@rrhoover our awesome CMO, @tippyhung contacted the bloggers via emails to get them on board.
I find that any community considered a "niche" always has its eccentricities. You have to be willing to dispel a lot of assumptions that may work for a broad audience, and give your niche's eccentricities freedom to shine.
Before I had built out an MVP for Nailpolis, I had already spoken to a lot of people about the idea. They didn't think that anyone would really take the time to create and upload all this original content, and thought that it'd make more sense to have something like Pinterest. However, we really took the time to understand the community. Not only are there a ton of creators, they care about their work and put so much effort into it. Yet their artwork is shared all over social media (to accts with millions of followers) without ever giving the artist any credit. They don't get the recognition they deserve. We decided to embrace the eccentricities of the nail art community and launched with an original artwork only policy.
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Hey all, I'm Michelle! Thought I'd post something dramatically different–a museum of nail art.
Thanks for this awesome platform @rrhoover!
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Thanks so much to you too @nbashaw! I've put all work on Quotesome on hold. While I'm extremely passionate about both, I'm putting 100% of my energy into Nailpolis now. It's great timing and a great market.
I've had the idea for about a year now. I've always owned too many bottles of nail polish and I follow a ton of nail art blogs.
Through this I discovered two main problems with the industry that I'm dying to fix:
1. Social:
An obsession that began in 3000BC won't die away. Hundreds and thousands of nail art blogs and social media accounts are lying around on the internet. People are beyond crazy with designing their own nail art. (I think this Pinterest board describes it pretty well http://www.pinterest.com/365days...) But it's hard for them to get recognition/appreciation when the sphere is so saturated. There's no proper community for nail art, yet there's a raging need for it.
2. eCommerce:
nail polish is one of the fastest growing categories in the beauty industry, yet the eCommerce experience for it is quite terrible.
And the more personal vision behind Nailpolis (that is similar to Quotesome): I love art. I fight for art. Whether it be the paintings we paint, words that we write, the code that we ship, the music we compose, the companies we decide to invest in... Art is what gives meaning to our lives. Nothing gives me more pleasure than helping individuals discover their individualism and art. And when you can build communities that celebrate art–that's fucking powerful. So now I've decided to tackle nail art–one of the many art forms that I love passionately.
(Woops, that was quite long- I always get too excited when someone asks me about Nailpolis!)
Don't forget @nbashaw! :)
Welcome, @michellelaralin! First off, I won't pretend to know a thing about nails and clearly I'm not the target audience but I'm super curious to hear how you came up with this idea. You were (or still are?) working on Quotesome (https://www.quotesome.com/).
Interesting! I do happen to know that some of the biggest Facebook communities are nail art groups. Blow my mind. I bet this space has a lot of under-realized potential.
What's the market size for this kind of product? And what's the monetization plan?
Cool app @michellelaralin!
Haha, great answer. I've seen a bunch of your photography so I recognize your passion in art.
@michellelaralin - How are you bringing users to your site? Sounds like there's an opportunity to tap into these existing communities (Pinterest, Facebook groups, etc.).
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@dshan Thanks so much!
And you're spot on! The nail art page on Facebook has 3 million+ fans. I'm not surprised of course-tons of unrealized potential. The nail art that's being posted on Nailpolis everyday just blows my mind away. The community is SO talented!
The market size for nail products is 1.5B, cosmetics industry is 55B.
We're going to be monetizing through an eCommerce platform carrying nail art tools that are linked to the art in the museum. (Nail artists can opt in for the artwork they want linked to eCommerce, and will be rewarded if they decide to engage.) By doing this, every purchase is driven by incentives, ideas, and inspiration to create art.
We're rejecting the traditional cosmetics eCommerce, that tries to drive more sales by gaming on impulse purchases, rampant materialism, and mindless consumption to fill some inner void. It's crucial that we change that by building a culture that celebrates creativity.
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