Emily Chang - eHub Interviews

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Stylehive.com launched on Wednesday night, March 8, 2006.

eHub Interviews Stylehive

Thanks to Michael Carrier, CEO of the Stylehive for this email interview posted March 9, 2006.

eHub: What is your web application/service about?

Stylehive: Our tag line is “Social bookmarking for the product and shopping obsessed” but more broadly, the Stylehive is about the excitement of finding and sharing fresh new things on the net.

eHub: Why did you start this project?

Stylehive: Because I just always wanted to know more about what others thought was cool on the net.  I wanted to see what they had found and where they found it.  And, we realized that if we could bring together a large community of people into shopping and style trends, what would emerge would be a constant stream of the most interesting products and all the ingenuity and creativity the world’s merchants had to offer.  That just seemed really interesting.

eHub: How much time do you devote to its growth? 

Stylehive: This is quite a large effort.  We have fairly large development staff and institutional venture capital support.  We are really betting on the future of our social shopping approach.

eHub: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

Stylehive: My background is as an Internet entrepreneur for the last 12 years, having started and grown 2 other successful startups previously.  The rest of the team is too many to name individually but they are all experienced technical, retail, shopping and style experts.

eHub: What is your design philosophy?

Stylehive: We really believe that design matters, and mostly that it is not about how many features you have but having as few of the right features as possible.  We constantly are striving to remove things that aren’t needed rather than add them.

eHub: What technologies are you currently using?

Stylehive: We are mostly Linux and using open source apps and database servers that most smart startups go with these days.

eHub: If your project is live, what are the most requested features from your users/community?

Stylehive: At the time of this interview we are just going live, so we will see.

eHub: Does your user base reside in a primary geographic location or is it distributed?

Stylehive: The Stylehive is intended for use internationally.

eHub: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months?  The next 2 years?

Stylehive: I firmly believe that bookmarking sites like the Stylehive are here to stay and will become part of the Internet application world, the same way email, search and chat have all before it.  Bookmarking in a social context will become as natural as email eventually.  It will be the method through which we collaborate and seek out shopping recommendations from others.

eHub: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

Stylehive: Right now we have a fairly complex application.  It is mainly for power users.  To go where we want to go we have to work hard to simplify and mainstream what we have to offer.

eHub: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?

Stylehive: We need to bring style and content leaders into the Hive.  We need to show these people how these new tools can make their current work much easier, and how a place like the Stylehive can really benefit their current business.

eHub: Do you have a business model?  If so, what is it?

Stylehive: We will be mostly an ad supported business.

eHub: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic or usage do you see on an average day?

Stylehive: We are brand new.  Check back in with us in 6 months!

eHub: What is the one thing you’re most proud of about the project?

Stylehive: As of today there is no other site in the world that offers better bookmarking tools for shoppers.  We have really put some great features together and paid attention to detail.  We hope that the world will see this and enjoy what we have brought to the market.  Anytime you can build something and feel good about the quality and intelligence it represents, you should be proud and we’re proud of what the Stylehive brings to Internet consumers.

eHub: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web right now to future generations?

Stylehive: The web is really on the same trajectory it always has been, it is consistently becoming more and more about the net, and less and less about the nodes.  The web 2.0 movement is a small part of a larger destiny for the net, where just having connection to it gives you everything you need.  You and your device won’t have to bring much to connect and benefit from the net’s vast resources. 

eHub: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

Stylehive: Google, Gmail, and Jot.  Oh and of course emilychang.com, my favorite.

eHub: How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

Stylehive: 7 hours.  But it depends on if I have had a glass of wine the night before or not.

Thanks to Michael Carrier, CEO of the Stylehive for this email interview posted March 9, 2006. 

Also read my post, Style Meets the Social Web with the Stylehive.

Disclosure:  Stylehive is our client (Emily Chang and Max Kiesler of Ideacodes, the creators of eHub Interviews and the designers behind the Stylehive).

Visit Stylehive
Originally added to eHub on Mar 09, 06

» More eHub Interviews

eHub Interviews is a series with the creators of Web 2.0 applications and services by Emily Chang, author of eHub, designer, and co-founder and principal of Ideacodes, a strategic web consultancy in San Francisco that she co-founded with Max Kiesler.

Also see eHub Interviews in Japanese at CNET Japan