Who’s in the picture recently? Natalie Massenet! Founder of Net-a-Porter. It’s a long way you’d say from a three headed team in a tiny Chelsea studio, to a million dollar online empire with 2 million visitors per month. ” Recession? What recession? ” as stated in the British Vogue August issue, who devoted three spreads to the driving force behind the business. But she’s not doing this alone. Natalie’s husband Arnaud raised a good 1.2 million pounds for the start-up, in the what she calls ‘ Persuasion ‘ years. It wasn’t easy to persuade investors to join in their grand idea of building up an online high end fashion shop. Reading the entire article and watching this exclusive video of BOF it all makes it look so easy I get excited starting my own business as well!
She’s an inspiring example of a woman who didn’t stop after spending endless nights working on her own project;
We had endless conversations with people who didn’t understand what we were talking about. I’d come home and cry from exhaustion.
as written in Vogue. In the video she’ll guide you through all the different departures of the company, adding up to at least (I’d say) 1000 employees (and still rising) at the head quarters alone. She’s only getting started as she launches the new Ipad application for net-a-porter just yesterday and in 2011 a masculine equivalent will be launched called Mr Porter, an independent online menswear business. Another tip from the grand master;
Get a really great husband. You can’t do it on your own.
Working on it ms. Massenet, working on it…
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So. And how fast does the internet provide you with a solution when you are asking for it? Just a day away. In edition to my latest blog post where I wrote about the problem of established magazines to survive, having to cope with a cut back on advertisers and editorial pages, they seem to have found the solution: conquer the online world. In more words: how to translate the magazine and the brands it supports in an online experience (website is SO last week) and engage people to buy the published magazine, read online editorials and ultimately the goods that are represented in it or, on it. An interesting article gives the answer from different angles. All the different media platforms, the web/ipad/telephone give us new opportunities to reach the consumer. A lot of magazines are trying to participating on it by making their own social media platform, reaching hundreds of souls online. Yet, brands like Chanel aren’t necessarily waiting to interact with their consumers. They say exclusivity is the key, so all mass communication should be avoided…. Right? Like ‘ the mass ‘ doesn’t see the huge billboards and advertisements in Vogue/W/Another Mag etc.? I’m curious how this will still work for them let’s say 50 years from now? Read the whole article here.
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