In 2013, Santa Monica-based social commerce BeachMint made all the right moves. The 150-person team formed partnerships with brands such as intimate apparel company Cosabella and footwear company ALDO and also named Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen as co-chairs of their advisory board. Josh Berman, co-founder and CEO of BeachMint, is the man behind these strategic partnerships between his e-commerce company and fashion brands and high-profile celebrities.
This was possible because Berman knows his way around LA’s entertainment, fashion and tech scenes; he’s built a company in LA quite a few times now. As a co-founder of Myspace and President of Slingshot Labs (an incubator within News Corporation), Berman still involves himself heavily in the LA tech scene while building up each of BeachMint’s four online brands.
Built In LA sat down with Berman to hear about how the BeachMint team will leverage their successes of 2013 as they really “come to life” this year:
What are you excited to work on with BeachMint this year?
Many of the deals we’ve been working on from 2013 will be coming to life in the first quarter of 2014 and the impact will be significant. The most tangible difference for our members will be a greater assortment of product and even more exclusive items across all of our Mint verticals. I am so excited to see it all unfold.
We have an incredible new partner in the intimate apparel category, Cosabella, together we are launching an entirely new line called IntiMint by Cosabella which will also include activewear, loungewear and swim.
For our footwear brand ShoeMint, we have entered into a long-term agreement with ALDO Group who will be our exclusive manufacturing partner. This is a deep relationship that enables us to create exclusive styles in collaboration with their design team and will exponentially expand our assortment of shoes.
JewelMint is launching a third installment of our successful Studio Series, a collaboration program of exclusive capsule collections by award winning designers at our affordable price point. We are also continuing to grow JewelMint’s Collective, our market-space of independent artisanal designers.
In what ways was BeachMint’s fast growth challenging to keep up with at first?
There was so much excitement around the launch of BeachMint, we experienced exponential growth very quickly. We grew from one brand (JewelMint) to four in two years.
Prioritization and focus became key to our continued success. The women’s fashion verticals were the ones that showed the most growth and potential so they received the bulk of our resources and we eventually chose to put the other two verticals on hold.
Merchandising was a challenge we initially underestimated. Getting the right team in place, one with deep fashion expertise, has been instrumental to continuing our original mission of bringing very high quality merchandise to our members at an exceptional value.
How important is it to incorporate customer feedback into a business?
I believe real time customer feedback is the best way for a company to set themselves up for success in so many ways: product feedback, good or bad; driving your product roadmap; design; marketing, both creative and offers; and of course, customer support. This has been true both for BeachMint and Myspace.
BeachMint has grown to about 150 employees in just four years. What is your team like?
Surrounding myself with a great team has been super-important to me throughout my career. Once you find people you love, keep them with you! I have several people at BeachMint that have been with me since Myspace or earlier. Diego Berdakin, co-founder and President of BeachMint, worked with me at NewsCorp. A smart team with complementary skills and great attitude is key to our culture.
As a USC MBA graduate yourself, how do you find LA's local universities encouraging entrepreneurship today?
The local universities are interacting with the community more and more. In the last five years, I have been very encouraged by the outreach and initiatives I have received from USC, UCLA and Caltech for conferences and networking events.
I really believe people want to enjoy where they work in addition to feeling challenged and engaged. As long as we continue to have innovative startups growing in our community, people will be interested in working here. Starting and building a company in Los Angeles is amazing. We have a terrific community of content creators, engineers, designers and product developers. That coupled with the incredible quality of life we enjoy in Southern California is hard to beat.
