YouSaid · the spoken record

David Rosenblatt

lines on the record
102
first
2017-10-30
most recent
2017-10-30
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

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  1. “Were you surprised that Donald Trump used it so heavily it's become his mouthpiece? No, he's perfect for it, isn't he? I call him the world's greatest Twitter troll. It's really amazing. You don't have to say anything. You don't have to comment. I had Jack on and I said, I go, how do you feel about it? You know, that's the most famous music. Do you feel about Twitter? Yeah, how do you feel about Donald Trump on Twitter? He goes, it's complicated. It's complicated. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing. Anyway, David, this has been really great. Thank you so much for being here. It's been a really interesting interview. I think First Dibs is a really, the reason I was interested in having you here is because the conceptual ideas behind that you can digitize anything and it's not something you, when you told me, I was like, what? What are you doing? And I didn't even begin to make, now it makes a lot of sense to me.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “I wouldn't struggling. I'm not sure I would characterize the struggling company. It means a company that did $2.5 billion in revenues. It's growing in terms of usage and engagement. The leadership now is strong, and I feel good about it. I mean, everything seems to be moving in the right direction.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Or as a New York Times And how do you, what do you imagine it happening? Because it really is fascinating. I think it's fascinating. It's never been more relevant as a medium and then still struggles as a company. It's a really interesting dynamic that happens.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “I think it's the ultimate expression of the democratization potential and opportunity of the Internet, right? Anyone is, everyone and anyone is put on the same level as a Keriswisher or as a New York Times. And that's a really, really powerful phenomenon”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Uber's been sucking up all the Silence is golden, actually. I mean, seriously, it's good for Twitter to have a little space to operate.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “So it's all. I mean, look, we can all learn from everyone around us. These are people who, I think in particular, have kind of educate. I don't know. You don't know.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Look, IAC is a marketplace company, right? So, I mean, you look at its strongest assets, they're all marketplace-oriented. So those are natural learning opportunities. Barry himself is obviously a fantastic person to learn from the other people on the board, you know, equally, I mean, Jack Welch sits in on any of the board meetings. That must be. Yeah, exactly.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “And yet, there are sort of a couple of years down the road versus where we are today in terms of the evolution of the model. And so, you know, I learned quite a bit. And in return, I feel like I have something to contribute really based both on my experience in first divs and also having run a large-scale kind of horizontal technology platform company.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “So Farfetch is a fantastic business. It'll sound familiar based on my description of first divs. It's a global marketplace for luxury fashion. Okay. It's very large. It's growing very fast. JD.com just made a significant investment into it. So look, I sit on these boards to learn, right? Because if my experience is limited to one company, then my perspective is also limited relative to what I can learn from being involved with these other companies. And far-fetched in particular is the business or the company whose business model most closely approximates first dibs. What you're doing.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “There you go. We have text So I'm on one other, which is far fetched, which I joined a couple of months ago. What's that?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Yeah, that you can create a three-dimensional model of your room and you can take stuff in and take stuff out and move things around and change its colors and dimensions and design a product actually to meet exactly your specifications. And again, that's really something that's not possible in an analog only world, obviously, but is easily doable over time with the right technology on the internet. And so again, I think it's so early days in this business. I think when we look forward, you know, I mean, again, we started this conversation talking about advertising, right? By 2007, the internet advertising industry was almost 15 years old. It was a multi-billion dollar business. And yet the primary vehicle, at least in the display business, right, wasn't yet, didn't yet exist. And so I think the saying, you know, or even earlier in that curve in design and the sale of physical products. And I think we'll look back at a year like 2000.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Yeah, I mean, look, I think the, you know, it's interesting. One of the points that a book I read recently made is that the sort of distinction between what one considers technology and what one considers an analog is rapidly disintegrating. And I think that'll be the case too, and e-commerce will be a beneficiary of that. So look, we sell furniture, right? And we sell stuff that you put on the walls, and we sell stuff that you put on your body. And so AR and VR is incredibly important to us. And that, in many respects, nothing will ever fully eliminate the need to touch and feel something for those for whom it's important. But it certainly can go a long way towards addressing that. And I think at some point, when it's widely enough disseminated, the distinction, again, between a kind of analog shopping experience and a digital shopping experience won't even really make sense. Right. Do you have a VR product?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “I think this industry. I think AR and VR is going to be your time to be big Dave and give me the big picture. Because we're about to do a code commerce event. No.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Yeah, again, I think we'd probably segment services like that based on the type of buyer. So, you know, consumers tend not to be interested or able to deal with that kind of stuff. Interior designers have to. So yes, but not for everybody. Right.