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ARTSY: Finding Art at the Intersection of Science and Technology
mj
Last modified on December 9, 2015 at 11:27 pm
A look at how one company is mapping out a digital taxonomy of all the world’s art  

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On December 14, 2015, mj commented on WeWork: How can shared office space be valued at $10bn? :

Sweet post, Stuart! The $10Bn valuation still baffles me even after seeing tons of their spaces and adopting some of their systems and community efforts at our incubator. It’s clear they have dominated the sector, but looking at the member fees vs standard lease rates, you have to believe they’re getting this real estate at HUGE discounts to market value for the economics to make sense, and I’m just not sure that’s the case. Moreover, while traditional coworking spaces can leverage 100%+ occupancy rates within shared space, WeWork prioritizes private office space which is intrinsically more difficult to optimize in a static business scenario, let alone with mobile startups that are continuously growing or failing (especially since they give preference to referrals and existing member requests over new applicants). Wonder if this is what compelled them to launch the new WeWork commons program (general “community” membership) — i.e., to create an ancillary and more stable revenue opportunity. Definitely an awesome company overall, but do wonder if if the past few years have been too far too fast for them.

On December 14, 2015, mj commented on Indochino: Transforming the Custom Suit Industry :

Akash – really digged this post. Great choice for this assignment in particular as Indochino seems to be doing a lot of TOM things right in the way of managing inventory, defect rates, variability, etc…especially critical as they expand their omnichannel presence. The concept of “mass customization” feels a bit indecisive but it’s interesting and ties with the pretty amazing price point if this is truly high quality tailoring. Still a hard pill to swallow if you’re relying on yourself for measurements but presumably you only have to get it right once and you’re done.

On December 14, 2015, mj commented on #Kaylascult – From passion project to full fledged, multi-national fitness empire :

Nice post on #kaylasarmy. Curious on your thoughts re: Anna’s suggestion. Agree there would typically be a clear (albeit time sensitive) social media marketing opportunity here, but Kayla has been pretty vocal about NOT getting paid for promotions/using her social clout to advocate for brands. Nonetheless, she recently launched and started (quite shamelessly) promoting Kayla-branded products and, to Trang’s point, a new paid app which seem to bluntly conflict with the earlier messages. I can certainly see why these decisions make sense from a financial stability and business model perspective, but if community is critical to the operating model – don’t they entirely undermine that?