After reading yesterday’s VentureBeat article on Gemvara’s rapid growth and vague sales numbers and seeing this outrageous TechCrunch graph with no labeled axis, I could not resist getting some clarification from CEO Matt Lauzon. I’m glad I did. Not only did I prod him for actual growth numbers, I learned about a recent employee promotion who Lauzon credited as being “a core driver of growth” since their launch in February.
Being a Babson grad alongside Lauzon, I have had the pleasure of following Gemvara from their founding as Paragon Lake, through funding announcements, their shift in strategy, and now impressive sales numbers. The team is operating on full cylinders and this holiday season is certainly going to set them over the top as a must watch company in 2011.
Back in February (Gemvara’s official re-branding and launch) the company’s most aggressive sales forecast for 2010 was $2 million in sales. According to Lauzon, they are on target to “blow that out of the water.” Of course I had to dig in and ask for a specific number, to which he responded “somewhere in the high seven figures.” My guess would be that they are looking at around $7 million in sales for 2010. Here’s how I got that number:
I got this number by assuming an average of 25 items sold per day for the first 8 months after launch (March – October), which is 6,000 items in total. I then took the last two months of the year (holiday season) and upped my average per day to 60 items, which yielded 3,600 items. The total items sold over the year (9,600) multiplied by the average price point (which Lauzon said is around $1000, and I rounded down to $750) gives you $7.2 million in sales.
Of course the above are my assumptions, but I do know for certain that Gemvara closed out the day yesterday with 96 orders. And that their sales are expected to be more than double from Q3 to Q4.
As mentioned, Lauzon was quick to mention an internal promotion and an employee who has been critical in their growth over the past year. Announced today, Dan Marques, another fellow Babson grad and former Director of Online Marketing and Analytics, is taking a new role as VP of Business Intelligence.
“Dan’s data driven approach has been instrumental in driving huge amounts of traffic and sales since launching Gemvara.com,” Lauzon said. “With Dan’s help, we have become one of the fastest growing e-commerce sites in such a short time frame and we’re excited to have Dan continue to play such an integral part in our company’s success.”
I am very excited to watch Gemvara grow in the future, and they certainly have turned thousands of people’s heads including mine since their pivot in February. Lauzon’s concept about meCommerce is fascinating, gaining more momentum, and hopefully will be what drives the company’s growth next year.
“We are the pioneers in meCommerce. We’re taking what Dell did with customization and computers, what Zappos did with customer care and shoes and what Netflix did with seamless discovery and matching people with the perfect movie. Our success is because we’re merging these three concepts: customization, customer care and seamless discovery. That’s what meCommerce is about and I have no doubt it’s the future of retail,” said Lauzon in an email.
