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Arcade, a new online retail startup founded by Mariam Naficy, uses AI to allow customers to design their own jewellery. Customers can input simple text prompts into the AI tool to generate designs, which are then crafted by artisans in countries such as India and Italy. Arcade is backed by $17 million in funding from investors including Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn. The startup is aiming to expand its AI-powered design tools to other categories such as home decor and accessories. The article highlights Naficy's entrepreneurial journey, which includes founding the early online makeup retailer Eve.com and Minted, a platform for selling crowdsourced designs. Arcade's approach seeks to empower consumers by enabling them to dictate what products are made, potentially disrupting the traditional manufacturing and retail model.
Our guest today is Mariam Naficy, a veteran entrepreneur who has founded and scaled successful companies, including Eve.com, the world's first online cosmetics retailer, Minted, the online marketplace of premium design goods created by independent artists and designers and Tonic.xyz, a curated fine art gallery focused on blockchain art. Born to Iranian and Chinese parents, Mariam's childhood in diverse countries shaped her perspective. She overcame adversity when her family fled Iran during the 1979 Revolution and faced challenges upon arriving in the US. Today she is the Founder & Managing Partner of Heretic Ventures, the San Francisco-based venture studio that founds companies at the intersection of culture, commerce, and creators. With a keen eye for innovative ideas, Mariam's insights on crypto, blockchain, and NFTs are invaluable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“we know where web three culture is going, it's a decentralization and disintermediation of platforms, direct ownership, and a connection of creators with their consumers directly” How do you build a scalable business crowdsourcing from artists from all over the world? Listen as serial entrepreneur Mariam Naficy, Founder and CEO of Minted, shares just how crowdsourcing can turn a greeting and holiday card business into a platform for art, home and so much more. And what does she think about Web3? Find out now on her incredible interview on this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow Enjoying this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow? Let Kara know by clicking on the links below and sending her a quick shout-out on social or reach out to Kara Goldin directly at karagoldin@gmail.com Follow Kara Goldin on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karagoldin/ Follow Kara Goldin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karagoldin/ Follow Kara Goldin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/karagoldin Follow Kara Goldin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KaraGoldin/ Check out our website to view show notes: https://karagoldin.com/podcast/230 List of links to resources mentioned in episode, suggested reading & social media handles: Check out Minted.com: https://www.minted.com/ Follow Mariam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mnaficy/ Connect with Mariam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariam-naficy/
Mariam Naficy is the Founder and Co-CEO at Minted. Minted is the leading crowd-sourcing design company that holds continuous design competitions. Designers submit work from all over the world and Minted's community votes to tell the company what to sell. Previously she co-founded the first online cosmetics retailer, Eve.com, which was sold for over $100 million. In this episode we get to hear Mariam's expertise on entrepreneurship and business strategy.
Mariam Naficy is the Founder and Co-CEO at Minted. Minted is the leading crowd-sourcing design company that holds continuous design competitions. Designers submit work from all over the world and Minted's community votes to tell the company what to sell. Previously she co-founded the first online cosmetics retailer, Eve.com, which was sold for over $100 million. In this episode we get to hear Mariam's expertise on entrepreneurship and business strategy.
A little more than a decade ago, the world of digital printing was a different place, dominated by manufacturers and largely devoid of artists and designers. In 2007, Mariam Naficy set out to change that, founding Minted as a stationery company that would use emerging tech to promote the work of independent artists and designers. Nearly 15 years later, the company continues to stay ahead of the curve through its crowdsourced design competitions—giving consumers a hand in what's sold on the site while simultaneously offering an early glimpse into rising trends.This episode is sponsored by Crypton Home Fabrics and Hooker Furniture. LINKSMintedDennis ScullyBusiness of Home
Balance: Domestic responsibilities have always fallen more heavily on women than on men, and that remains true even when both partners work outside the home. Juggling domestic and professional life has always been hard, but COVID-19 has made that balance impossible. Our co-host Nina Kjellson finds that even in these pre-COVID interviews, our guests provide much inspiration and guidance in their individual perspectives and experiences as working moms. We’ll hear from Dr. Odette Harris, Mariam Naficy, Karla Gallardo, Ginger More, Julia Collins, and Amy DuRoss to hear the similarities between starting a family and a company at the same time, the difference supportive managers make, and why women should take more entrepreneurial risks before having children.Hosted by Nina Kjellson, WoVen : Women Who Venture is a podcast from Canaan and Edit Audio Inc. that represents a platform, a community and really a celebration of venturesome and adventurous women in healthcare, tech and business.
Prejudice: Last time we explored the power of self-care. This episode, we’ll dig into prejudice, a draining reality that most women, and especially women of color, have to deal with on a regular basis. Being an “other” in a predominantly white and male working environment comes with many challenges, but it also comes with an opportunity to influence change. Our co-host Laura Chau reveals the ways in which our guests experience, cope with, and push back against the prejudice they face. We sit down with Odette Harris, Julia Collins, Julie Wainwright, Amy DuRoss, and Mariam Naficy to hear how they embody confidence, unapologetically innovate, and evoke change for the future.Hosted by Laura Chau, WoVen : Women Who Venture is a podcast from Canaan and Edit Audio Inc. that represents a platform, a community and really a celebration of venturesome and adventurous women in healthcare, tech and business.
Mariam Naficy is the founder and CEO of Minted, an online design marketplace that produces stationery, paper goods, home decor products, and really, anything to support an intentional lifestyle.And it's all based on crowdsourced designs from a talented community of independent artists from over 100 countries. Mariam is no stranger to an eclectic community. She is the daughter of Iranian and Chinese immigrants and lived all over the world growing up. She points to these diverse experiences, and the experience of often being an outsider, as the foundation for her ability to approach entrepreneurial problems from a new perspective. In 1998, she founded Eve.com, an e-commerce cosmetics company which she then sold for $110 million just two years later. She followed it up with Minted, which she originally intended to run as a lifestyle business she could operate while raising her young kids. But, after a bumpy start, and almost shutting down the company, Mariam realized the unique value of the community of artists she had built. She has now gone on to raise nearly $300 million in venture capital, valuing the company at well over $700 million.
In 2000, Mariam Naficy sold her first company, an online cosmetics store called Eve.com, for $110 million. Several years later, she got the entrepreneurial itch once again: she founded Minted.com, an online stationery store that solicits designs from artists all over the world. Today Minted is one of the biggest crowdsourcing platforms on the Internet. PLUS in our post-script "How You Built That," we check back with Christopher Rannefors who created BatBnB, a sleek wooden box that hangs on your house and provides a safe home for mosquito-eating bats.
Every founder faces the same question when they start their entrepreneurial journey: How much money do I need to raise? And the answer is: A lot more than you think – but not for the reasons you think. In this classic episode, the founder and CEO of Minted, Mariam Naficy, talks about her decision to raise – and raise again. Not for a rainy-day slush fund, but because she understood that to outmaneuver the competition, to guard against economic downturns, and to take advantage of opportunities that may unfold late in the game, she’d need to have the capital. It was with that foresight that she raised more than $300 million – and grew Minted to the nine-figure revenue company it is today. Cameo appearances: Selina Tobaccowala (Evite, Gixo), Daniel Kahneman (Nobel-winning psychologist), Brian Chesky (Airbnb), Amos Kedmey (Wine and Cheese Place).
Fouad ElNaggar is the Founder & CEO @ Sapho, the only employee experience portal designed for the digital workforce. To date, Ray has raised over $27m in funding with Sapho from some real favourites of ours including Ray @ Caffeinated, Felicis, Uncork, Bloomberg Beta, Clark Landry and Howard Lindzon @ Social Leverage, just to name a few. Prior to founding Sapho, Fouad was the Chief Strategy Officer at CBS Interactive overseeing strategy, operations, partnerships, and M&A. At CBSi, Fouad structured deals with partners such as Yahoo, IAC, and Twitch and acquired premium brands such as TV Guide and Giant Bomb. Prior to CBSi, Fouad was a VC at Redpoint Ventures overseeing the firm’s LA office and helping establish a dedicated fund in Brazil. Fouad has previously founded three venture-backed companies – Marketing Technology Solutions (acquired), Liquid Light (acquired), and Hark. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Fouad made his way from the world of VC to the world of CBS and media to founding SaaS companies being a serial SaaS founder with his 4th company, Sapho? What does Fouad mean when he says the role of the CEO is to be an “inspirational asshole”? Why is this role so crucial and how is it embodied both in the approach to inspiring a team and driving goals and decision-making? How does Fouad think about structuring decision-making internally? Where do so many go wrong in implementing a decision-making process? Why is Fouad a believer that “it is about coaching and promoting rather than signal hiring”? What does Fouad really interpret as signal hiring? When does signal hiring work well? How does Fouad determine when a stretch VP is a stretch too far? What are the leading indicators? Does Fouad agree with Mariam Naficy that rotation of function is key to internal upscaling? What does Fouad believe are the 2 fundamental benefits of “being old” in SaaS? How would Fouad respond to the suggestion that the rate of decay on experience has never been greater with Moore’s law effect on technology? Applied to hiring, how does Fouad think about the decision to hire a jack of all trades vs a specialist? When is the time to make the transition? Fouad’s 60 Second SaaStr What does Fouad know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? A moment in Fouad’s business life that changed the way he thinks? What would Fouad most like to change in the world of SaaS today? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Fouad ElNaggar
In 2000, Mariam Naficy sold her first company, an online cosmetics store called Eve.com, for $110 million. Several years later, she got the entrepreneurial itch once again: she founded Minted, an online stationery store that solicits designs from artists all over the world. Today Minted is one of the biggest crowdsourcing platforms on the Internet. PLUS for our postscript, "How You Built That," how Vanessa and Casey White turned their grandfather's pierogi recipe into Jaju Pierogi.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Mariam Naficy has pioneered consumer Internet models since 1998, when she co-founded the first online cosmetics retailer, Eve.com, which was sold for over $100 million. Today, Mariam is the Founder & CEO @ Minted, the startup that uses crowdsourcing and analytics to bring the best designs to market faster than anyone. To date, Mariam has raised &89m in VC funding with Minted from some of the best in the business including our favourites Floodgate, Benchmark, Menlo, Slow, Ridge Ventures and then prominent individuals such as Marissa Meyer and Jeremy Stoppelman. In addition, Mariam sits on the Board of Yelp and Every Mother Counts. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mariam made her way into startups from investment banking and came to sell her first startup, Eve, for $100m in cash within a year before founding Minted? 2.) What were the biggest lessons Mariam learnt from Eve and applied to Minted? Why did Mariam not want to pursue VC funding in the beginning with Minted? What was the inflection point in not taking VC to taking VC funds? 3.) How did Mariam think about capital efficiency in the early days of Minted? How did Mariam see that change with the sudden injection of VC capital? In the heavily funded landscape today, would Mariam have raised VC money from the start, if starting today? 4.) Mariam is a master of internal upscaling, what is the secret to creating a culture of internal continuous learning? Why is rotation within the company roles such a core element? How has Mariam's assessment of people talent changed over the years? 5.) What would Mariam say is her greatest strength and he greatest weakness as a CEO? How has she seen this change with her 20 years of founding companies? How did having children change her outlook on managing people? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mariam’s Fave Book: The Effective Executive As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mariam on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Cooley are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world, with 50+ years working with VCs. They help VCs form and manage funds, make investments and handle the myriad issues that arise through a fund’s lifetime. So to learn more about the #1 most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public. Head over to cooley.com and also at cooleygo.com. Zoom, fastest growing video and web conferencing service, providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to engage in an array of activities including video meetings and webinars, collaboration-enabled conference rooms, and persistent chat all in one easy platform. Plus, it is the easiest solution to manage, scale, and use, and has the most straightforward, affordable pricing. Don’t take our word for it. Zoom is the top rated conferencing app across various user review sites including G2Crowd and Trust Radius. And you can sign up for a free account (not a trial!). Just visit Zoom.us.
Mariam Naficy - Minted CEO, spends some time with us. She shared with us some what it took to start Minted, why Minted's business model is unique, how technology is being used, and if there are plans to open stores. https://www.minted.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support
Think you've raised enough money for your startup? Think again. You have to run through a minefield of unexpected expenses as an entrepreneur. And you never know where the big opportunity will come from. So always, always raise more money than you think you need. Mariam Naficy shares her white-knuckle experiences founding startups that survived two financial crashes — online cosmetic company Eve.com in the 90s, and founder and designer boutique Minted.com today.
This is session 7 of Technology-enabled Blitzscaling, a Stanford University class taught by Reid Hoffman, John Lilly, Allen Blue, and Chris Yeh. This class features Reid Hoffman interviewing Mariam Naficy, the Founder and CEO of Minted.com, and the Founder and Co-CEO of Eve.com.
Host Lauren Schiller talks with Mariam Naficy, Founder and CEO of Minted, a marketplace of independent artists.
"There's never been a better time to start a business," says Philip Krim, co-founder and CEO of Casper. He joined Mariam Naficy, founder and CEO of Minted, and David Solomon, co-head of the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs, to discuss what's most important for successful companies and the one class business school graduates wish they could take again. This podcast was recorded on October 15, 2015. The information contained in this recording was obtained from publicly available sources and has not been independently verified by Goldman Sachs. Neither Goldman Sachs nor any of its affiliates makes any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this recording and any liability as a result of this recording is expressly disclaimed. This recording should not be relied upon to evaluate any potential transaction. Goldman Sachs is not giving investment advice by means of this recording, and this recording does not establish a client relationship with Goldman Sachs. Copyright 2015 Goldman Sachs. All rights reserved.