Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The part of retail that I find interesting is the niche. Let’s take fashion. I don’t wear big designers as much anymore. I also shop a lot when we’re traveling in esoteric designers that don’t have big footprints. These kinds of things are not accessible.

If there’s a small retailer that assembles and really well merchandises a group of designers and a group of products that are special and interesting, that kind of curation has tremendous value. It’s a small market. This is a very esoteric market. >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I’ve thought about this quite a lot. My observation is that you have to have private-labeled brands to compete with Amazon at this point. In whatever category that you’re working in, you need a product that you can differentiate with.

You can’t really differentiate on the basis of other people’s products that easily unless you get some sort of an exclusivity from other designers or other product conceptualizers. The user experience is part of that differentiation. There are a lot of mattress brands right now. >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 3)

Daniel Gulati: What’s changed with Amazon is, historically, you used to be able to red-line categories as Amazon-proof. Amazon is an intent-based environment and doesn’t really do well on discovery. They’re not going to get fashion, the inspiration, and emotional connection of buying a $300 dress online. On the grocery front, Amazon doesn’t have a fresh supply chain.

This idea of being Amazon-proof is fading away. Specifically within fashion, Amazon has a bunch of leading direct to consumer fashion brands now. We’re past this world where you can categorically say that Amazon is not going to enter my >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Is there a counterpart of yours on the enterprise side who also deals with seed stage investments in the B2B businesses?

Daniel Gulati: There are two relevant streams there. We have a sister fund that we are an LP in. They lead the best B2B investments on the East Coast. One of my colleagues focuses on enterprise and frontier tech based out of New York.

Sramana Mitra: In Silicon Valley, you don’t have an enterprise investor in the seed stage? >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 1)

Excellent discussion on the e-commerce startup trends and what can and cannot be venture financed at this stage, and why.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as Comcast Ventures.

Daniel Gulati: I’m currently a Principal of Comcast Ventures based here in San Francisco. I focus 100% of my time on seed and early stage investments in consumer internet companies. About half of my work is in e-commerce and marketplaces. The other half is everything else within consumer Internet – digital media, social media, mobile. Prior to joining Comcast Ventures, I was actually on the operating side. >>>

The Mattress Industry has Woken up to e-Commerce

Till a few years ago, no one would have thought that the hottest trend in e-commerce would be to buy mattresses online. People wanted to be able to feel the comfort of a mattress before they purchased it. But as e-commerce sweeps through our lives, some of these formerly-unthinkable categories are also becoming Internet friendly. The US mattress market is estimated to be a $15 billion industry. Till recently, online sales accounted for a mere 5% of the total sales in the industry, but analysts estimate that this year online mattress sales could account for more than 10% of the market.

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Brenda Boehler, CEO of Bellacor (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What you’re talking about is often technically not so easy to do. There are lots of opportunities to push the envelope on really good visualization. Where do you see opportunities for new entrepreneurs to do interesting work bringing together new technologies in the space?

Brenda Boehler: I do believe that it comes down to balancing new technology with a genuine uniqueness and a genuine uniqueness around the product. I’d say this to my team. To compete on price isn’t really a great model, because there will always be someone that can beat you on price.

Where you should really compete is in unique products and the experience that you have with that customer. Look at everything that is >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Brenda Boehler, CEO of Bellacor (Part 3)

Brenda Boehler: When I look to where we want to take our business next, there are a number of new technologies that will greatly help people as they decorate their homes. There’re a number of concepts in other verticals that have not been implemented in our vertical yet. We have a website that has over 500,000 lighting and home furnishing products from 500 different manufacturers. We have a wide assortment.

There is one type of customer that just wants to come to that site to replace a broken light fixture. That involves an easy navigation, a solution, and a wide assortment. Another type of customer has a passion for decorating. The third type of customer is the one we are >>>