Caroline Brody's Profile

As a frequent user of this, I noticed two things as the brand grew more popular. 1) The quality of the service went down, and 2) the salons I visited more frequently started lowering their prices for blow drys. I am concerned about copycats but even more so about the salons where women go for cut, color, and other processes, that compete on price. I know that if my usual place charges something that is less than usual but even five dollars higher, I would go there for reliability. I didn’t notice the uniformity in DryBar that I associate with making a reliable brand choice.

Another concern is retaining talented staff, which make the whole operation run. Seeing as their price to the consumer is low, the stylists are missing out on the opportunity to make bigger tips off longer services, like color, cut, blow drys, etc. Does the volume make up for this difference? Furthermore, with this in mind, if blow drying only isn’t considered as a lucrative business for Dry Bar or an impressive credit on the resume/skill set building, I imagine they will have a problem with turnover in the future. I would be curious to see how they screen for capabilities as they expand.

I think this is an interesting repackaging of some concepts that have already existed for a long time. This sounds like a combination between a traditional matchmaking service, an online dating site that has been around for a while (match.com) that seem too “old” or “serious” for a certain audience, and the apps that are geared towards a younger, mobile using community.

One potential problem I see is that this app seems to be really high involvement. For those apps, like Tinder, Hinge, etc., where the commitment is relatively low and mimics meeting someone in a bar but online, they are able to have many users. For an application like this, the services that make it unique may also make it more challenging for users who see it as more of a commitment. I think they might benefit from scaling back the services such as date-planning and capitalizing on their human capital matchmaking potential and building their rolodex to compete with some of the other applications in a similar space.

Further to Meiosis’s point, Thinking about how Mercedes, BMW, and luxury car brands position themselves and market themselves as a luxury brand but still have cars at somewhat “accessible” price points (the “C” class, for example”, does Tesla have the ability to offer a car at a lower entry point for those who would be tempted without ruining their position in the market? I would imagine that the cost of investing in charging stations all over the nation was quite large and in order to keep making the charging more convenient, they will have to continue to spend or at least support spending for charging stations. Given that their market is smaller, would it not be beneficial for them to be able to offer a car at a slightly lower price point to those who are extremely interested in the technology and innovative brand approach? Also curious to how this model will support product proliferation, or if we think it is key to remain completely focused on two or three core products.

Now that Net-A-Porter and Yoox have been consolidated and will act as almost a monopoly in the online high-end retail space, do you foresee any problems with YOOX having competitors for inventory as high end luxury goods players start to think about developing their own platforms, much like we saw in Apple Pay and the merchants reacting with their competitive platform?

Another question would be to whether YOOX and NetAPorter are tempted to build a brick and mortar presence, like Amazon, Rent the Runway, etc? Do you think this would fit within their business model and operating model/be a harmful or helpful idea?