🔦 Off The Record / What does it take to create a successful venture when you are still in college?
Featuring Cyprien Toffa, UX designer at Google working on Maps and co-founder of Fleek
Cyprien’s masterclass on how to capture a successful start-up idea and execute it using design and AI as guiding tools to bring vision to fruition.
Today’s mix!
🚀 Fleek’s founding story or how to leverage your college experience to start a thriving marketplace?
❓ How to design a product for women when you are three male co-founders?
💡 How to create a cohesive product?
⭐️ What soft skills have been critical to Fleek’s success?
🎙️ (Audio) What is the role of design? What is bad design? How to leverage AI to delight?
On top of working at Google, Cyprien has also co-founded Fleek 🛍
Fleek is the first smart discovery platform to browse fashion curated from your favourite brands, all in one app. Our personalization AI makes it much easier and faster to find clothes that match your style. As you shop, Fleek learns your preferences and recommends items across top brands such as Urban Outfitters and Revolve.
Find Cyprien’s interview down below 👇🏼
Today we will dive into Fleek’s origins and growth, and how Cyprien navigated on the entrepreneurial cruise.
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🚀 Fleek’s founding story or how to leverage your college experience to start a thriving marketplace?
One partner working at Sequoia (can’t remember the name) said:
The entrepreneur I am looking to invest in is the one that will work on solving his own needs!
Fleek’s story begins in a mall in Colorado, Cyprien’s home. He was shopping with his older brother for a good three hours with the intention to buy. Three hours passed and he came out of the mall empty-handed. He first thought there should be an easier way!
But it is only until later that he thought about Fleek. He was in class at USC (University of Southern California) and was mesmerised by this girl scrolling down tens of clothing websites. He was shocked because of the time she spent but also because she never actually bought anything. He went to ask her why “nothing suits my style!”.
In the meantime, Cyprien joined Lavalab, a student-run start-up accelerator where he met Naman, his co-founder. Cyprien introduced him to the pain he experienced when shopping for fashion and he was obviously not the only one in this case.
Together, they decided to address the mobile shopping experience and use design to build the smoothest, most easy-to-use and fun experience, taking friction out of the equation. They built a tool to address not only their problem but the problem of a generation.
❓ How to design a product for women when you are three male co-founders?
The reason Fleek targets women is that they represent 70% of the market and it would have been a shame not to try it out on this vertical, says Cyprien.
It is a tricky situation because they experience pain in the shopping experience as men, but they target women. Therefore, they could not only rely on their hypothesis but had to explore new consumption behaviours and patterns.
He tells me that the only way to get this right is to be in constant contact with end users. He recalls that at first, his sister and friends were driving the product development.
As a founder, you always want to create the product that you think is the right product and that you envisioned. But in the end, the path the product will take must be dictated by the folks that are gonna be using it.
💡How to create a cohesive product?
Stay grounded in your core mission!
Fleek’s mission is to make shopping as frictionless as possible! Everything that you are building must be aligned with that core mission, from the design of the buttons to the way users will experience your app. If all the features and aesthetics are tied to the same mission, then you can really create a cohesive product.
Many products have one mission they are focused on and then get distracted. Cyprien remained extremely prudent in this respect and leveraged users’ feedback to get the new features right. Indeed, developing new features too fast which are not grounded in your vision can sidetrack an entire project.
In the issue below, I explore with Bo Kelestyn the concept of design featuritis. A singular disease affecting successful products implementing new features to the point it overcomplicated a once simple, elegant, straightforward solution.
⭐️ What soft skills have been critical to Fleek’s success?
The ability to recognise true interest and passion
For Cyprien, being able to recognise drive and interest is one of the most important soft skills whether you work at a company or you start your own venture. Indeed, the success of your project is dependent on the synergy created between you and your teammates. Being able to work well together with intentionality and commitment towards solving a common problem is paramount. Cyprien reflects on how lucky he has been to meet Naman.
Your partner is of course the pillar of the company but bear in mind that having early employees and clients also driven by the same vision is vital to growth.
🎙️ What is the role of design in Fleek? What is bad design? How to leverage AI to delight?
🔦 Off the Record
This issue is part of Off the Record.
Every week, I keep chatting with our guests at the end of the recording and share with you exclusive insights to dive deeper into their work and relationship to design.