The short answer is yes (at least for now). After changing strategies from Riya.com to Like.com, this is the $64 million dollar question.
The data is promising.
While the Alexa graph shows a flat growth, this is misleading.
When you look at our revenue growth you see this (I have removed the scale for competitive reasons).
I can't tell you how happy we all are. You can see that after the inevitable drop off after the first week of launch our sales quickly recovered and moved to set a new high. As a comparison point, even after 8 months our Riya.com service has never reached it's launch day high.
Why the difference between Alexa and our internal revenue?
It seems that many of our early customers were technologists who were trying see how cool our technology was ... not to shop using our site. In fact this was one of the largest lessons we learned about traffic from the Like.com launch. For a new shopping search engine, tech blogosphere traffic doesn't always convert. As more shoppers have found our site all of our key metrics such as conversion rate and click through rate have improved significantly.
I wouldn't declare victory yet... we still have some major milestones to meet in January, but it does seem that our 2nd company strategy is faring much better than our first.
Now what? Well now we are making revenue... which is great... but also now we have to play by the rules of a real business...profitability.
Well we need to grow the revenue to meet our cost structure so we break even. Eventhough Riya has several years of cash left in the bank, as 2nd time entrepreneurs we know the key now is to lower you cost structure and grow your revenue so break even comes as fast as possible.
Some people in Web 2.0 land don't agree with this... but I am not one of them... So we trim around the edges and make sure we are spending every dollar as efficiently as possible.
However, our main focus now is on growing revenue significantly. We are off to a good start, but profitability is still a ways away.
Nice work!
I'm in a similar boat but on a much smaller scale. I have built a horizontal solution that is cool, but offers a little value to a wide range of people. Now I'm looking vertically so I can provide lots of value to fewer more targetted people. I'm curious to know how you decided to go with shopping instead of the (no doubt) countless other options you had?
Alex.
Posted by: Alex Pooley | December 28, 2006 at 03:59 PM
Great work on the launch. It seems I wasn't the only one blown away by your technology. There simply isn't an easier way to shop for clothing online. Period.
Now is the time to start investing in SEM, especially PPC, to increase the likelihood of shoppers reaching you. You have an arbitrage goldmine on your hands, especially with the niches you are targeting.
Good luck.
Posted by: Jordan Glasner | December 29, 2006 at 12:56 PM
Like.com is a very cool concept...and it works great! It's every shopaholic's dream, esp. for someone super picky like me. The selection is huge and it's fun seeing a $1,000 purse and then finding a "like" item for MUCH less. LOL.
I saw a link to the site on Pedro Sostre's newsletter. Maybe some more email and viral marketing strategies will get the name out there more.
Wishing you much success in 2007!
Posted by: Sandra Sims | January 02, 2007 at 03:02 PM
Hi!
congrats on turning the corner for like.com and also for your acknowledgment that there are miles to go before it becomes truly profitable.
Given that the turn of events at Riya that led to like.com have been adequately chronicled in your blogs, don't you think that it is really time to take a step back and look at your business with a fresh perspective?
If you are willing (and chances are that you will, if your blogs are any indication), I have a set of 5 questions for you at http://blog.nrichsoft.in/2007/01/17/want-to-sample-market-readiness/
Happy Hunting!
Badri
Posted by: Badri | January 17, 2007 at 03:34 PM
We miss your blogging. Hope you start writing soon again. :-)
Posted by: Beth | February 01, 2007 at 12:05 AM
I recently found this article in SCI-AM and wanted to share:
Well done like.com!!!!
http://econ.gsia.cmu.edu/ecommerce/sciam_image_search.pdf
Thanks,
Fabian.
Posted by: flamaest | February 06, 2007 at 10:54 AM
It's a good article I understand I wouldn't declare victory yet... we still have some major milestones to meet in January, but it does seem that our 2nd company strategy is faring much better than our firs. If you are interesting visit the site business strategy
Posted by: Tanveer | May 17, 2007 at 03:49 AM