30 Apr 2010, Posted by admin in 20 Questions,Fashion, 0 Comments

20 Questions with Weardrobe

Name: Suzanne Xie

Job Title: Co-founder of Weardrobe

If you like flipping through fashion magazines for style inspiration, you will love Weardrobe, an online social platform that gives you the opportunity to not only follow fellow fashion enthusiasts with great style, but also to produce your own lookbook—essentially creating your own virtual closet. Co-founded by Suzanne Xie and Richard Tong in 2008, Weardrobe is on the cutting edge of fashion and social media, attracting over 35,000 visitors daily and shifting the source of fashion inspiration from highly edited magazine pages to everyday street styles. The start-up has quickly garnered an impressive list of achievements in less than two years—it hosted the first ever conference for fashion bloggers, got start-up funding from Facebook’s development fund and was acquired by Like.com last November. Xie recently left Weardrobe for some much needed time off, and in this edition of 20 Questions she reflects back on Weardrobe’s humble beginnings (a simple Excel spreadsheet), why she thinks social media is not just a temporary fad, and hints at what might be next for her.

Jennifer Sung: How would you best describe Weardrobe?

SX: Weardrobe is really about people sharing their own personal styles online. It’s a fashion community for bloggers and people who want to be bloggers to share their daily outfits, get style inspiration, etc. The user base—the people who are actually posting photos—is generally fashion bloggers, but in terms of who visits the site, it’s for anyone just looking for style inspiration. [The fashion blogging community] is pretty big now. We are close to about 20,000 users and the actual [fashion blogging community] is in the hundreds of thousands and their reader base is in the millions.  As Weardrobe continues to develop there will be more features [and] more interviews, but the site is really about inspiration.

JS: Weardrobe launched only two years ago in March 2008.  Where did the idea for Weardrobe come from and how were you able to transform an idea into what it is today?

SX: So the idea originally came from an Excel spreadsheet of my closet.  I’m kind of a geek about organizing stuff and I have a lot of clothing in my closet so I wanted a place where I could actually see all of it. I created an Excel spreadsheet in college and color-coded it and it was totally crazy and pointless but that kind of spurred the idea of where Weardrobe came from. It originally started as an online closet for people to share what they have in their closet.  But [over time] it has [evolved] into what it is today.

When we [Xie and co-founder Rich Tong] first started, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We fumbled a lot, but when it came down to it we knew that we had to test it out on people and it couldn’t just be an idea in our heads. So the first thing we did was build a really basic crappy site.  And we started testing it on our friends and family and no one got it.  They thought it was stupid. Then we started reaching out to people who were actually interested in it. We started reaching out to fashion bloggers and they had a much better response than our friends and family so we kind of built it around that.  And then soon after we launched it, we wanted to build the technology out a little bit more, so we moved out to California.  At that point, we didn’t really have a community and we really didn’t have much content yet so we focused on product and design and building out an engineering team. That was really our main focus [in addition to] raising money. This all tends to be easier in Silicon Valley because there are more developers, more investors, and more advisors out there.

JS: You had a finance background and experience working at two large banks before starting Weardrobe. Did it prepare you for your current role and if so, how?

SX: So to answer your second question first, no, it didn’t prepare me at all. I studied economics [at the University of Chicago] and then did investment banking at UBS. I actually left before my year was up because I got an offer to do asset management and I was done with banking at that point. I did asset management at Goldman Sachs for a year. I did stay my full year [at Goldman Sachs] but pretty much once the year was up, that’s when I left to start Weardrobe. So my background really was light on the technical or fashion side.  It was really more of an interest of mine and I really just wanted to try it out on my own.

JS: When you were pitching Weardrobe to investors, how did you respond to people who didn’t necessarily believe in what you are doing?

SX: We got a lot of no’s. Literally the week after I quit my job and the week before I officially started working for Weardrobe, I took a week off and went to San Francisco and set up a whole bunch of meetings with different angel [investors] and anyone [else] who would meet with me. I pitched the idea just to get warmed up. And I didn’t receive one piece of positive feedback. Everyone was saying, ‘That doesn’t really make any sense’ or ‘That doesn’t sound like it’s a real business.’ And I don’t blame them. I think that it took us a while to really get our feet wet and understand what the value [of Weardrobe] was. This might sound kind of crazy but I believe that the more people that don’t like your idea the better idea you have because if everyone thinks your idea is great, it’s probably not that groundbreaking. I think it’s the ideas that make people go ‘Huh?’ or ‘Really?’ that actually move the needle a little bit more. If it’s something like, ‘Oh yeah, of course that makes sense,’ then it’s either been done [already] or it’s not that exciting. I think it’s really the companies that make you raise an eyebrow that are more exciting.

