on their e-commerce site.
Jennifer Fleiss and Rent the Runway co-founder Jennifer Hyman faced a different challenge early on: launching a designer dress rental company before the sharing economy was a buzzword, or even a concept. "Uber wasn't at our fingertips five years ago," Fleiss said.
When the two started out, they planned to outsource functions they didn't think were within their respective capabilities. It took a web design mishap when they paid an outside firm to create their first website for the women to realize they needed to oversee every aspect of their start-up in its infancy.
Today, Rent the Runway is a $750 million tech and fashion company as well as operating the biggest dry cleaning business in the U.S. The staff includes 25 seamstresses and an entire team running logistics in-house.
"We had to make sure the experience was flawless," Fleiss said. "There couldn't be any stains, the dresses had to arrive on time. We wanted to own the process."
All three women shared with the audience the importance of social media for their businesses, not just to show off their wares but to complement the lifestyle each brand is selling alongside their products -- and to speak directly with shoppers, answering questions and giving styling tips.
Dannijo's Snyder sisters turned one of their early Instagram hashtags into a viral frenzy. They and friend Leandra Medine of popular fashion site Man Repeller would stack on a bunch of bangles and bracelets (both Dannijo jewels and other favorites) and photograph what they termed an #armparty. They encouraged their Instagram followers and fans of the brand to do the same. Today, a search for #armparty on the social photo-sharing site yields just under 770,000 results.
Rent the Runway's Fleiss and Hyman weren't sure how their company would fare on social media when they started. Could they make gown rental desirable and brag-worthy enough to merit customers posting online for all their friends to see? As it turned out, the two were solving a unique problem of the Facebook age.
Women loved being photographed in a beautiful dress, Fleiss explained, but once that photo was on Facebook, could she wear that outfit to an event again? Rent the Runway solved this thoroughly modern issue, offering a rotating closet for women who wouldn't otherwise be able to wear a $3,000 gown.
Birchbox's Barna and Beauchamp helped ensure their social media success early on when they cannily chose neon pink boxes for their monthly makeup deliveries. "We wanted them to be worthy of being photographed," Barna said.
Birchbox's packaging purposely draws eyeballs in apartment building foyers and office mailboxes, piquing curiosity. "There's a built-in virality," said Barna.
She and Beauchamp watched as subscribers started making and uploading YouTube videos of Birchbox "unboxing": unpacking each monthly treasure trove of sample shampoos, lip glosses and the like. When YouTube video bloggers with large followings made a video, Birchbox's site would see huge traffic surges. "It was like advertising," said Barna. "And people who pay us were creating the videos."
