No Junk in this Trunk (Club)
Early this month, LaunchSquad helped launch a revolutionary, virtual shopping service for men called Trunk Club.
To keep things real and answer a few questions right off the bat, here’s how Trunk Club works on a logistical level – in five simple steps:
1. Apply for the Trunk Club service online, which is 100% free.
2. Meet face to face with a Trunk Club fashion expert (via Skype) to determine clothing likes and dislikes.
3. Your fashion expert will mail a variety of hand-selected items which you then decide to keep or return.
4. Meet online again with the Trunk Club fashion expert for recommendations and insight.
5. Return whatever clothes you don’t like. Only pay for what you do.
What differentiates Trunk Club from already established (and highly successful) personal shopping services at stores like Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus? For starters, the virtual element and use of Skype to conduct all correspondence. Not only can men now “shop” from the comfort of their home, but a trained style expert is doing the heavy lifting and actually selecting and ordering clothes for you. If you don’t have a webcam to participate in the Skype session with your expert, Trunk Club will send you a complementary one. That’s right, fo’ FREE.
Secondly, the breakdown of the distribution channel: Trunk Club operates without inventory or significant real estate, so it is scalable and sustainable at a time when traditional retail models (and even E-Commerce) are faltering. Whether we like it or not, with a model like Trunk Club the need for stores and malls isn’t as imperative or relevant as it once was. There will always be those of us that enjoy the hunt and tradition (or addiction) of shopping, but thanks to Trunk Club there is now an alternative option. And it’s only a matter of time before other versions of this (possibly for women) enter the market. Right now, we can say with confidence that there is no other company like Trunk Club that exists and early feedback from media such as TechCrunch, The Los Angeles Times, Yahoo! Tech, Women’s Wear Daily, and The Washington Post seem to suggest that.
With the innovative and dynamic 25-year-old CEO and founder Joanna Van Vleck at the helm of Trunk Club, this promising new retail model should continue to pave the way for the future of virtual commerce … and create some damn well dressed dudes in the meantime.
Volunteer Day at the Exploratorium
Last Wednesday nine LaunchSquadders participated in a company-wide volunteer day at the Exploratorium.
The museum is located within San Francisco’s Palace of Fine arts, widely recognized by its unique dome that rises up from the Marina District and can be seen from the Golden Gate Bridge. Founded in 1969, the Exploratorium showcases hundreds of science, art and human perception exhibits, all aimed at promoting informal education.
We kick-started our morning with some gardening in the park surrounding the Palace’s lagoon. Following a safety talk and tool demonstration from the Exploratorium gardener Trudy, our team partnered up for some serious weeding in the far corner of the park.
After we successfully de-weeded a group of trees, we moved inside the Exploratorium to join hundreds of visitors, including members of Hideout summer camp. The Squad took charge of the activities tables and taught visitors how to make cornstarch packing peanut creations, mini finger drums and flying rotocopters. In attempt to keep up with the kids, Brett Marty constructed an extravagant packing peanut turtle and Meghan and Chris performed their new finger drum duet, “Leaky Pipe.”
Once the visitors got their fill at the activities tables, the Squad departed the Exploratorium with free guest passes in hand and intentions to come back soon. This impressive and very interactive museum isn’t just for kids, we recommend a visit.
SugarSync Makes Syncing Social
We’re very excited about our new client SugarSync and some of the new features they introduced yesterday for their digital life management service. If you are not familiar with them, SugarSync is a cloud-based service designed to improve the way we manage and share our digital lives, and starting today, the sharing part just got a lot easier.
For those out there using Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, or Yahoo for email, SugarSync is now fully-integrated with your email contacts, so it is easier than ever to collaborate and share files with your friends and family. Also, for Facebookers, photo folders can easily be uploaded to your Facebook profile from your SugarSync account, making photo saving and sharing a seamless, one-click step. Even working on your BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device is easier, with support for shared folders and a new interface that helps improve navigation from your phone.
SugarSync lets you save, store and access all of your digital files, whether you work on a Mac or a PC, have an iPhone, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile phone. All of your photos, music and documents are only a click away, no matter where you are, no matter when you want them. One especially cool feature is that you can stream your whole home iTunes library from your iPhone through the SugarSync application, so you don’t have to be limited to just the songs that you have put on your phone — calling all DJ’s!
Also, Sugar wants you to share the sweetness! They are offering a new referral program can help you earn up to 10 GB free- just for getting your friends to sign up for an account.
To taste the Sugar, sign up for a free 2 GB account here…
Evernote Hits One Million
Congratulations to our client Evernote for hitting the very impressive one million user mark on May 21st! It’s an incredible achievement, especially considering that the company reached this milestone only shortly over a year after the product’s launch — meaning that Evernote has grown its user base faster than Skype and Twitter.
For some history: Since it’s private beta launch in February 2008, the company has delivered a Web version, a popular iPhone app, and most recently a native BlackBerry application, thus truly delivering on it’s promise to make users’ notes available at anytime, in anyplace, from anywhere.
We’re really proud to be a part of this milestone and are looking forward to a summer of further developments and announcements as Evernote continues to grow its service and provide even more ubiquitous access to notes and memories. The first million is always the hardest, right?
For more information around the company’s growth, please see TechCrunch’s coverage of the milestone or check out the Evernote company blog.
LaunchSquad Gets Its Cloud On
It seems the cloud is everywhere these days – and LaunchSquad is no exception. Digital Media Buzz recently wrote on the use of cloud computing, highlighting how we’ve made the switch here at LaunchSquad in many ways. We’ve shifted to Gmail for our email server, but the biggest move was transitioning from traditional productivity software to Google Apps. It’s a change that’s allowed us to work more collaboratively and connect in real-time with coworkers in both our San Francisco and New York offices. The price is right too.
In addition to our own use of cloud services, we’ve been working with some clients who are really moving the needle in how businesses leverage cloud computing. Sonoa Systems is helping companies like MTV Networks and Pfizer open their Web services to the “cloud,” creating new business opportunities. Another client, i365, is leveraging the cloud to offer customers a fast, low-cost way to backup, secure and recover critical business data. And of course we’ve got a long list of SaaS providers, from SuccessFactors and Daptiv to InfusionSoft and InsideView.