Wednesday morning we had the pleasure to attend the Wim Accelerator Founder’s Breakfast with special guest Chrysi Philalithes. Chrysi is the Chief Digital Officer at (RED) which was founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver to help contribute to the Global Fund. (RED) works to partner with brands such as Apple, Starbucks, Beats and Shazam to raise awareness and money to provide treatment for AIDS in Africa. The organization has a goal of helping make the first AIDS-free generation by 2015. read more »
Graduating from business school is an accomplishment, but launching and running a startup while in business school? Well, that is something to be proud of. Especially when the startup is as well received as Snapette.
Founded by two Harvard Business School graduates, Jinhee Ahn Kim and Sarah Paiji, Snapette is a mobile shopping app that helps users find and share fashions available in nearby stores. Partnering with over 200 brands and retailers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo and London, Snapette aims to give shoppers the inside scoop on products, sales, and in-store events. For brands, Snapette acts as a real-time and targeted marketing platform that helps drive foot traffic to stores and grow a customer base.
Having just recently relaunched, we were excited to sit down with Jinhee and Sarah to ask the pair a few questions of our own.
Called the “Internet’s highest honor” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards are the Internet’s version of the Oscars. While high accolades, praise, and gold stars were heaped on Humans of New York, Pinterest, Mashable, Tumblr, the New York Times, and other leaders in every industry, what we want to know is: how did fashion tech do, and what do these awards mean for our industry? read more »
There’s a buzzword we’ve been reading about more and more in the fashion community: crowdsourcing. By this point we know that crowdsourcing is “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.” (Wikipedia) It’s so popular in the startup community because it’s about the sharing of ideas and partaking in the collaborative process. Let us tell you, this is not a fad. read more »
Money. Every startup needs it, and it’s usually at the most vulnerable, early-stage, high risk point when it needs the most. Tech startups, for instance, are notorious for seeking out a number of different ways of receiving funding including: venture capital, angel investing, and other seed funding opportunities. This is because, typically, these types of startups are too small to raise capital in the public market, so they go to venture capital firms or independent venture capitalists and ask for funds in exchange for equity in their company.
But because venture capital has been less available in recent times, startups have to find the best ways to turn a profit and satisfy stakeholders, and even more more critical, they must be particularly creative and sharp before spending any money at all. Here are 3 things to consider before spending your company’s hard-earned cash. read more »
We all love a good party. There’s nothing better than great horde’euvres, some refreshments, and plain ol’ good company. Interestingly enough, these features are typically what make a business/networking event so successful. So why is it that so many startups choose not to host events? It’s an interesting paradigm but we’re siding with ‘you should definitely be hosting more events’. Here’s why: read more »
In the past few years, we’ve seen a number of online jewelry sites popup, making beautifully made jewelry more accessible than ever. We’ve also seen numerous crowd sourcing companies enter the marketplace, helping independent designers find a market for their one-of-a-kind designs. Yet until we came across Shopbevel, we had never seen the two come together.
Founded by Stanford Business School Graduate, Courtney McColgan, Shopbevel works with independent designers to bring the best in jewelry design to market. Designers submit designs, the community votes and Shopbevel produces the selected winners with designers receiving royalties. Shopbevel’s first design challenge, held in January 2012, received 68 entries and attracted over 4,000 votes. Hundreds of design entries later, Shopbevel is on its way to changing the jewelry industry.
Excited to learn more, TWF sat down with the Founder and CEO, Courtney, to ask her a few questions of our own.
Since moving to New York nearly six years ago, I have been warmly welcomed by the startup community. In a city of 8.2 million, you can easily be intimidated and feel like a tiny speck, but in the New York tech scene I have found a supportive family. I believe that New York is the best place to get your startup going. According to SeedTable.com, last year 127 startups were founded in the city, nearly equal to the combined 131 that launched in San Francisco and Palo Alto, California. Here’s why I think it’s the best: read more »
Disruption is the hottest buzzword in the startup world nowadays, and staying ahead of the curve is more important than ever. Figure out how to get your slice of the startup pie with these takeaways from SXSW Interactive 2013 and how it relates to the fashion tech space. read more »
It’s finally here. All week long we’ve been building up to this moment. From the hottest fashion tech startups participating at SXSW to the 7 SXSW events you cannot afford to miss, we made sure you know exactly where to be in the coming week. We, for one, can’t be happier to finally be in our sky-high cowgirl boots, chewing on straw and talking tech. But our coverage of all things South by isn’t over just yet. We want everyone to feel like they’re included in all the festivities because SXSW and Third Wave Fashion are firm believers of growing our fashion tech network.
Check out the list of 16 twitter handles to follow to keep you up to date as the code unravels and the fashion gets smart at SXSW. read more »
