We agree that the social nature of the design community has really helped spur our growth. Our viral coefficient is off the charts for an e-commerce site. A lot of that has to do with people loving to share their latest design inspiration/find.
We think this will scale up nicely because everyone aspires to have good design. Not everyone is a design junky but everyone likes to have some design in their life. Apple is a great example of a brand that has capitalized on that. Also Target, Ikea, etc.
For many, design is a lifestyle. That will always be our core audience. But for the mass consumer, making design objects approachable and affordable is a huge market.
a. When you knew it was time to pivot?
b. How much time you spent on your social network before moving on?
c. How much code/idea reuse there was between the two ideas?
d. How did you decide on what idea to pivot to?
I've always said that if you can't gain some considerable traction in 1 years time, it's time to move on and try something else as there are lots of good problems out there to try to solve. We stuck to that 1 year rule with the old fabulis.
We threw away all the old code.
* Margins are really good, above 25%.
* We are backed by angels and VC's. I've also personally invested.
* We pivoted our business earlier this year. Before, we were a social network for gay people. In February we started anew as a design site. We built the site from March to May, then launched June 9th.
* Our team is: About 25 in development and UX, 20 on the business side - mostly in buying, production and merchandising.