News: @Fab Closes $150M in initial Series D Financing from Tencent, Atomico, Andreessen Horowitz, ITOCHU Technology Ventures, and Existing Investors. 

THE BIG NEWS.

Just a few days after our 2nd birthday, we’re thrilled to announce that Fab has closed $150 million in new funding in the first tranche of our Series D round of financing. This $150 million is the first part of a larger Series D round that we expect will be completed over the next few months. Fab has now raised more than $310 million since our inception. This new round of financing helps us execute on our long-term vision of being the world’s design store.

Even though we are still in the midst of finalizing additional participants in our Series D round, we wanted to go ahead and make public this first $150 million closing now because we are excited to announce that Tencent has become one of the strategic investors in Fab. Tencent will also appoint a director to our Board. 

Tencent is one of the world’s largest providers of comprehensive Internet services with 825 million QQ instant messaging MAU and 194 million Weixin and WeChat combined MAU (MAU represents the monthly active user accounts as of the end of the first quarter in 2013). Tencent is the third largest Internet company in the world, with a market capitalization of $73 billion (as of 11 June 2013).

[Here are some third-party charts on Tencent’s WeChat growth.]

Fab is excited to work with Tencent to bring Fab to millions more people around the world. We specifically sought out a strategic partner like Tencent because we are intent on bringing Fab to many new markets. We believe that design is a universal language and we are confident that we can bring Fab’s unique products to millions and millions of people worldwide.

Fab also welcomes another new strategic investor, ITOCHU Technology Ventures. Fab’s existing investors, Atomico, Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, RTP Ventures, Pinnacle Ventures, Lars Hinrichs, and Docomo Capital also participated in this latest round of financing. 

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THE BIG FAB IDEA: EMOTIONAL COMMERCE.

Fab is already well on our way to being the world’s greatest design store. 

But Fab’s long term ambition is to be the worldwide leader in Emotional Commerce.

There are currently only four e-commerce companies in the world that are valued at more than $10 billion: Amazon, Alibaba, eBay, and Rakuten. We believe that Fab has a legitimate chance to be the fifth by leading in Emotional Commerce. 

Differing from the “commodity commerce” players, Fab is the pioneer in Emotional Commerce, helping people discover and buy the meaningful stuff in their lives, like the chairs they sit on, the table they dine at, the plates they eat from, the glasses they drink out of, the pen they write with, the notepad they write in, the art on their walls, the bracelet on their arm – the emotional products in their lives. That’s Fab. 

I want to be really clear on this as I’m sure there are skeptics who will ask and wonder why Fab needs so much money. Fab is focused on the long term. We are focused on creating “Wow!” shopping experiences that will result in customers making 20+ purchases from Fab within a couple of years. We are focused on being the global brand that represents emotional commerce for decades to come. Fab is not about a single transaction. Fab is about creating Wow! experiences in everything we do, from the unique merchandise we offer, to the user experience on our website and mobile apps, to fast delivery and a delightful out-of-box experience, to the follow-on customer service. We truly believe that it takes investing in Wow! in order to build the next $10B+ E-commerce company, and that’s what we’re doing.

[BTW: to put all this in perspective, Amazon has raised a total of $5.3B in equity and debt since 1997. Building a large e-commerce business is capital intensive, but there are several winner-take-all opportunities and Fab hopes to capitalize on at least one of those in the global market for emotional products.]

We have a very simple yet powerful 4 point formula at Fab:

1. The world’s most exciting merchandise – featuring more and more products that are 100% exclusive to Fab.
   
   
2. The world’s most engaging experience – from our website and apps to our delivery and service.
   
   
3. Efficient retailing – we’re building a real business here with solid improvements in margins. Yes, we grew sales by more than 500% in 2012 and we’ll grow by around 100% in 2013, but it’s not just about the top-line — we’re now achieving 43% gross margins, up from 29% in 2011, and we’re rapidly reducing our fulfillment costs through technology and automation. Not a lot of companies can attest to the type of revenue growth + margin growth we’ve seen at Fab.
   
