Kevin Ryan may be moving away from the flash sites that put Gilt Groupe on the map, but the sales device seems to be working just fine for Fab.com. After a smooth landing on a successful triple pivot [Ed Note: our bad, original idea plus two pivots does not equal three!]–from a daily deals site for gay men called Fabulis, to a flash sales sites for gay men, to a flash site for design for everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality–GigaOm reports that Fab.com has grown 800 percent since May. It’s only been ten weeks, but the site is already approaching the 500,000 user mark. The key, according to CEO Jason Goldberg, lies in part with a little feature they like to call the “inspiration wall.”
The wall was initially put up in April to keep users sticking around the URL when it transitioned from a social networking site into flash sales. The feature lets users shares pictures of inspiring designs they find online, have stored on their computer, or feel like uploading from Instagram. Now users can upload products on Fab to their wall in the same way. Others can see their choices and follow a user whose taste they admire. Most anything on the site can be shared through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ or email. Mr. Goldberg says Fab has ten times more Twitter activity than other flash sales start-ups.
Betabeat first noticed Fab when one of our friends shared it on Facebook, and Mr. Goldberg concurred that most users have been added from social sharing rather than direct traffic. Old-school email, however, has proved more profitable,with visits via email yielding four times the amount of revenue.
The biggest driver of revenue, though, came courtesy of the wife of one of its investors. The power of Demi Moore’s Twitter stream is not to be trifled with people.
