Related: What's Next for Ecommerce in 2016? In lieu of buying ad space from third-party publishers, BarkBox has built its own media property to heavily promote its products.
Undoubtedly, much of the company's success can be attributed to the fan base it had generated with BarkPost, the world's most popular publication devoted to dogs, with more than 12 million monthly readers and over 60 million monthly page views. In a 2015 interview with Fast Company, co-founder Meeker claimed the company was on track to do $75 million in sales that year. BarkBox, however, followed a different growth trajectory. Two years later though, ShoeDazzle had abandoned the business model it pioneered and was acquired by JustFab for a mere fraction of its earlier $200 million valuation. Matt Meeker, Carly Strife and Henrik Werdelin founded BarkBox, a subscription service for dog goodies, at a time when ShoeDazzle had just raised $40 million to send its customers a new pair of heels every month. "Paw-esome" stories about man's best friend. Play to your strengths: If your day job is accounting or finance, offer to help a startup manage their books or create projections.Three brilliant examples of brand publishing done well by eCommerce brands include BarkBox, Glossier and Unwelcome Greetings.
Carly strife facebook for free#
Work for free to get the experience you want/need to make the move.
Carly strife facebook code#
There is no perfect job, so you just need to make a move and evaluate quickly what aspects you like and don't like about it.ĪT: What advice would you give people in the corporate world who want to move to early-stage companies?ĬS: Reading blog posts and learning to code are great, but you really need to go out and do something. I spent a lot of time figuring out what the perfect job in startup world would be for me. Eventually, through the connections I had made in the startup community, I found a position that made sense for me at Uber in NYC, so I jumped at it.ĪT: What would you have done differently?ĬS: I would have moved faster. This came in the form of volunteering to help friends with their startups and asking a lot of advice from people who had already made the switch from corporate to startup. There were always a lot of constraints that prevented me from getting the experiences I wanted, so I took it upon myself to get those experiences outside of the office. You will definitely see us exploring initiatives to support shelters and rescue groups and bringing awareness around these topics.ĪT: How did you personally make the move from a big corporation to the startup world?ĬS: Despite my best efforts, I wasn't learning fast enough in the corporate world. All of our efforts and ideas have one underlying focus: make dogs happy.
Carly strife facebook series#
Finding the balance between managing my own goals, the goals of the company, training (and learning from) new members of the team, and finding time to play fetch with my own two dogs.ĬS: Big things! We just launched our animated series which is the first of many video projects. BarkBox also helps artisan vendors grow by giving them exposure and letting dog parents try out new products and make thoughtful purchases.ĪT: What's the craziest thing to happen so far while starting your company?ĬS: It's been smooth sailing for the most part! The most unexpected, but really refreshing thing so far is our members' excitement about the experiences we are creating for them with their dogs and their willingness to share those experiences (and photos) with us and with their networks via emails, blogs, photos, and even video!ĪT: What's the hardest thing about being a founder?ĬS: Balance. Big companies can only do this so well and people can feel overwhelmed by the information. Two months later, we were launching the site!ĪT: How do you look at the business? Are you going after big pet companies? Are you complementary to them?ĬS: We're moving into an era of consumption in which people want to be knowledgeable about what they are buying and feel more connected to products. I was introduced by a mutual friend who knew I was a dog parent and looking to upstart a company.
Alex Taub (AT): How did BarkBox come to be?Ĭarly Strife (CS): My co founders Matt (Meeker) and Henrik (Werdelin) and I are all passionate about dogs and wanted to do something interesting in the space and fill the gap of product discovery that wasn't being met in pet retail chains.
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