   
4. Truly global. We want to be the brand that represents emotional commerce, on a global scale.

Some additional background on Emotional Commerce:

Some of you may recall my previous blog post on Commodity Commerce vs. Emotional Commerce.  

The first wave of e-commerce — which was dominated by Amazon — was all about bringing commodity products online. We call that wave: Commodity Commerce. The fundamental principles of Commodity Commerce are selection, price and speed:  the biggest product catalogue, at the best prices, delivered as quickly as possible.  It’s Walmart online. It’s Target online. It’s Best Buy online.  It’s your drugstore online. It’s the Amazonification of commodity retail.  It’s convenience shopping for the products people already know they need. And it is perfect for when consumers already know what they are looking for and what matters most is price and convenience. Examples: books, music, electronics, shoes (your size doesn’t change), underwear (ideally your size doesn’t change very often), dry goods, tools and hardware, toys, and office supplies. 

Amazon has successfully executed a winner-take-all strategy in Commodity Commerce by investing heavily in the supply chain of massive selection. That’s the same play that Alibaba has run in China, and Rakuten has run in Japan.

The second wave of e-commerce — which is a battle between Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google, and others — is the digitization of media: Digital Commerce. Books. Music. Movies. TV. Video.

The third wave of e-commerce is all about bringing emotional purchases online. Non-commodity products represent more thoughtful purchase decisions.  That’s exactly what we do at Fab.  That’s Emotional Commerce.  Emotional commerce involves categories like furniture, home accessories, home textiles, fashion, art, and jewelry. These are categories where people care about having something special in their lives.

We believe that the following principles will carry the day in Emotional Commerce:

1. Exciting Merchandise. Winning in Emotional Commerce starts with great products. Stuff that people get excited about. Stuff that’s unique. Stuff that’s fresh. Stuff that can’t be found elsewhere. Emotional Commerce is all about creating Wow!
   
   
   
   
   
2. Amazing Shopping Experiences. Commodity Commerce is about getting in and out as quickly as possible. One-click shopping. Emotional Commerce is all about getting lost in the moment. Emotional Commerce is all about taking the best offline shopping experiences — of being lured in by storefronts, of browsing through assortments and colors; it is the joy of the hunt and finding something fabulous, -  having fun while shopping — and making that entire experience even more amazing online. It’s about discovery via social and mobile and new formats for web and tablets and smartphones. It’s about making online shopping not just convenient but downright fun.  It’s called “retail therapy” for a reason. Shopping must be joyful in order to capture emotional purchases. 
   
   
   
   
   
3. Brand Building. Winning in Emotional Commerce requires developing aspirational yet accessible online brands.  It’s about ecommerce with personality. That’s why Fab has a unique and consistent point of view. We’re modern. We’re colorful. We’re urban-inspired. And, we’re a bit quirky, and we’re proud of that.
   
   
   

Here’s why this brand building matters. 50% of Fab’s sales are in home categories. Furniture. Lighting. Textiles. When people buy home products online, they want to know that there’s a solid and respected brand behind it — and they also want to be inspired by that brand. People get excited by and want to be associated with brands that are sharp, modern, colorful, edgy, and aspirational. (See: Apple, Target, Kate Spade). Brands will have to take care to have a consistent point of view and to honor and nurture the trust relationship between them and their customers. Brands will also need to have patience and staying power.  

For example, customers likely won’t buy big ticket items such as furniture during their first purchase with us. But, if we treat them well and wow them at every turn, we can walk them down a path towards turning to us in trust when they are ready to make a furniture purchase online. At Fab we find that furniture transactions happen most often after a customer’s fifth or sixth purchase.  Nurturing the Fab brand is vital to our being there when the customer is ready.  Today, 5% of Fab’s customers have made a furniture purchase from us. That’s both big and the start of things to come. We know that building the Fab brand is key to enabling more and more people to trust and desire to buy furniture from Fab. That’s why one of the things we’re focused on is acquiring lifetime customers; customers that will go on to make 20+ purchases from Fab. 

