Andrew Fu

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MiniLuxe – “Starbucking” the nail salon
Andrew Fu
Last modified on December 9, 2015 at 11:20 pm
MiniLuxe - a Boston-based company aiming to "Starbuck" the $9 billion dollar nail salon industry by providing self-care services with great quality and consistency.

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On December 10, 2015, Andrew Fu commented on Fighting For Every Dollar: UFC Uncaged :

Thanks for the post, Benny.

The UFC has certainly grown in size and, as you mentioned, their doubling of revenue shows there’s tremendous growth in the sport. I do wonder, though, whether or not the violent nature of the sport will always mean that it’s a niche market for practitioners of MMA and superfans; thereby not becoming a “mainstream” sport the same way football, basketball, or tennis is considered. Or perhaps what it needs are some incredible superstars like Anderson Silva or Conor McGregor. An analogy that comes to mind is boxing, a sport that can pull in hundreds of millions of dollars when a culture is built up around characters like Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather, but otherwise is absent entirely from the headlines.

On December 10, 2015, Andrew Fu commented on Harry’s: Shaving Men in an Age of Razor Robbery :

Great read, Jon. Thanks for the post.

The vertical integration here on the manufacturing side and direct-to-consumer on the distribution side makes complete sense and increases efficiency for all those involved (Gillete / Schick not including). I do wonder, though, how Harry’s was able to prove out its value earlier on when they did not have $100M of capital sitting around to invest in a creme de-la creme German manufacturing plant. Scale and dollars makes things easier, but how they were able to confer value AND quality earlier on?

On December 10, 2015, Andrew Fu commented on SunEdison: Solar-As-A-Service & The YieldCo Model :

Great blog, Jeff. Very clear and shows your understanding of the space quite well.

I just wonder what the motivation for SunEdison’s major shift in business strategy was and whether, in addition to misalignment, there was miscommunication between the business and its investors. Did SunEdison believe that their growth was capped by exclusively serving the utility market? Did their extensive vertical integration allow them to de-risk some aspects of the residential solar market? I’ve got to believe that SunEdison management had some reasoning behind their change in focus and acquisition of Vivint – why did investor seem to see it so differently?

On December 10, 2015, Andrew Fu commented on Now That’s one Tough Mudder… :

As a Mudder myself, I really enjoyed the read. They have done incredibly well for themselves, indeed – a couple of HBS grads actually, I believe.

I wonder, though, with this type of business model, what they will do when the market becomes fully saturated. As the company maxes out on the initial target market which, I assume, was initially focused on relatively young professionals who are athletically inclined and have disposable income, where do they go next? Are they able to expand their market to other demographics? Are they otherwise able to upsell their existing customer base to squeeze out more dollars?

Finally, I do wonder from a personal perspective whether they have a massive retention issue. I tried it once, and it was awesome, but once was enough for me!

Thanks for posting.