Ex-Google Exec Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is now the CEO of 3-year old startup Polyvore, also based in Mountain View. Polyvore is a social shopping site that lets users assemble and display collections of items from clothing to furniture. The site collects both ad revenues and referral commissions to larger sites like Saks and Nordstrom.
The site has become fairly popular with the following metrics posted on its website as of Feb. 2010:
- 6 million unique visitors per month
- 140 million monthly page views
- 1.2 million registered users
- 10 minutes average session time on site
For a consumer and ad-centric business model, those are encouraging metrics given the average session length. The site also capitalizes on the trend that social media plugs us into: letting your friends serve as a filter for what’s relevant - in this case, fashion. It allows users to develop their own fashion magazines and circulate to the audiences amongst which they are the most influential (and more likely to garner a click to purchase).
Polyvore is a high-fashion magazine without the overhead. Because it’s content is easily shared online, it also has extremely low customer acquisition costs. The key to growing revenues will be expanding registrations and engagement. Polyvore could also expand its technology to the lucrative tween / teen model which is already active on social sites but also has high purchasing power (i.e. lucrative ad segment and strong click-through rates).
With a strong leader on board, we have yet to see what Polyvore will achieve. My own Polyvore creation:
