On a warm September night in 2002, former acquaintances
Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis reconnected at a mixer
for new students at Harvard Business School. Alexis had
just ended a four-year run at eBay during the dotcom boom
and bust. Alexandra had just spent three years as an
investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Now they were entering
the country’s top training ground for future titans of Wall
Street and the Fortune 500.
Little did either suspect that five years later, they’d
become famous not in finance or consulting or corporate
management, but at the bleeding-edge intersection of
fashion and technology.
Gilt Groupe – launched by Alexis, Alexandra, and three
colleagues in 2007 – is one of the most fascinating
startups of recent years, with a valuation of more than $1
billion. And it all began with one bold idea: to bring
sample sales online and change the way millions shop.
As Alexis and Alexandra write about the day Gilt.com went
live: “We had created a website that could potentially
change the rules of retail, for both shoppers and brands.
If shopping was traditionally a slow, leisurely activity
that might consume an entire day, it would now be
competitive, addictive, urgent, thrilling—a rush delivered
at the same time each day. Shopping would become not just
easier, but so much fun.”
But turning that vision into reality wasn’t easy. Designers
had long controlled their own sample sales by staging them
in anonymous, makeshift locations and strictly limiting
invitations. Those lucky enough to hear about a Marc Jacobs
or Hermès sample sale would drop everything and run for
dramatic, fleeting bargains. Why should elite brands
support a new startup trying to replicate the experience
online?
And even if brands like Valentino, Christian Louboutin, and
Zac Posen got on board, would shoppers embrace such a
website? Would the kind of people who love high-end fashion
really visit a new online sale each day? Was “accessible
luxury” a breakthrough idea or an absurd oxymoron?
Alexis and Alexandra share their perspective in this
dramatic story of Gilt’s birth, rise, and evolution. They
show how they juggled the conflicting needs of their
suppliers, engineers, marketers, and potential investors.
They explain how they blended their individual strengths
and weaknesses and managed their rapidly growing team. They
cover the growing pains of expanding into new categories
like housewares, travel, and menswear. And they take us
through the darkest moments of the recession when Gilt
might easily have died.
As you’ll learn from the true story of Gilt, anything is
possible for those with the creativity to recognize a new
opportunity and the perseverance to make it
real.