That’s the sort of emotional bond we strive to build with our customers, such that they rely on us for their lifestyle purchase decisions.

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IT’S ALL ABOUT CREATING WOW!

To sum up this whole emotional commerce thing, the way we see it, Fab is in the business of creating Wow! 

If we create Wow! every day for our customers, then we will create lots of value over time for our design partners, our employees, and our shareholders.

At our all-company meetings and in investor discussions, I’m now famous (or infamous?) for repeating the same line over and over again:  “I don’t give a shit if we sell $200M this year or $300M this year, what I care about is that we wow our customers everyday and build a brand for the decades. If we do that, we’ll create an amazing business that people love, and in doing so we’ll make plenty of money over time. Wow first, money second.”

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2 YEARS INTO CREATING WOW!

• In our first two years, nearly 14 million people have registered with Fab. 
  
• Our customers have purchased nearly 6 million products from Fab. In the last year we’ve sold 1 product every 5 seconds!
  
• 50% of Fab’s sales are of home products.
• 10% of Fab’s sales are art.
• 10% of Fab’s sales are jewelry.
• 20% of Fab’s sales are fashion and fashion accessories.
  
• The typical Fab customer is 25 to 40 years old. 60% female. College educated.
  
• 35% of Fab’s sales are on mobile. Fab’s members carry the world’s design store around in their hands. Fab’s mobile purchasers also order more, more often, and at higher basket sizes. Fab is leading the mobile shopping revolution.
  
• We’ve worked with more than 15,000 designers, empowering a global design ecosystem and enabling them to scale up their businesses. Their success is our success and we’re committed to being the best partner to designers, period. Our business model is all about shining a spotlight on designers and then helping them scale up their business alongside ours.
  
• We’re well on our way to more than doubling our sales in 2013 over 2012, (which was 5 times more than 2011). 
  
• Fab now sells products in 27 countries and 40% of our sales today occur outside the U.S.
• 75% of Fab’s orders ship within 24 hours of being placed. 
• We pride ourselves on delivering the world’s best customer service. Our Fab “Crackerjacks” (our support team) are renowned for the fastest, friendliest, and most helpful support in the industry, bar none. See for yourself by searching for @fab and @fabcrackerjacks on Twitter.   

And, we’re just getting started.

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WHAT’S FAB GOING TO DO WITH ALL THS MONEY?

Again, it all goes back to creating Wow!  

At the beginning of 2012 it took an excruciatingly long 16 days  - on average - from time of purchase to our shipping a product. Today, 75 percent of Fab’s orders ship within 24 hours of purchase.  This massive change happened by investing in technology and supply chain and logistics, and by taking inventory and stocking it in our own Fab-operated warehouses.  We’ll be investing in additional enhancements to our supply chain, logistics, customer service, technology, and merchandising.  In 2013 we’ll open up our own new Fab-operated warehouse in The Netherlands to serve our 3.5 million European customers.  In 2014 we’ll open up our 2nd Fab-operated warehouse in the U.S., in the Las Vegas area to help us better serve the west coast. 

Another big area of investment we’re making is in developing products that are 100% exclusive to Fab. We’re working closely with our 15,000+ design partners to collaborate on designs that have never been sold before. Instead of hiring hundreds of in-house designers, we’re empowering an ecosystem of thousands of makers – shining a spotlight on their products and then helping scale up their businesses. Our message to designers is simple: Designers design; Fab will help you manufacture, distribute, and grow. We’re also investing in our own line of user-designed custom furniture, Fab Designed By You, which enables anyone to easily design their own tables, shelves, benches, and more.

We’re also investing more in mobile and social. As noted, today 35% of Fab’s sales are via mobile apps and we see highest conversion rates, satisfaction rates, and lifetime value amongst our mobile members. We’ll be unveiling several new innovations there in the coming months, so keep an eye out.

