Building Startups: Let’s learn how to build new companies!

Welcome back to the eCommerce forum!

A startup company is a new, fast-growing company. It is designed to maintain or improve profit margins while sales volume increases. We have two amazing speakers for our upcoming Magento/eCommerce Meetup. Both company founders, they will teach us how to build startups from the ground floor up. This event will take place at 7:00 p.m., July 9th 2014 at our Midtown Manhattan loft. Here is a brief overview of what to expect:

Vik Venkatraman

Co-founder, Clothes Horse

Clothes Horse is the leading Fit Guidance Solution (FGS) for retailers and brands. It helps retailers increase sales and run a smart, customer-friendly business. Clothes Horse offers retailers cutting-edge technology that finds the right fit for shoppers.

Vik Venkatraman is co-founder of Clothes Horse. He built this startup in 2011. Before Clothes Horse, he helped build an analytics and data products business at American Express. Vik was also a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting and a brand manager at Red Bull. Furthermore, he started a  tailored menswear company called V Bespoke. This company inspired him to create Clothes Horse because he saw the demand for well-fitting clothes. Vik is an also author. He published the book Inspired!: Take Your Product Dream from Concept to Shelf. Finally, Vik graduated with honors from Columbia University with a degree in Biomedical Engineering.

Pete Wylie

Co-founder, GradSavers

GradSavers is an online platform where businesses can order sales, marketing and operations work from US college-educated  professionals. More importantly, graduates with student loan debt can earn loan repayments by doing tasks online for businesses. GradSavers has grown rapidly since its launch in beta in January.

Pete Wylie is co-founder of GradSavers. He is an expert in digital strategy, marketing, branding, and customer acquisition. Before GradSavers, Pete led advertising and customer acquisition at Tough Mudder. While at Tough Mudder, he helped lead a 35x revenue expansion in just 2 years. Pete also served as an executive team member at a start-up digital agency and a web editor at an online digital media firm.

The Meetup Structure:

7:00 p.m.- Networking

7:20 p.m.- 1 minute introduction for all our members

7:30 p.m.- Vik will be speaking about building startups and his experience with Clothes Horse with a Q&A

8:00 p.m.- Pete will be discussing how he built his startup, GradSavers with a Q&A

8:30 p.m.- Networking  (Sam Baron & Mai Erne from Hara Partners will be there to answer any Netsuite & Magento eCommerce related questions.)

9:00 p.m.-  We’ll be heading over to the Iron Bar on 45th and 8 Ave for a networking after-party!

We are looking forward to seeing everyone there!

*This event is sponsored by the eCommerce forum.*