It was a fun season in Paris. There were too many major parties to count, lots of traffic to battle, far too many macaroons to eat, and oh yes lots and lots of beautiful clothes. Here are the moments View From the Front Row will never forget.
Continue Reading...It’s always a sad thing to see summer fall away as autumn descends upon us in its place. Here are some farewell summer tunes to ease the pain of the transition, as you unpack your heavier comforters, unwrap your chunky fall sweaters and look for your fuzzy booties.
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View From the Front Row has an uncovered a secret Japanese eatery with an unlisted number. With an amazing tasting menu, artful sake list and just 20 seats we suggest you work on getting a reservation now.
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As second-year MBA students at Wharton, Cherif Habib and Stephan Jacob identified an opportunity to deliver brands and products to students on a tight budget. Kembrel, a private shopping community for students, selling clothing, computer gadgets, and accessories at 40-75% off was born. Relying on social networks to drive consumption, with friends telling friends about hot products and brands, Kembrel has been able to create meaningful connections with its users. Innovative features include a Kembrel shop on Facebook, pop-up campus tours and a business model that leverages the work experience and creativity of real students. I recently spoke with co-founder and CEO Cherif Kembrel to discuss what metrics he uses to define success, how Kembrel stays ahead of the competition and why it may be less risky to be your own boss than to work for a large corporation in today’s economy.
Jennifer Sung: What is Kembrel? What are you offering that is new and different from what’s already out there in the online space?
Cherif Habib: Kembrel is a private shopping community for students. What we are doing differently is that we are targeting only students and the reason we are doing that is because we think that the current offerings [online] don’t cater to students as well as we do. So from a merchandising and assortment point of view, we think we are better. In terms of content and community, we are also doing something different. To give you some examples: every model on the site is a student, every photographer is a student, the content writers are students and the bloggers are students. This community driven [aspect] makes Kembrel unique. We also have the first private sales store running on Facebook–we are the first in the industry to have that–and that’s unique because our demographic is obviously spending most of its time online on Facebook and by bringing the store to [them], we are increasing the chances that they will find something they like and they can interact with us without ever leaving [Facebook].
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