Fab's Second Pivot

http://betashop.com/post/37855336441/fabs-2nd-pivot

by taylorbuley • 14 years ago

44 36 14 years ago

What's the difference between pivoting and evolving? Does it have to do with the goals of the company changing, or something else?

dabeeeenster• 14 years ago

There isn't, it's just that one is a buzzword and the other is what normal successful companies do.

gilrain• 14 years ago

They're going to reveal their pivot in 2013. No need for anyone else to waste time reading to the bottom to find that out, like I did.

ghc• 14 years ago

I feel like they don't know what pivoting means. The first pivot doesn't sound like a pivot; they built a new business with the same venture money. The second pivot isn't a pivot either. I think reasonable people would call that "growth and expansion."

Pivoting is supposed to mean that you changed strategic direction based on validated learning. Twitter and Instagram started as pivots. This sounds nothing like that.

jonathanjaeger• 14 years ago

They did notice that the design aspect of their previous site was a differentiating factor and extrapolated on that, but I agree it wasn't a pivot.

mikeryan• 14 years ago

I agree the second "pivot" doesn't sound like a pivot,

However w/r/t The first pivot doesn't sound like a pivot; they built a new business with the same venture money.

That sounds like a pivot, the way I define it. I agree most pivots do have some tangential relationship from the previous goal thats because you learn where the market is from what you've done. Thats not to say its the only way to find a new market opportunity. I'm not sure why you define Twitter as a pivot and not Fab. Twitter was Odeo which was a podcasting company which was sinking. Evan Williams had blogging experience but Jack Dorsey (as I understand it) was the original idea guy behind Twitter.

A lot of pivots aren't related to the original idea that founded the company. For the VCs doing something else with that money is almost more important then just continuing to chase an idea without legs, since once the money is invested they can't reinvest in new ventures.

o_sam_o2• 14 years ago

Moving away from flash sales could be considered a pivot. They may have discovered others (i.e. Gilt) where buying up all the good seconds, or that their buyers where buying the wrong thing and their flash sales where not selling out.

IsaacL• 14 years ago

Pivoting is a random-restart hill climbing algorithm. If you change strategic direction but remain in the same space, that's climbing the hill. If you change to a completely different idea, that's random restart.

untog• 14 years ago

Presumably their second pivot involved buying an e-mail list from someone, or reactivating deactivated accounts. I started receiving newsletters from them (Ashton Kutcher's favourite gifts? Well, if I wasn't already going to unsubscribe...) on the 11th, and again yesterday- the last e-mail I received from them before then was in September '11.

Unsubscribed again- hopefully this time it's permanent. It appears I am not alone, either:

https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%40fab+spam&src=ty...

omfg• 14 years ago

They don't seem to honor unsubscribe requests as the mails keep coming.

nwh• 14 years ago

I too, have no idea how I ended up on their mailing list. I certainly never gave them the address they emailed me at.

whalesalad• 14 years ago

A ninety day pivot exercise followed by that kind of success and growth is extremely motivating. Glad to see this on the homepage!

betashop2• 14 years ago

Hi. @betashop here, CEO of Fab. Happy to answer any/all questions.

With regards to the "was it a pivot" comments below.

Fab was first fabulis, for 13 months. We built a ton of product and a small but loyal following. We then shut it down to pursue our passion. That's a pivot.

Regarding Fab's 2nd pivot in 2012, we pivoted our business from a drop-ship model to an inventory model. That's quite a pivot.

scottrblock• 14 years ago

I don't think "shutting down to pursue a passion" is what most of HN considers a pivot.

A pivot is named as such because your business is keeping one foot in the ground while changing direction. This is done after testing your initial assumptions, normally with no more than an MVP.

This might just be semantics, but it seems like a significant difference to me.

gojomo• 14 years ago

Sometimes the "one foot in the ground" is only the team, as they chase a completely different product and market.

proee2• 14 years ago

What was the driving factor to change from a drop-ship company to inventory based? Seems ideal if you can keep everything drop-ship to avoid the capital expense related to managing all your products.

snuze• 14 years ago

I remember ordering a mug from fab and it took a noticeable amount of time to arrive (weeks). Perhaps they are trying to improve that.

dusing3• 14 years ago

Stop saying pivot, it doesn't mean what you think it means.

ispivey2• 14 years ago

HN, where anyone can be a jerk to successful entrepreneurs running large technology companies who show up to share their brains.

logn• 14 years ago

Do you think Fab's time as a gay social network was important to getting a critical mass on-board for the Fab design site? Meaning, if you launched day one as a cool place to shop do you think you would have found the same success, at least as easily?

jacobian2• 14 years ago

Can you please respond to the accusations of spam, above? I, too, have suddenly started receiving email from Fab even though I've opted out repeatedly.

I really hope this is a mistake and not part of this third "pivot".

MartinCron• 14 years ago

I will throw in as yet another voice in the "you are spamming me" chorus.

betashop2• 14 years ago

Email me Jason@fab.com so I can check it out please.

cagenut• 14 years ago

Hi Jason, thanks for taking questions.

Do you see Etsy as competition?

You mention a custom built supply chain tech and strong mobile/ecommerce sales. You also share a lot of stats and operational details about the biz on your blog. Would you consider encouraging your tech team to be similarly open? Blogging, open sourcing code, conferences/presentations.

proee2• 14 years ago

Why did Fab succeed? Why would someone shop here instead of say Amazon?

I don't understand the reason for the huge growth and expansion.

What problem are they solving that is creating such huge growth?

Very Impressive, but I don't understand WHY they are successful.

dusing3• 14 years ago

I would ay its curation. Sure amazon may have all this stuff (probably not) but Fab only shows you "cool" stuff. Thats also why I like http://thefancy.com

hglennrock• 14 years ago

Yes, this. I never browse Amazon - I am always searching for a specific item. Fab is the opposite experience. I could spend hours just browsing. It is dangerous. I've told my boyfriend that if he is ever at a loss for a gift idea, just go to fab.com and pick something at random and there is a 99% chance it would work out.

o_sam_o2• 14 years ago

Amazon does have an offering in this space: http://www.myhabit.com

arbuge• 14 years ago

I wonder what they're doing about patent trolls and what their lawsuit/settlement stats are. I'm sure they're getting plenty of them nipping at their heels. Maybe they agreed to sign non-disclosures or something.

[I have patent trolls on the brain after reading various HN articles on the topic of late...]

ew• 14 years ago

Hey @betashop, would love to know some of the numbers on burn when you launched. Eg. how much marketing spend occurred to get that $10m in sales your first year? Also lines like 25% higher gross margins doesn't really indicate if that means it's making you money or not.

Fab's Second Pivot

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