Written by : Osei

Chief editor of : http://www.flyprints.co.uk/blog

OK let me first start of by saying that I’m one of those people who don’t particularly like school. The rigidness of the system, the power hungry ego maniac teachers and the out dated way of teaching pisses me off. I am not an academic person, I am one of those students who drew Dragonball z characters whist in science .So, it would be natural for me to dislike or school right? Especially after the books I’ve read and the things I’ve heard about employers valuing experience over education. I have grown to dislike the education system and valued the art of everything unorthodox.

However with that said the older i get the more i see my university education benefiting my real life i graduated almost 1 year and a half ago. The endless reports and researching has prepared me for a world of blogging. Without this experience i wouldn’t have known about referencing quotes and bodies of work that i got from other people and how to properly structure an argument. (Although my spelling and punctuation is still terrible, thank God for spell check)

Without my knowledge of strategy I wouldn’t have thought to adopt a hybrid strategy for my company FLYPRINTS, a hybrid strategy is defined as when a company competes on price whilst differentiating their business from their competitors. A prime example would be IKEA a company who has relatively low prices but has very unique products. In my opinion the companies who do the best are the ones who set out to achieve this from day one.

To conclude i think for me a good formal education never hurts, it opened me up to a new world and a different social circle. I think my beef with School was how little they prepare you for the REAL WORLD but, things are changing have you seen these new academies! Not to mention all the summer courses, entrepreneurial courses etc. What do you think about formal education?

When Susan Gregg was 17 she was heading off to Carnegie Mellon University, but she found her closet packed full of vintage clothes and shoes that she had collected.

So she decided to get rid of them, and what better way than to open an online boutique. That year, Susan began ModCloth.com right from her dorm room. She would often drive from uni to her southern Florida hometown to pick up more stock.

Soon the site was overwhelming, 60,000 visitors per month wanted more. That’s when Susan realised the potential of the business. She started looking for designers and suppliers, eventually finding a trade show in Las Vegas via Google search. Susan went to the show with the intention to find herself a designer, which she did.

Susan still needed to raise the capital to pay for her rising costs, so on the advice of her boyfriend she took out $50,000 in credit card debt with the rest coming in the form of loans from her boyfriend’s family.

It was a big step to take, but ultimately these are the risked you have to take if you want to make it big.

Since her original idea in 2002, she has come a long way, but it wasn’t until 2006 when she hired designers to create an original collection for the site, that things have really taken off.

As it stands today the site is getting over 2million visitors per month and ModCloth is looking to surpass the $50million mark in sales this year. Susan has also managed to raise $20million in new funding so that she can open up offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles as employees near 150.

Susan’s personality shines through when you look at the business, ModCloth is a social commerce and she makes sure that customers feel involved whether they are buying or not. There is even an opportunity for the customers to choose which styles go into production.

This is the kind of thinking that will help Susan continue to grow ModCloth well into the future.

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