FashionStake Screenshot | Source: FashionStake

The FashionStake Diaries is a four-part series that gives BoF readers a behind the scenes look at the crucial first months of a crowdfunding fashion startup, seen through the eyes of its founders. Today, in the final diary entry, they reflect on the crucial first weeks following launch: what worked, what did not, lessons learned and plans for the future.

NEW YORK, United States —On the day of “go live” for any startup, planning is quickly overtaken by the reality of operational work. For us, September 1st was a memorable launch day. Months of pre-launch strategising, building, debating and recruiting was replaced with the business of actually running the company: answering customer calls, shipping our first items and managing our online merchandising.

We’d like to share our first month in business with you and, since this is our final post in the FashionStake Diaries, thank you for reading and commenting on our entries.

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FashionStake Screenshot | Source: FashionStake

The FashionStake Diaries is a four-part series that gives BoF readers a behind the scenes look at the crucial first months of a crowdfunding fashion startup, seen through the eyes of its founders. Today, as FashionStake goes live, the founders reveal their initial designer lineup and reflect on their journey thus far.

NEW YORK, United States — Almost one year ago to the day, we were sitting in a classroom at Harvard Business School drawing up an idea for a new fashion website. Shortly thereafter, we began the exciting, humbling and often heart-wrenching task of building a company at the intersection of fashion and technology.

Today, we are happy to launch the fruits of our labour. And in this post, we’d like to share some important lessons we learned along the way, introduce our initial designer lineup and encourage you to test drive the new site.

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FashionStake Screenshot | Source: FashionStake

The FashionStake Diaries is a four-part series that giving a behind-the-scenes look at the crucial first months of a crowdfunding fashion startup, seen through the eyes of its founders. In Part I, we examined how FashionStake got from idea to traction with $1000. Today, the founders reveal how they were able to finance their business.

NEW YORK, United States — Our business school professors used to say that startups were about getting four things right: the Context, the Opportunity, the Deal and the People. Having focused our early efforts on understanding how fashion has changed forever with the rise of Web 2.0 (the Context) and how an online marketplace connecting designers directly with the public could yield benefits for everyone (the Opportunity), it was time to turn our attention to funding (the Deal) and acquiring talent (the People).

Not all investment paths are equal

Consumer internet marketplaces like ours typically have “land-grab” dynamics. Whether the marketplace is for hand-made items, for example like Etsy, or discounted deals, like Groupon, a first-mover can capture 80 percent market share with later entrants left to fight over the remaining 20 percent.

Network effects are the main force at work here: great startups reach a critical mass of suppliers and buyers, which attracts even more suppliers and buyers. It’s the secret sauce that makes competing with established marketplaces like eBay a tough task.

But of course, getting to critical mass fast usually costs money. To start with, you need to build great products and hire great people. This is the main reason why we sought out external investment.

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FashionStake Screenshot | Source: FashionStake

Following last week’s Introduction to Crowdfunding, we are pleased to bring you The FashionStake Diaries, a new BoF series providing a behind-the-scenes look at the crucial first months of a crowdfunding fashion startup, seen through the eyes of its founders.

NEW YORK, United States — Some say a great business starts with an idea. We started with a problem: despite legions of loyal fans, internationally renowned designers like Yohji Yamamoto and Christian Lacroix were filing for bankruptcy because their businesses were failing.

Given their obvious talent and popularity, this was surprising and made us wonder: what if the internet could connect fashion designers directly with their fans? And what if those fans could directly fund designers, provide creative input and share in the rewards when the collections sold? In essence, what if we could harness the power of the web to “crowdfund” fashion the same way Wikipedia crowdsources articles?

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