Moving on from Time Inc.

In January of 2010, we sold StyleFeeder, the startup I founded, to Time Inc. (additional coverage at WSJ, Xconomy, TechCrunch) and, since then, I’ve spent a truly enjoyable time at the company.  However, I recently decided that I wanted to take some time off to relax and consider the future, so I resigned a few weeks ago and finished up at the end of last week.

Whenever I told people that we sold to Time Inc., I could usually detect that they were somehow reminded of AOL and TimeWarner (worst merger ever).  Sure enough, “And how’s that working out for you?,” they would smirk.  The reality is that it was going great.  In the past year, we built and launched StyleFind using StyleFeeder technology and business relationships.  StyleFind is off to a great start and will no doubt become a major player in the women’s fashion e-commerce space.

The people we sold the company to knew we had created a high-output, super-functional organization… and they weren’t about to screw that up. Mostly, they kept the corporate stuff out of my way and strongly encouraged us to keep doing the things we were good at.  We were in NYC frequently, presenting both to the company’s top management and to the technology leadership.  I know we contributed a lot to Time Inc. and we were treated very well in return.  If you ever have a chance to work for Time Inc., I would recommend it.  And if you are ever lucky enough to sell a company to them, you’ll find that nearly everyone is both intelligent and nice to work with.

I will have a lot to say about StyleFeeder and e-commerce in the coming days, so come back soon.