And, finally, we’re investing in our international growth. Fab is democratizing design with no borders. Everyone everywhere benefits from great design. We want Fab to truly be a global brand. In the coming months we’ll be working on rolling out Fab to even more countries. Our aim to enable people all over the world to bring a little Fab into their life, and in doing so to spread great design to people all over the earth like never before.

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RAISING MONEY IS A RESPONSIBILITY, NOT A SUCCESS.

There are some who will call us a success because of this fundraise. 

They’ll say we’re worth billions. 

And, of course, there are some who will call it a bubble. 

We know that the truth is that raising money is not success. Raising money is a responsibility that opens up new opportunities. We take our responsibility at Fab very seriously. We are setting out to build the best designed website and apps, selling the best designed merchandise, with the best designed logistics, customer support, and supply-chain, and backed by the world’s best team of employees, designers and investors. We’re just fortunate to have this amazing opportunity. It’s humbling. It’s inspiring. It’s emotional. Thank you everyone for believing in us. We want to extend a special thank you to our design partners – all 15,000+ of you – for working with us. Our success is your success. We are committed to building this together.

We promise to keep learning, listening, and trying our best to make Fab worthy of the investments in our vision and future that we have been so fortunate to receive.

Oh, and it only gets harder, not easier. Anyone who thinks Fab is taking a victory lap has it all wrong. The pressure is greater than ever for us to succeed. And that’s a good thing. At Fab, one of our core values is that we celebrate our challenges. Bring it on.

Smile, you’re designed to.

The Sudden Resurgence and Importance of Pinterest @Fab

What’s going on over at Pinterest?

I’ll be honest, I’m not a Pinterest user. I’ve tried a few times and it’s just not my bag.

For a while, I also was a Pinterest skeptic. Mostly because (a) I don’t use it, and (b) we saw traffic to Fab from Pinterest plateau and meander for a while (See chart), and (c) the traffic that we got from Pinterest rarely resulted in sales on Fab — people tend to pin the expensive aspirational stuff, not the everyday affordable stuff.

The last 3 months, something’s changed. 

Pinterest was Fab’s #4 traffic source in May. And, it’s converting to purchase for the first time in a considerable manner.

This is something we’ll definitely be looking into.

The 20th Purchase

We’ve been spending a lot of time lately at Fab obsessing around driving even further loyalty amongst Fab’s customers. Fab already has more than two-thirds of our revenue coming from repeat customers vs. new customers, but we have bigger ambitions.

Repeat orders isn’t enough. We want people to love Fab so much that they think of Fab first whenever they want to buy the emotional products in their life — the stuff they live with, they stuff around them. Stuff for their home, stuff for their body, stuff for their lifestyle. The pen they write with, the notebook they write in, the glass they drink from, the table they sit at, the utensils they cook with, etc. The meaningful stuff in their lives.

To get there, we know that Fab has to be more than just the place for cool stuff. Fab needs to really actualize being the world’s #1 design store — the place that people turn to immediately when they think about adding emotional products to their life.

That’s all about building the Fab brand and encouraging people to want to live the Fab lifestyle — modern, colorful, urban-inspired. Aspirational yet everyday accessible. 

That’s also all about building loyalty and emotions around the Fab brand. Our brand is not a marketing slogan; our brand is every interaction with Fab. It’s the long term journey of developing positive, emotional, interaction after interaction such that our customers love us and turn to us whenever they think about adding emotional products to their life.

And that’s why I’ve started talking internally around building for the 20th purchase. What I mean by that is that as a company it’s not enough for us to drive a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or even 10th purchase. We’re setting ambitious goals to try to get all Fab customers to purchase 20+ times from us in the next few years? Why? Because if we are able to accomplish that, it means we have begun to create the lasting brand we aspire to be.

That’s about the best designed products, the best designed experiences, the best designed service, and the best designed team. That’s about designing an amazing company that has a long term emotional impact on people’s lives.

So cheers to trying to build a company worthy of 20 purchases from all of our customers. Ambitious, but that’s what we do.

Smile, you’re designed to.

