{"id":3856,"date":"2012-06-27T08:25:40","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T08:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=3856"},"modified":"2012-06-27T08:25:40","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T08:25:40","slug":"dandybox-the-joliebox-for-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2012\/06\/dandybox-the-joliebox-for-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Dandybox, the Joliebox for men!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pierre Entremont<\/a>, an HEC graduate, was kind enough to spend some time with me to discuss his venture, Dandybox<\/a>.
\n

\"A<\/a>
A man and his box<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nPierre started his career in a cushy finance job, at\u00a0 a Private Equity firm. He described that life as a \u201cGolden Cage\u201d, and said he dreamed of more adventure, freedom, risk and potential reward. In other words, he wanted to be an entrepreneur instead! Even so, he described it as a difficult decision, even though he seem extremely happy with the outcome\u00a0 – his current startup.
\nHe\u2019s hesitant to talk about his time at Rocket Internet, the famous \u201cclone factory\u201d run by the reclusive Samwer brothers, other than to say it\u2019s very well run, very professionally, and a lot of bankers and consultant-types are part of it.
\nDandybox, his current startup, is a subscription on a gift box that you receive monthly, and that contains beauty and lifestyle products. Sounds familiar? That\u2019s because JolieBox<\/a> and GlossyBox<\/a> do exactly the same! But, as the name suggests, Dandybox does a version for men. That, too is not a complete novelty \u2013 JolieBox has a version for men. But Dandybox has a 100% men focus, and as such should be able to execute better.
\nThe first box, that will go out next month, will cost 25 euros, and can be bought separately or part of an ongoing subscription, or can be shipped to a friend as a gift. It will contain about 120 euros worth of merchandise. The exact contents are still a mystery, but wait \u2013 120 euros worth of stuff for 25?? How is that possible?
\nThe secret is that most of the products are given for free by the beauty companies. Why? Because the audience is so insanely targeted, that the l\u2019Oreal\u2019s of the world would bend over backwards to put free stuff in the hands of this audience. And they do. But it\u2019s not limited to that. Other lifestyle stuff, like \u00a0magazines, books \u2013 the sky is the limit. The only requirement is that is that men will like it!
\nThe key to marketing such a product is being written about by the right type of press \u2013 beauty related blogs, lifestyle magazines, etc. To \u201cprime the pump\u201d, they started their own lifestyle blog, the Dandyblog<\/a>! That way, they control one slice of the content machine, and it gives the other press a reference. They are making deals where bloggers can give away free boxes as contests for their readers, to motivate them even more.
\nThe launch just took place on June 13. It resulted in some good press coverage, and 200 initial orders! The first box deliveries are planned for July, and they are busy finishing up the box design, and the content for the first month.
\nTo pull this all off, their team size is 7, and it includes a top-notch creative designer, a photographer, a developer, a PR person, and the two co-founders, Pierre and Charles.
\nTheir funding level is purely love money, and when asked about seeking external capital, to my great surprise, they\u2019re not\u00a0 planning on it! And when you think about it, all their costs are variable, and because the subscriptions and orders are prepaid, and immediately profitable, they are essentially cashflow-positive from day one! \u00a0It\u2019s one of the rare business where you can make a direct leap to profitability with a reasonable amount of cash and without ever seeking capital.
\nWhen asked about institutional investors, he says he likes the idea of not having to be \u201ctreated like crap\u201d by them, and it was one of the things that made this business idea appealing to them.\u00a0 Their target is to have 2000 paying subscribers by the end of the year which lead to (do the math!) 500ke of yearly revenue. From there on, international expansion is on the table, and going into other markets.
\nDandybox is one of those ideas you wish you had yourself \u2013 but don\u2019t kid yourself, it\u2019s still all about executing well. These guys are certainly doing that, and we\u2019re looking forward to seeing the first Dandybox land on our doorstep!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pierre Entremont, an HEC graduate, was kind enough to spend some time with me to discuss his venture, Dandybox. Pierre started his career in a cushy finance job, at\u00a0 a Private Equity firm. He described that life as a \u201cGolden Cage\u201d, and said he dreamed of more adventure, freedom, risk and potential reward. In other<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":64793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10564],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}