I’ve seen this phrase thrown around a lot, and more often than not it means clicking a “Like” widget next to a product, or posting that you just purchased something into your Facebook news feed.

Etsy took a stab at gift recommendations for Friends which actually seemed logical and useful. Gift giving is typically a more serendipitous activity than shopping for clothing — but not always. Auditioning products to add to your personal wardrobe involves a sense of practicality and more than a dab of whimsy.

Shopping is most fun with people you trust because you want a second opinion… You may know what you want, to an extent, but you are wide open to being surprised and delighted. Shopping with friends. Shopping with people you trust. Having a conversation about shopping while shopping. Talking about things you want to buy, the back and forth, the “what do you think about this one or that one?” …the dialogue.

That’s what social shopping means to me.

GTIO just launched our first version of what social shopping should mean on your mobile device. Our approach is about connecting you to your friends to help you decide what to wear.

There are two parts to this.

Part I: Friends know best.

·When asked what sources “influence your decision to use or not use a particular company, brand or product” 71% claim reviews from family members or friends exert a “great deal” or “fair amount” of influence. (Harris Interactive, June 2010, via bazaarvoice.com/)

· 67% of shoppers spend more online after recommendations from online community of friends. (Internet Retailer, September 2009 via bazaarvoice.com/)

We want to help you curate the web via your friends. Helping you answer the age-old question, “what should I wear?” is about getting advice from those who know YOU best. Now you can get advice about what your friends think you should buy. Go on, play stylist.

Part II: Less is more.

· “Whether we’re buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions — both big and small — have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented” (The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz)

The web feels infinite. And for women today, shopping online is overwhelming, with seemingly hundreds of choices. Which site (ASOS, Shopbop, Bloomingdales, etc.) should I browse, and where should I buy? And once I’m in… which product is best for me? Do I keep hitting “next page” to see what other items could work? Which one is just right? This takes time, and fashion should never feel like a burden… When it’s done right, shopping should be fun, and freeing.

Meet the GTIO boutique. We do the hard part. We’ve built a tool to engineer a mobile store front that brings in the best of the web when it comes to clothing. We pull items from all the best stores ensuring that prices are not Net-a-Porter high nor Forever 21 - low, but just right. We have some trend pieces, mixed with classics. Don’t find anything you want to recommend to a friend? No problem; we highlight shortcuts to stores for you, and you can deep dive into these mobile sites to find just the right item for those you know best.

We believe in a finite number of options. We believe you shouldn’t have to do too much work nor have to think too much about what will be just right for you. So we curate, and edit, and cut, and intelligently surface the best possible choices for you. From there, you and your friends can decide what is right, selecting from a quality list of items. You can’t go wrong.

We believe 2012 should be about moving beyond the overwhelming ‘fire hose’ of information that is today’s web. We believe in bringing back the fun of discovery and collaboration in online shopping, by surfacing the best choices and enabling meaningful experiences with friends.

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.