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Other groups. How do you compare yourself to those companies? You ever get in the, I'm thinking of something like Stitchfix. We're going to be talking to her this week here in New York and others, you know, where people sound, do you imagine getting into that business sampling stuff and sending it back and that kind of stuff?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “So, about a third of the company is in product and engineering. And then we have a pretty substantial part that is in services. And then we've got design. Yeah, and then we have, you know, just like every company, we have a finance team, which is important and other groups.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Generous investors But I think, again, it's not something that I think about. I mean, the company is healthy and growing and open in all respects. How many people right now? We're a little under 400 people today.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “Well doing that. Yeah, because look, the lesson of the internet is you know, power shifts from those who control distribution, meaning supply in every industry to those who control the buyer. Not in a negative sense, but those who meet the buyer on his or her own terms. And to the extent that the buyer wants to sort of think”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “Everlane's opening a store in. Yeah, but whether we do that What's the attractiveness through an actual retail space, an actual physical retail space? Amazon's looking at it, Everlane's, they're all like Warby Parker obviously has done incredibly well doing that. Yeah.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “I think what that, but you know, whether Everlane's opening a store in. Yeah, but whether we do that organically or through MH, what's the attractiveness?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “It's interesting. You're like, hey, Well, that's, I mean, being analog, I think, is an important part of our strategy. And in fact,”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “It really is interesting. A company that Again, Yeah, it's fascinating to watch him do it over and over again. It's interesting. You're like, hey, didn't you see this happening? But is that a negative for you to think about owning something? Do you feel like a lot of internet companies do need to move into that analog space?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “Yeah, and they hire a couple people who worked at internet companies and then they underinvest in that business and hope that somehow a combination of their brand name and their legacy assets with these people are going to somehow produce a company that can compete effectively with native digital companies. But again, I think as you look at industry after industry, including the one that I graduated from, the ad business, that turned out not to be the right strategy.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “Companies that Have done so at their own peril. Right. But that could change. We'll see there a lot of sources. What does Southeast doing? They're all trying their various.coms. Yeah, and they, you know,”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “Well, listen, I would put it this way. I believe that we're the disruptive entity in our business. There will be casualties on the other side of that. And, you know, who knows where that goes and which companies those are specifically? And certainly that's happened in every other industry. And incumbents who have not taken the digital threat or evolution seriously have done so at their own peril. So far, we've seen that the incumbents in this industry, you know, have not reacted differently to the internet than incumbents in other industries. But that could change. We'll see there a lot of support. What does SEP's doing?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Yeah. Look, I love the company. Personally, I'm a shareholder. We track a lot of the stuff they do. We try to learn from as much of it as possible. So we admire them. We just see them in as a sort of orthogonal player to what we do.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “We don't think about Amazon. What we think about is the customer and both on the supply side and the demand side and how we grow sales. So where is e-commerce?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “Yeah, exactly. And that's one of the things that we look, there's a reason why you don't buy, you can't buy Chanel in Target, right? Chanel doesn't want to be there and they're never going to be there”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “Get into it. And the bestsellers aren't going to want to sell there. And look, I'll give you one example without naming names, unfortunately, because I'm not allowed to. But we just added two contemporary furniture brands to first dibs. Those brands had been selling on Wayfair, which, by the way, in all other respects is a fantastic company. But they withdrew from Wayfair even before they started selling on First Dibs, simply because they didn't want the adjacency of their brand with the lower price products on Wayfaref. So bamboo.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “It's interesting. Yeah. But if you look at, I mean, again, they don't publish it, but you look at their average order value, their AOV, it's not going to be $5,000, right? No, no. Whereas ours were absolutely headed in that direction. So I think that's the way we think about it. Now, what makes the luxury business in general different and I think harder to access for Amazon than most other industries, you know, and it really has to do with the comfort level of the seller, with the environment in which they sell. Sure. And so even though Amazon obviously has all the assets in the world in terms of customer base and logistical support and payment, it's Walmart, not Barney.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “We think we're in a pretty different segment. I mean, as we describe it, the race for the $50 order is over. It's been one. It's been won by Amazon. The race, however, for the $5,000 order has not been won. And that's the race.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “I mean, it's a global business, so we feel to some degree like, you know, as long as there are economies that are growing somewhere and there's an appetite for great design, we'll have a great deal. You'll be fine.