IDEA FOR INPUT: My New Email Scheme @fab

Over the past 2.5 months I’ve been to parts of Asia 5 times for work. That’s a lot of travel. More on why later.

All this travel has forced me to manage a lot more by email than I would normally prefer.

It has also led me to develop a new system for inbound and outbound email communication with the Fab team.

Here it is. I’m curious your thoughts.

On all emails that are sent to me, I now ask that Fab’s team members put one of the following in ALL CAPS in the subject line:

• UPDATE: (subject xyz). This signifies that the email is just an update, informational, no action required.
  
  
• DISCUSSION: (subject xyz). This signifies that the email is requesting input and debate but is not yet ready for a decision.
  
  
• DECISION: (subject xyz). This signifies that the email is requesting a decision.
  
  
• URGENT: (subject xyz). This signifies that the email requires an immediate response.

I have then setup filters in my gmail such that I first review all URGENTS, then all DECISIONS, then all DISCUSSIONS, then all UPDATES.

On emails that I send, I’ve also started creating a standard structure for what I put in the subject line:

• FEEDBACK. Means I am providing my feedback and input on a topic.
  
  
• ACTION ITEMS. Means I am requesting someone(s) to take a specific action, usually with a specific deadline.
  
  
• IDEA FOR INPUT. Means I am throwing out an idea that I’d like input on.
  

And, my favorite of all, is a simple 2 words that I use most frequently in response to emails from members of our management team:

GO!

Go = 2 letters that = the ultimate empowerment. 

GO! means run with it. 

GO! means take that idea of yours and make it happen. 

GO! means take risks, invent things, make mistakes. 

GO! means get shit done. 

YOUR FEEDBACK?

Bringing The iPad Experience to The Web - The New @Fab Header

Behind the scenes on the Fab redesign was a purposeful effort to bring the best of Fab’s iPad app experience to the web. We had found for a long time that our iPad customers have the highest engagement and conversion rates to purchase. So, we redesigned Fab with the iPad experience in mind.

Today we’re launching a quick follow-up to our big redesign by rolling out a new header for the Fab website that is 100% iPad inspired.

The Fab design style is all about getting out of the way. Clean. Simple. Purposeful. 

Here is the new Fab header in normal state.

Then, clicking on the top left icon reveals the navigation elements — just like on an iPad.

What do you think?

We’ll continue tweaking it as we go.

Smile, you’re designed to.

5 Major @Fab Announcements - April 30, 2013. A Long-Planned Pivot. New Products. A New Market. An Acquisition. And A Retail Channel.

Fab was first designed over a dinner in February 2011. 

There, Bradford Shellhammer and I drank some wine and drew on a napkin and decided to throw out our year-old social network and restart as a new business focused on the one thing we’re both mutually passionate about: Design.

My passion is user experience design.

Bradford’s passion is to design the stuff people live with.

Nishith, Deepa, and Sunil — our co-founders in India whom I’ve now had the pleasure of working with and starting companies with for nearly 7 years — are passionate about designing scalable technology.

Collectively, our one thing is Design.

I’ve known Bradford now for 14 years. As the story goes, we randomly met in a nightclub in 1999. The story is true. We remained friends over the years. I was always inspired by him. Everyone I know has always wanted Bradford to help them design the stuff in their lives — their homes, their interiors, their accessories, their apparel, their art, their style. Bradford just has that unusual and uncanny knack for finding greatness and beauty in everyday things. He helps people embrace color. He’s fun.

I looked across the table at Bradford that night and I said: “Let’s design a beautiful website and app that brings your taste to the world.”

So we did.

People called it a “pivot.” We called it a complete restart. We threw out the old and started anew.

And it took off fast. Really fast. We re-launched Fab on June 9, 2011 and before we knew it we were tracking to $100M in sales and working with tens of thousands of designers and connecting with millions of consumers.

We were on to something big. We knew it.

So, in January 2012 we did what came naturally to us: We planned to Pivot. Again.

This time, we would do it gradually — over 16 months it turns out, and with 600 amazing teamates alongside us —  but methodically, from our start as this interesting flash sales website for design to The World’s #1 Design Store. 

We planned this pivot and mapped out how to do it over the course of these 16 months because we realized that we were on to something much bigger and more long-term sustainable than flash sales. You see, it turns out that Fab was always different from those other flash sale websites. We had created a marketplace for design, bringing together more then ten thousand designers who previously never had a rich platform on which to reach consumers. We were selling first-run merchandise at everyday good prices, not inventory liquidation at a discount. We had seen a groundswell around Fab on both the supplier and consumer side of Fab that is seldom seen around commerce. We were becoming a lifestyle brand. A horizontal play. We were more mobile, more social, and more addictive. 

We planned to pivot towards creating one of the next great iconic shopping brands. (We hope). We told ourselves and our team: Think big. Plan to be big. Focus every day on what will wow our customers most in the long term. We’re in the wow business. If we make lots of wow, plenty of sales and revenue will happen over time. But first, focus on making wow.

Over the course of 2012 and into the first few months of 2013 we dramatically moved and transformed our business, while still growing sales by more than 500%.

We went from 2000 products on Fab to 15,000. Every day.

We took on inventory.

We built permanent collections.

We invested in search.

And browse.

And warehouses.

And logistics.

And Fab exclusive collaborations and design originals.

The result of which was profound. Before we even make today’s 5 big announcements, less than 40% of Fab’s revenue today is from flash sales. Most of our sales is from search and browse of products that live on Fab.

So today, we move forward. Towards a new Fab.

A new Fab that helps people find what they love, buy what they love, and love what they love, easier than every before.

This presentation and video spells out our evolution and strategic direction. 

The announcements are:

1. A major pivot, redesign, relaunch of Fab as the World’s #1 Design Store. The New Fab - redesigned from the ground up — is now live on Fab.com in the U.S. and it will be live in Europe as well in the coming weeks.
2. The introduction of 3 types of Exclusively Fab products: Products Designed by Fab, Designer Collaborations, and Products Found by Fab.
3. The launch of Fab in France, now giving us coverage into 99% of the European Union.
4. The acquisition of MassivKonzept, the leading startup in online customized furniture, which is now being relaunched as Fab Designed By You.
   
5. The launch of Fab’s first physical retail concept.

As always, we’re not done.

We’re always reinventing and reimagining what Fab can be. We won’t rest until we’ve created the global brand that is synonymous with design for years and years to come.

We want to extend a special thank you to the now 600+ amazing people who work each day tirelessly and passionately for Fab. You are incredible.  You are making WOW every day.

Smile, you’re designed to.

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Screenshots of the New Fab, The new Fab Retail Experience, and details around the Fab acquisition of MASSIVKONZEPT follow.

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Additional details about our acquisition of MassivKonzept follow.

Beginning in the middle of 2012 Fab began exploring and putting resources towards ways for us to develop Fab-exclusive products, particularly in the home and furniture categories.

Furniture is a space we are particularly interested in disrupting over the next few years. Broken supply chains. The model of consumers going to physical retail showrooms and having to have a professional designer work with them to customize their furniture — in terms of size and material and color — is ripe for disruption.

So, about 6 months ago we started to think really hard about how to disrupt the market for custom furniture. We think this can be brought online efficiently over time.

We looked at a couple of companies innovating in the online custom furniture space and we were most impressed with MassivKonzept. 

The MK team is super impressive. They’ve been at it for a couple of years now and have already bootstrapped themselves to a $10M revenue profitable business. They have built impressive technology and supplier relations with high quality craftspeople in Europe. They’ve created a seamless and fun way for people to go online, customize their ideal table, bookshelf, or sofa, and then have it hand-crafted to their specifications from high quality craftspeople in Europe.

The products they develop — that their customers customize — are of the highest quality, entirely user-customizable, and because of Internet efficiency, ship to customers at a fraction of prices similar products would sell in physical retail stores like Bo Concept, Crate and Barrel, and Habitat. 

Today, Fab is announcing the acquisition of MassivKonzept in an all-stock transaction. 

Massivkonzept by the numbers: 

• 7000 customers 
• $1000 average shopping cart, with largest customization orders reaching up to $100,000
• Over 10% sales are B2B: office owners, architects and carpenters buy from us
• 900,000 people have used the configuration tools online.
• 10% of sales in 2 years are from repeat buyers

We’re excited to now relaunch MassivKonzept as Fab, Designed By You, also known as Fab DBY. 

Fab DBY will be available immediately to Fab’s customers in Europe. Fab DBY will be prominently featured on the Fab Europe website.

In addition, customers can access Fab DBY directly at dby.fab.com.

Fab’s U.S. customers will be able to purchase a collection of DBY best-sellers immediately on Fab.com. We’ll be working on integrating the full suite of Fab DBY customization tools into Fab.com in the future for both our U.S. and European customers.

As part of this acquisition Fab is also acquiring its first retail presence, as MassivKonzept has maintained a showroom in the Stilwerk design center in Hamburg. At that showroom potential customers are able to explore the MK range of products but all customization and purchases are still done entirely online. The slogan for MassivKonzept has always been “designed by you” and that will stay the same under Fab.

Today the MassivKonzept showroom is being transformed into a Fab showroom. There, people will be able to discover and explore Fab Designed By You as well as the broader range of Fab everyday design products.

Fab will be opening up additional retail showrooms in the near future. Our next target market for a Fab retail presence is in Berlin, near our European headquarters.

We believe that part of disrupting design is disrupting it across multiple channels. We’re working on Fab store concepts that reimagine and reinvent how people buy design products by merging offline & online experiences in entirely new ways. We’ve always said that Fab wants to be where its customers are — be it smartphone, tablets, web browsers, or even physical retail stores. And, with less than 5% of home products purchased online today, we think that physical retail has an important role to play in the customer’s decision process. But, we plan to reinvent retail and help guide home product purchased online to 10%, then 20%, then 30% online as part of our disrupting the industry.

The entire MassivKonzept team is joining Fab as part of the acquisition. The two founders of MassivKonzept, Christoph Jung and Daniel Kollman will lead Fab Designed By You. Chris will head up the producer side of the business while Daniel will lead sales and marketing and service. Both of them will report to Matt Baer, Fab’s Senior Vice President of Merchandising Operations.

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#lovewhatyoulove

Pivots. Financing. News. @Fab.

Let me take just a moment to clear up a couple of things about @Fab, as there seems to be a lot of chatter about us today in the Interwebs.

First, let’s talk Pivots.

We think that given our history (remember when Fab was a gay social network? we do!) we have earned some rights to use the word “pivot” a bit liberally here at Fab.

Yes, we are announcing some big new developments at Fab on Monday April 29. We’ve invited reporters. We’ve got 5 major new developments to reveal. And while pivot traditionalists might scoff at or speculate about our throwing the P-word around to describe our big upcoming announcements, the truth is that Monday marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Fab, a “reimagination” let’s call it, that began more than 14 months ago. And, as we do, we’ll keep on reinventing and reimagining Fab for as long as we’re at this. It’s what we do. We’re never content. 

You see, it was only back in June 2011 that we launched Fab. We sold $65k worth of product that day. Seriously. Less than 4 months later we had 1 million registered users. For a shopping website. Seriously. We quickly became the place for everyday design. We reimagined online shopping — as something that could be exciting and fun.  We tried to bring a little WOW to the world.  To help everyone, everywhere benefit from design.

22 months later, tens of millions of people in 28 countries turn to Fab for modern, colorful, fun products that make them stop and smile.


And someone buys something they love on Fab every 7 seconds.  

Next week we’ll do some pivoting. In a good way. To help Fab’s customers better discover what they love. Shop what they love. And love what they love.

Oh, and we don’t have anything to say today about any new financing for Fab. Despite any rumors. We’re too busy today focusing on making people smile.

Smile, you’re designed to.

More to follow on Monday April 29, 2013.