Fugly offices kill morale and make every task a chore. But Poppin knows a happy employee is a productive one, and wants to keep yours that way with its online store full of colorful office supplies. With the ongoing talent crunch making employee retention more crucial than ever, Shasta Ventures sees a bright future in Poppin, so it’s led a new $6 million Series A in Poppin. Joined by First Round Capital and several angels, the round will give Poppin the gusto to expand into furniture and other essentials, and spray rainbows over the supposed $300 billion office product market.
Poppin’s goal is to make “buying, using, looking at, and thinking about office products an extraordinary experience.” That seems ridiculous, but the site is actually quite nice. Browse products by color, category, or bundle, and use the special reordering tool to instantly dispatch another set of your favorites.
Co-founder Chris Burch knows a thing about style. He’s an investor in Jawbone, PowerMat, and Voss Water. As you can see by these spreads assembled by Cool Hunting, Poppin’s products are downright Pinterest-worthy.
Our awesome office admin Greg says “the prices seem really reasonable, particularly compared to Office Depot, but there’s not a huge selection.” It might be hard to lure customers if they can only buy a subset of their supplies. Poppin should put some of its funding toward striking deals with stylish producers of the bestsellers it’s missing.
Margins on binders and post-it notes might be slim, but Poppin will soon start selling big ticket furniture that could boost profitability. If it can find desks, chairs, and couches that are ergonomic as well as pretty it could court top employers like Google and Facebook that don’t mind shelling out to delight and protect their staffs.
Source:http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/27/poppin-shasta-first-round/
Poppin’s goal is to make “buying, using, looking at, and thinking about office products an extraordinary experience.” That seems ridiculous, but the site is actually quite nice. Browse products by color, category, or bundle, and use the special reordering tool to instantly dispatch another set of your favorites.
Co-founder Chris Burch knows a thing about style. He’s an investor in Jawbone, PowerMat, and Voss Water. As you can see by these spreads assembled by Cool Hunting, Poppin’s products are downright Pinterest-worthy.
Our awesome office admin Greg says “the prices seem really reasonable, particularly compared to Office Depot, but there’s not a huge selection.” It might be hard to lure customers if they can only buy a subset of their supplies. Poppin should put some of its funding toward striking deals with stylish producers of the bestsellers it’s missing.
Margins on binders and post-it notes might be slim, but Poppin will soon start selling big ticket furniture that could boost profitability. If it can find desks, chairs, and couches that are ergonomic as well as pretty it could court top employers like Google and Facebook that don’t mind shelling out to delight and protect their staffs.
Source:http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/27/poppin-shasta-first-round/
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