Interview with the founders of Fashiolista
One of the startups I am really excited about these days is Fashiolista – based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Fashiolista works with a bookmarklet that lets you collect fashion you love. Here’s a view of my personal style on fashiolista:
For me, it gives me a total view of what I am into fashionwise, and it’s not something I have given a lot of consideration before. I would love to have a permalink so I could share my personal style with other people. I was just informed by the team that the link to my style is here.
Anyway I think that Fashiolista is going to be huge. For people like me, who’s into fashion, but not THAT into fashion – it’s a very fun eye-opener, and get this – fashiolista became a “go-to” place in my online browsing habits relatively fast. Now if you can catch my attention like that, I think you have a real shot at growing your site. Anyway because I was awestruck with my returns to the site, I decided to interview the guys behind fashiolista. Also because I have an idea that services like this is going to change the online shopping experience so it becomes more social, and products starts to find us, instead of us continuously browsing for something “cool”. anyway, enough babbling -Â here goes :
1. where did the idea of fashiolista come from ?
The idea actually came to us after a brainstorm with students from the Amsterdam Fashion Institute. Our goal, from the start, was to help girls shop online and get inspired about fashion.
We had been trying different things before. Most of them involved combining the items from different shops, which resulted in a massive collection of for instance dresses or shoes. We actually found that this approach didn’t make shopping much easier, maybe even harder 
When we came up with the idea for Fashiolista, every girl we showed it to was instantly excited. So we knew we were on to something good.
2. how did you begin to execute the idea?
We started off with the design and user experience. One of our partners is a great designer. We than build the whole website as a prototype in a relatively short time. We had to work fast, because we wanted to launch at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam at the end of April.
- and what where the biggest challenges ?
By far the biggest challenge was keeping it simple. It always very easy to keep thinking of more features. Our designer, Thijs, was great in helping us keep the website clean and elegantly simple.
3. what have you done to get people to sign up and get the word/buzz spread around it?
We launched the product at The Next Web conference with a fabulous fashion show. That was really starting with a bang. We actually ‘flipped the switch’ right there while we were on stage. After that, we didn’t do much marketing. The concept just spread viral. In some strange way, it ended up in Brazil where we were featured on several blogs and by teen magazine Capricho. That gave a lot of exposure. Now we get many visitors from people talking about Fashiolista on Twitter, Facebook and Orkut.
4. what do people like about the site ?
They love the fact that they can save all their best fashion finds and share them with the rest of the world. Building your personal fashion feed is really addictive.. Users also like browsing the thousands of handpicked items on the website, discovering new items, stores and brands. It’s inspiring!
5. what is your favorite thing about having a startup ?
It’s really exciting to do. When you build a website from scratch and people actually love it and use it, that’s the greatest feeling in the world.
6. if you should give some good advice on making your own startup what would that be ?
Make sure you have great people to start your company with. Don’t give up, keep trying until you get it just right!
7. anything else you want to add ?
Help us spread the love for fashion at Fashiolista.com!
8. where can people find you guys ?
Online at http://www.fashiolista.com, Twitter: @fashiolista
If you want to meet us in person, our door is always open… our offices are in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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