JS: How were you able to grow your user base and convince so many people to start using the site?

SX: I guess initially we kind of grew our user base by reaching out to people one on one—which meant sending hundreds of emails. I wasn’t a [blogger] myself and I didn’t really understand what fashion bloggers did, so I spent a lot of time just kind of understanding what they were up to. I started blogging myself and that really helped and I guess you kind of put yourself in their shoes and build a product around what they actually want. And the outreach worked. Then it kind of plateaued and then we started to build out a product so we didn’t have to reach out [as much].

JS: As you began to grow, what were the biggest challenges you faced?

SX: Money was always a problem. We raised a little bit of money from friends and family. That was helpful in getting us out to California and starting us off, but a lot of that money [went into] running the business. So we started bringing in sponsors to make money, but it was always a struggle [to figure out] how to make money without hurting the site and the product and the community.

JS: How is Weardrobe beneficial for companies and advertisers?

SX: It’s one of the many ways they can reach out to this user base. There are a lot of retailers who are looking to reach the early adopters and people who have readers that they can influence. Fashion is probably one of the instances where it intertwines lifestyle and design, and people who are generally interested in fashion are generally interested in other similar things. I think it’s a great way to reach that demographic of young women who are savvy and fashionable and stylish. And because Weardrobe is more of a community site, it’s a less aggressive way to reach out to [consumers] than flashy advertising or press releases.

JS: What do style bloggers love most about your site? What do they hate most about your site?

SX: I think what they love most from our site based on the feedback we’ve gotten is the other people they find on [Weardrobe] through the features and interviews. We’ve also gotten a lot of [positive] feedback on the contests. People really love the contests because it’s just a fun weekly thing they can do for free and maybe get a chance of winning some money.

I think what users probably hate most about the site are the bugs. There are bugs on the site, which we are working on now that we have an actual engineer. I would say that what has been one of the most frustrating things over the past one or two years is that we haven’t had enough time and manpower to fix all of the bugs—simple things like [not being able to] upload more than one photo [at a time].

JS: Social media has experienced exponential growth over the last few years and we are beginning to see the profound effect that bloggers and real-time media can have on the fashion industry whether it is brands like Burberry offering real-time coverage of their runway shows or bloggers posting their thoughts from the front row during fashion week. Do you think social media is a temporary fad or a fundamental shift in the fashion industry?

SX: I really do think it’s a fundamental shift. I think it’s becoming a bigger part of the vocabulary. [For example,] Anna Wintour didn’t even want to talk about bloggers at first. She didn’t even want to say the word and now there are articles about bloggers in Vogue and I think that’s a huge step forward not just in social media but for individuals who want to make an impact on an industry. I think that with technology and with all these different platforms, they are just giving people the opportunity to do that.

JS: Some believe that part of fashion’s appeal is its exclusivity or inaccessibility, but Weardrobe includes a wide range of fashion perspectives including normal girls who love fashion. When fashion can suddenly become so accessible, what happens to the perception of fashion?

SX: That’s a question that is hard to answer because you’re right, in fashion, the cool factor is that it’s exclusive. I think for the industry it’s a good thing—it’s a good thing for individuals to shake up an industry. But I think there’s also exclusivity to the content that these bloggers are creating and I think people always think, ‘Oh, it’s open to everyone.’ It takes a lot of effort and time for these girls to take photos of themselves, upload it, style it, and write about themselves. I think if you are willing to put in that effort and energy, more power to you. You’re in the club. But I think if you’re just going to take an iPhone photo and upload it, it’s not really going to get you anywhere in the community. So I think it’s almost exclusive to be a good fashion blogger. It’s not easy. I think people discount the effort that people put into it.

JS: What was your daily schedule like working at Weardrobe?

SX: That’s a really hard question because there really wasn’t much of a daily schedule. I think that’s actually more a sign of our being first-time entrepreneurs because we didn’t even know what to expect or what our schedules should look like, so we didn’t have any structure.  It was pretty much us working until we needed to sleep and then we got up and worked some more. [Our schedule] depended on what our focus was on that day or that week. Let’s say we were doing community outreach and we were emailing different bloggers, which takes a lot more time than you think it would take. It takes a couple of days to reach out to hundreds of people because you are reaching out to them one by one. Or if you’re preparing for an investor pitch, then that takes a couple of days just to work on the client deck. Or building a financial model or revamping a site and designing something new. So generally we would hone in on what was important [that week].

JS: What do you think are the three things that contributed to Weadrobe’s success?

SX: I would say the most important thing was our community. I don’t think the community gets enough credit in a lot of these start-ups and community sites, but the users are probably the most important thing when it comes to building content and actually building a product that makes sense.

I think one of the biggest things we did was the Weardrobe conference [in Fall 2009] where we physically brought [fashion bloggers] together to New York City for three days. It was actually the first fashion bloggers conference ever been held. It was really cool because we got to meet all of the bloggers in person and it was actually the first time that a lot of them met each other. Tavi [Gevinson, the 14-year old fashion blogger of thestylerookie.com], for instance, met a lot of these bloggers and I think it’s kind of heartwarming to think that the Weardrobe conference is the first time she actually met [other fashion bloggers] in person.  And now they are doing a lot of that. The Independent Fashion Bloggers do events now and Chictopia did a conference so I think it sort of started a trend, which is great.

And the other important thing that contributed to Weardrobe’s success would be our team.  My co-founder and I went through a lot of ups and downs. And there’s no way I could have done it without [them]. We had an intern team that we hired over the summer and they were awesome in helping us understand how we actually needed to grow the company and what needed to get done. We also worked with Jessica Schroeder [of whatiwore.tumblr.com] who was our community manager for awhile. Going forward Weardrobe will be run by Krystal Bick [of thistimetomorrow-krystal.blogspot.com] and Jamie Flournoy. Jamie and Krystal are working together to run Weardrobe and I feel like it’s in really good hands.

JS: You were sold to Like.com in November 2009. Can you talk me through your decision making process and why you chose to be acquired by them?

SX: We had always had a relationship with them and I am personal friends with the CEO [Munjal Shah] so it was kind of an ongoing relationship where he would ask me, ‘How is everything going with the company?’ It was really after the Weardrobe conference when [Like.com] started to show a lot more interest because they realized, this is not just some website, but these are real people who care enough about the actual community to come to New York and spend a weekend with [Weardrobe]. And I think that proved that we were not just any site.

For us, at that time, we were kind of at the stage where we were breaking even and we were growing, but we weren’t growing quickly enough. We wanted an injection of something that would help us grow faster whether that was [more] investors or an acquisition or a partnership. So when Like.com approached us, it just seemed like the right time to consider the offer and they had a lot of resources to offer to us.

For Like.com, they were fascinated with this growing trend of bloggers and the [impact they have on the] fashion industry. They’ve been transitioning to more of a fashion site than a tech site or a search site so I think they were really interested in us for that reason. They wanted to plug into the young fashion perspective and I think for them, they are going to benefit a lot from having an actual fashion community behind them and fashion bloggers they can work with and partner with.

And for the fashion bloggers, it’s great because now they can partner with a much bigger site. With Weardrobe, I hope we offered them a lot, but I think if they really want to make a living out of it or do it full time, they need to partner with bigger brands and bigger sites, so I think Like.com will offer them that.

JS: What will Weardrobe look like in one to two years from now?

SX: The direction they are looking to move in is to make Weardrobe the place for people in the fashion industry to get discovered and we are [beginning to see] that trend. Tavi is always the easy example but there are all of these bloggers that are getting picked up and discovered by different designers and fashion brands and we see them as muses almost the same way as models are muses to designers. I think that a lot of young girls who may want to be a model or designer can’t really do much about it, but they can blog and express themselves online. So I think Weardrobe is a platform for them to get discovered by people in the industry. People in the industry will ask, ‘Who are the future bloggers or who has shown some awesome style or creativity?’ These [girls] are going to be the ones to get picked up. These are girls who are beautiful, but they also have personality and style and are not just [clothes hangers]. There is more to them.

JS: Looking back, what have you learned about yourself in your role as the co-founder of Weardrobe?

SX: I think it’s always surprised me how much I didn’t know [when I started]. I think even when I say I have a background in finance or I’ve done a lot of sales and marketing, every time I do something new, I realize, ‘Wow, I don’t really know that much at all.’ But then again, you look back and [realize] I was still able to accomplish a lot without knowing that much.

JS: What do you think are some of your qualities that have contributed to your success?

