Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche (Part 2)

SM: How did Paperdollheaven come about?

MM: Some of the ideas were already there – the initial magic of paperdollheaven.com was all because of Liisa, our original founder and her vision of a fun, creative place for a forgotten demographic on the web: young girls. The new team then added the idea of personalized avators or ‘MeDolls’, and the idea of building a virtual world around them, focusing on selling virtual items as the core source of revenue. Since I had no experience in the segment nor was anywhere close to the core audience myself, I hired fantastic women to build and run the product.

SM: How did YOU get attracted to the venture? I presume you have never played with dolls!

MM: When I first saw the initial site I didn’t really get it – like most men. But I showed it to my wife, who was 35, and to my daughter, who was 5 – and they both absolutely loved it. So I figured there could be quite a size of an untapped market there …

SM: What was the market landscape like?

MM: There was really no one making anything unique and fun for teen and tween girls online. Nothing that bridged the gap between Barbie/Disney and the social networks like MySpace, etc. We really only saw Neopets and Habbo Hotel doing anything unique online. And they didn’t offer the same experience we were after. I saw it this way: Neopets was about playing with pets – we were all about role playing & fashion.

SM: How do you describe the experience?

MM: We offer a fun, safe & creative environment for girls interested in our 3 F’s: Fame, Fashion & Friends. It is a totally international site, drawing traffic from over 200 countries per week. We run the site & support it in 15 languages, and seeing how our girls interact and communicate across language, age, country and religion is completely amazing. I feel very proud of the positive international vibe we have on the site.

SM: Charming! How big is the market? How do you calculate TAM? What is your business model?

MM: The market for girls online between 8-18 is huge: tens and tens of millions. Our business model is a combination of selling virtual goods (clothes, furniture, accessories, etc.) and integrated advertising. Most of the fun on Stardoll is free, but you can have even more fun if you purchase Stardollar packages, which is our virtual currency. Our U.S. office has already done some great campaigns with partners like DKNY, Sephora and Disney.

SM: What are your top target segments?

MM: Our audience is extremely targeted as is…. 93% girls and 90% between 10-17. The average age is 13.5 years.

SM: How did you penetrate the market and get early traction?

MM: Well, we’ve been fortunate in not having to advertise for growth. Our users have told their friends who have told theirs and we’ve been able to grow from schoolyard to schoolyard.

SM: Damn, why didn’t I have this when I was that age?

This segment is part 2 in the series : Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche
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