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “And obviously you depend on a robust economy wherever you are, wherever you're selling to, if you're selling to Saudi Arabia or wherever people that want to buy things that want to buy things. It's a global”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “Well, that's the primary focus of the company. I mean, I think, you know, how do we grow? We can grow by adding verticals, by adding geographies, and by adding different types of customers. And all three of those are a focus of ours.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “My old, old thing. Yeah, so we don't, first of all, we don't do auctions. So we have a, we support negotiation and fixed price sales, but not auctions.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “Most of the demand is from the U.S. Demand is from the US. By the end of the year, we'll have more furniture supply from Europe than from the US, but we still anticipate that U.S. will be right. Yeah.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “So the largest of our businesses overall is furniture as a category. Jewelry is growing very fast, contemporary design, contemporary furniture is growing fast in international Europe mostly is growing fast.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “New to first is so designers come to you. It's one of our fastest growing categories. Right. So designers would come to you. There's all kinds of, because I've noticed a lot of retailers now we're featuring this interior designer. It's only on our website or something like that. So all kinds of interior designers who are doing their own furniture, their own kind of thing.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “New product, which we call contemporary, is new to first is come to you. It's one of our fastest growing categories. Right. So designers.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “And then design within reach, and you know, the big box retailers are other competitors of ours. But again, they have a different business model. They're retailers. They're not. And they do sell. And they do sell their own stuff, but they're not marketplaces. So they have much lower reach.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “So we have a bunch of different types of competitors. So, you know, in some senses, the auction houses are marketplaces themselves. They've invested very little in digital, and so they're not really a head-to-head player, but they're in this market. Number two is some of the large cap internet companies have made forays into this business. eBay launched something called the eBay collective, which was a direct competitor of ours. It has no traction. We have a whole bunch of smaller companies who, you know, I like to call the anti-first dibs, meaning whatever we do, they tend to do the opposite. So they rely on the old advertising and listings model. But again, the largest of those is probably, I don't know, five-ish percent, at least as it stands today.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “It's just not our core customer against. I'm not sure. We have great customers, but there are a lot of other people in that business. Whereas in the rest of our businesses, we're able to really.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “There are a lot of photos, yeah. But so, you know, how do we make the experience better? Number one is by aggregating product. Number two is by this buyer assurance. Number three is we take advantage of our scale to negotiate preferential rates with shipping carriers. So we get things delivered at faster speeds, at lower prices, and with more transparency around reporting than any dealer or individual consumer or designer could get on their own.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “Well, again, we've edit at the dealer level, number one. They have to have references. We look at samples of their product. We look at, we do background checks, all that kind of stuff. But another interesting dimension of a marketplace with very strong network effects is once they join the marketplace, because we've aggregated so much qualified demand, just maintaining their participation in the marketplace is itself the biggest incentive to play by the rules. Because if they don't, obviously they get kicked out. And because so many people now rely on first dibs as sort of a sole source way to buy stuff, they have to be.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “Make sure it's a bill blast. So we don't do that. We do it in a couple ways. One, and most important is we vet our dealers and galleries. So only the best can sell on first sibs and we only accept a minority of those who apply to be able to sell. Secondly, we're able to vet at the item level for certain types of orders. So we average now about 10 orders a day above $10,000 per order. So each of those, we take a look at individually on top of it. And the reason why we're so careful about it is we first IBs accept that risk. So we provide an ironclad buyer insurance policy. And that's part of...”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “Well, we guarantee the authenticity of all pieces that are sold through the marketplace. And again, that's something that.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “That not all ladies, but yeah, they skew higher net worth. And so, you know, what we're able to do for them, again, in addition to solving the discovery problem is we're able to create a buyer assurance policy, which in this market is really important because they're spending”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “So, on the demand side, we have two types of buyers: we have interior designers who are to this world what agencies are to the media world. And then we have, you know, consumers, which in this business are called collectors. It's a fancy industry. So they get a fancy name. I think rich lady.”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “So mostly And you seek them out and you try to get them out, right? If you want to be Sweden, and you kn So, how do you do that side? Because then you have the other side, which has to be just the same. So”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “Right. Why does that work in these items, these 2000? If you're selling a SETI or a chair, for example, is it the one-of-a-kind part of it? I mean, because Etsy works very well, I think. You know, Amazon works well, obviously. But what is it about the thing is that it's just easier or that you give every part of it?”

    2017-10-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: David Rosenblatt, CEO, 1stdibs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT