I had signed up for StyleMint (a “club of the month” type of clothing company) where you get to select a shirt each month for $29.99 and get it sent to you in the mail. First month, I signed up, selected my shirt and received it. I wasn’t thoroughly excited or impressed with the shirt, but wanted to test out the service as I’m fascinated by these mass-style subscription services.

Next month on my credit card I was billed $29.99 via StyleMint, and thought twice about the charge and forgot it, as I had not received any other items form them. And again, this month saw the charge again. I realized (as I have still not received any more shirts) the company charges you monthly and allows for “credits” to accrue…assumingly for when you are ready to select the shirts/picks you’d like you must log in, take action and then they are shipped.

I felt cheated and tricked by the company… To charge my card and not send me items in the mail does not seem like a good way to go about business. It feels dishonest, it feels like stealing…To claim “oh you should have read the fine print” or “it’s on you to cancel each month” seems… distasteful and like shirking responsibilities on the company’s part (at very least, send me the products!)… I’ve posted to their Facebook wall (see above)…

If nothing else, this experience as a customer has proven to me we will never do business like this. We will never charge cards in a way that could be perceived as deceitful or “tricky”. No customer service rep of mine will ever say things like “oh you should have read the fine print …”. It’s not the money or the lack of a clear way to cancel my subscription that turns me off most, it’s the feeling/the taste that StyleMint has now left in my mouth. This mechanism for gaining revenue is not in the name of the customer. It taste like cheating. I’d be weary of revenue numbers a company like that projects, to pull in cash and book it as revenue and use those numbers as proxies for happy customers, well, it’s not the way I will ever do business. No thanks.

Source: flickr.com via Milena on Pinterest

Social shopping:

The breadcrumb trail of my friends: I want to know what my friends bought when I’m looking for something specific. I care much less about what they bought in “real time” the trail of intrigue begins when I know I need something, or want to discover…at that point, a history of what others I care about would become relevant to me.

The act of online shopping at the same time as others:

Seems to be most exciting when there is some sort of auction style dynamic. It’s also fun to have a conversation around an item I’m considering with a small group of people I care about, who also know a bit about what I’m considering buying.

Shopping online when it relates to fashion:

Online shopping will not allow me to try something on immediately… so if I can’t interact with the physical product, I want to interact with those I trust. I want to feel validated in the choices I make, and confidence around my decision. Approval, smart tips, and recommendations that are perfect for me are what it’s all about. It’s the conversation we have in our daily lives with those we trust that needs to be brought online.

In response to Mashable’s ” 10 unique laptop bags for the fashionable techie”  I’d like to propose that you limit yourself if you stick to the obvious when it comes to bags for your laptop. I carry that laptop back and forth everywhere…so I get it. Here’s the thing, most of the obvious options are no good. Ladies, think outside the box on this one, your choices are much more chic. 

1. Brown genuine leather MacBook case, Etsy  (classic, fall, sophisticated)

2. Waterproof material -Laptop Sleeve For 13 inch Padded Cotton Macbook Case-Stars , Etsy  (cute, feminine, light weight, zips) 

3. RYAN BACK-PURSE, DANNJO  ( all that is fringe, and south west feels right for fall, and its a backpack, so weight is divided between the shoulders)

4. FUNCHICO V2.0, VINTAGE LAPTOP CASE, Rain Brooke (gets me in the Pam Am mood, ABC style)

5. TARRYTOWN LAPTOP JANINE, Kate Spade (the bring this everywhere to every meeting and still look like i have it together bag)

6.  DSQUARED2,  Shop Bop  (it’s sturdy, its serious, it’s the “i can stand on my own” bag)

7. FELT SHOPPER BAG, Top Shop (feels fresh, light weight, and two colors which go with most of my wardrobe)

8. ASOS Leather Twist Lock Vintage Style Satchel, Asos  (good for the smaller lap tops or ipads. “hands free”,  it’s neat)

9.  Riviera Tote, Mark Cross  (its “Saffiano” leather, its old school mark cross, it’s roomy for more stuff)

10. flannel SMALL JADEN TOTE, Tory Burch  (it’s the perfect size, it zips for travel, it actually fits under my arm) 

“There it is, they’d say, over and over, as if the repetition itself were an act of poise, a balance between crazy and almost crazy, knowing without going. There it is, which meant be cool, let it ride, because oh yeah, man, you can’t change what can’t be changed, there it is, there it absolutely and positively and fucking well is.

They were tough.

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing -these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. They crawled into tunnels and walked point and advanced under fire. Each morning, despite the unknowns, they made their legs move. They endured. They kept humping. They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards.”

In corporations, as you move up the ladder, you get more and more general. Your goal is to specialize less, and manage more. In startups, it’s the reverse. The goal is to get more and more specialized in your role.

At the beginning, the team must all be generalist. I was (…am?) the product manager, business development lead, marketing/pr, VP finance, HR, operations, and vision person. Simon does all of tech, he codes, he strategizes, he runs QA he works on back end development and front end code. He builds APIS and manages all tracking. Matt designs everything, from wireframes, to emails we send. He would select colors, would pick fonts, would adjust copy and determine tone and feel…He would see broadly what the essence of the product must be, but be able to nit pick minor pixel errors….And that’s just the stuff within our functional areas…We all overlap, we all give each other feedback…

We all had to be great at the big picture, but also be able, willing and nimble enough to get dirty in the details. We would have to be able to learn to prioritize, cut, remove, edit when there was too much going on…and also be able to fight for pieces of what is essential to product, the story and the company. As a young startup, we all still do many of the tasks above, but now we are growing, the goal, is to get LESS general. I will cut out HR/operations, accounting and PR…Simon will bring on an expert in back-end and mobile developers… Matt will do less copy editing and email maneuvering and more wireframes, and overall branding…

It’s striking how different this is than life in a corporate environment. In corporate, you want to do less detail, want to take on more and more, have more direct reports, mange up more…you try and move away from specialization.

In startup, you move towards a place where you can remove yourself from the process and it still works! You take yourself out of roles, you hire people that take things off your plate so you can do less! That’s what you aim for… ironic, no? You build something and your goal is to have it work without you!

I got to the office yesterday and my team (five engineers) were having a meeting without me… at first I felt excluded! And then I realized I was doing my job.

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force it body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther.

The man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that; at any moment the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were natures way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

And we could never fly…

-author unknown

Source: None via Swati on Pinterest