SX: I think it’s my ability to stay optimistic almost in light of anything that happens. I can kind of find the positive side or the bright side to anything and so this kind of feeds into when people say no to me, I’ll still keep going. There’s very little that will bring me down. And obviously, being an entrepreneur, I think one of the hardest things is that it’s literally a rollercoaster experience even if you have the best co-founder of all time or the best idea or tons of money, it’s still going to be this up and down kind of ride emotionally because you’re scared that you’re going to fail or you’re scared you’re going to lose money. It’s a lot of stress but even in light of that, I can kind of stay happy and grounded.

JS: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever given or received?

SX: The best piece of advice that I’ve gotten early on and that I would give to entrepreneurs who want to start their own [company] is always to just jump in because you don’t learn nearly as much thinking about it or talking about it as just doing it. That was always our experience. Even when we went to our advisors and our mentors and asked them about what they thought about a different strategy or tactic we wanted to take, they would ask, ‘Well, have you tried it?’ And if the answer was no, [the response] was always, ‘Then go do it.’ I think if you take just a little bit of time out [and you try something new] and fail, failing quickly is much better than failing slowly. Because if you fail quickly, you can rapidly get back your bearings and start over.

JS: You just finished your last day at Weardrobe this week. What led to your decision to leave and what’s next?

SX: It felt like it was time to move on. I’ve done a lot of self-reflection and that has led me to think a lot about what I want to spend my time on. To be honest, when I say we didn’t have a schedule, there was no balance. It was sort of work all the time and that happens when you’re an entrepreneur but I also think you have to strike a healthy balance. You can still be an extremely hard worker but also have some semblance of balance.

It’s funny, I’ve kind of decided to take some time off. I think that’s not something I would have done a few months ago. I’ve always been rush rush rush—let’s work on the next big thing. I thought this was my opportunity to work on something else but I thought about it a little bit more and decided this is actually my window of opportunity to take some time off. So having a break literally means I will do no work. I’m actually giving up my laptop for two weeks for the iPad. Cooking and photography are two of my personal interests so I’m spending more time doing that. I have a whole list of books I’m going through as well.

What’s next? So it has something to do with the fact that I got Type 1 diabetes in college. I never really paused to think about it and never thought about how I could actually make a difference or do something positive. I think the way I see it now is that a lot of the bad things that happen to you in your life are opportunities to do good. I feel like the fact that I got Type 1 diabetes gives me the opportunity to actually pursue [something new so] I’m looking into the personal health and medical space. It almost automatically makes sense for me to focus on diabetes because I have a personal connection to it and I know what problems [those with the disease deal] with on a day to day basis.

JS: I noticed that one of your favorite quotes is from Gandhi: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” What does that statement mean to you?

SX: It’s one of my favorite quotes because I think it’s really easy for people to be hypocritical and believe in [some] thing but it’s really hard to live by the things you believe in.  My parents used to always joke around because they would always say, ‘Do as I say and not as I do.’ And people can kind of get away with that but I guess for me personally, I really want to live my life in a way that reflects the beliefs that I believe in. And I think that ties back into what I want to do next.  The next venture or company that I want to start is going to have an impact on something that I really care about. I feel like for all of us—for people who have been given the opportunities like I have—an education, great jobs—[I am] incredibly lucky, so it’s nice to be able to take that and kind of give back.

JS: What has been the coolest thing that has happened to you because of Weardrobe?

SX: I would have to say the entire experience because it’s been completely life changing and going into it, I really didn’t expect any of this to happen. You’re always told, 9 out of 10 companies [that start] fail, so I guess I was expecting a failure in a sense. The overall experience surprised me and I’m very humbled by it.

It’s funny because when I tell people the story of Weardrobe, the timeline [of events is] sort of like—we got some funding from friends and family, we moved out to California, we launched a site, we went to South by Southwest [a music, film and interactive conference] and won the Accelerator [competition], then we were part of the Facebook fund, and then we sold the company [to Like.com].  It sounds like a very tight-knit story but in terms of living that on a day to day basis, it didn’t feel like a tight-knit story at all.  And every once in a while, we would look back and revisit what we did that week or that month and we’d say, ‘Okay, well this is what we did and this is what we did right and wrong,’ but it didn’t feel like a story was actually forming.  But looking back now, there is definitely a story to tell.

Photos from top: Screenshot of Weardrobe.com, the participants in Weardrobe’s fashion blogger conference, photo of a Weardrobe user and two photos of Weardrobe users

Visit Weardrobe.com for more information

–Jennifer Sung