Rasba, a new social shopping site founded by a 16-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur, recognizes that money and friends are powerful tools of persuasion.
The idea behind Rasba isn’t entirely new; others such as Kaboodle, ThisNext, StyleHive, and Wists have sought to bring a personal touch to online shopping. But whereas these other sites provide places for people to recommend goods sold elsewhere, Rasba serves as a storefront for retailers in addition to a social network for shoppers.
If you’re a consumer, you can create an account on Rasba, fill out your profile, and make friends. When you buy goods, they’ll go onto your profile alongside the retailers you’ve favorited. If your friends (or anyone else) happens to buy something after finding it on your page, you get a commission. This commission starts at 2% and goes up depending on how great an incentive a retailer wants to provide.
Conversely, if you want to sell merchandise online, you can create a retailer account on Rasba and set up your online storefront in a minimal number of steps. In this regard, Rasba can be compared to Etsy, which specializes in the sale of handmade goods. Rasba, on the other hand, provides mostly fashion but intends to branch out into all types of goods, such as electronics and toys.
There are a handful of useful goodies for both shoppers and retailers. Shoppers can make wishlists of things that they want their friends to buy for them. And retailers can track the activity on their store using a comprehensive analytics tool. Anybody who favorites these retailers will also show up on their pages as fans.
Miriam Brafman, the young founder of Rasba, didn’t have any programming knowledge when she came up with the idea for it. So she sought out developers through LinkedIn and other means. She now has a full-time Yahoo employee working on the site for her, presumably in his off hours. She spends most of her time these days traveling to meet with retailers who might want to set up shop on Rasba.
Very cool idea!
Not sure I want to be shopping and socialising at the same time but as you say others like Kaboodle are doing it…the question is, how successful?
she is adorable
This is a great idea, look forward to them expanding into electronics – if they do I’d have my store front there. Word of mouth speaks volumes and encourage reputable trading too.
question: is she a 16 year old SV entrepreneur(i.e. moved to SV to start the company) or is she the daughter of a ______ who lives in SV?
@andrew – she grew up in SV
@chris The site has a section for electronics. They have one retailer that sells really trendy watches. Looks like you can sign up your store.
I’m confused. Where did she get the money to pay for others to develop it for her? The idea doesn’t seem particularly original…could this be a PR thing? Something doesn’t add up.
What exactly did she do?
@Paul .. umm her name is Miriam Brafman …
Is this an April Fools thing? What’s with the abundance of the word “hip” and “awesome” on the site? I’m 22, and kids do not talk like this – anywhere. Perhaps in the 80’s from what I understand, from watching movies and such.
Mark, could you elaborate on this a little more? It’s confusing. Where did the money come from? What else has the girl done to earn the title of “entrepreneur”? Who hooked her up with a Yahoo! employee to work on the site for her? How did she even know about LinkedIn? How does a 16 year old child get reputable retailers to meet with her? How does a site that has absolutely no internet presence get on TC? And I have so many more…
Is this kid your niece or something? Anyone else as confused as I?
@10 I’m going to guess the answers:
-She is 16, so I guess hip and awesome is pretty standard for a california 16 year old.
-money? daddy I’ll guess
-1 site is enough to be labeled one
-Yahoo employee? Daddy again
-Linked in? Daddy again
-Doesn’t look like they are reputable retailers, looks more like street vendors sending their own tshirts from the back of their truck
-the TC angle is a mystery. Could be anything, but most likely again daddy’s connections.
At least there is no 50 million in VC funding like the rest of hair brained ideas like this
If you read the FAQ, your ‘commission’ isn’t actually real money. It’s ‘Rasba Bucks’ which you can use as credit towards more purchases on the site.
most people go for these site to connect their friends not for shopping
let’s see what happen to this concept most people prefer ebay or any other site for shopping
some harvard guys launched what (I think) was the first social shopping site a few years back and sold it to Buy.com…it’s now called YUB. the idea was cool (it was novel at the time), but users just didn’t have an interest in mixing the shopping with socializing and there was little uptake…plus Scott Blum & co didn’t really seem to know what to do with the concept (and still don’t).
This startup is Dead on Arrival, but the concept could have legs if appropriately incorporated into a FB app or a FB+(enter e-tail giant here) partnership that leverages the social networks already created to incent users to write product reviews and add recommendations for commission.
Anyhow, not a new concept and this attempt is going to be DOA.
I know the guys who built a company called usuggest.com for social shopping a long time ago with their own money and without being in SV or having a yahoo sugar daddy. There are hundreds other start-ups in the same space like crowdstorm, mypicklist, ……….etc all funded by big VCs.
So yahoo employees are moonlighting for kids now ……… shareholders of yahoo – you have one more clause to add to the yahoo – MS lawsuit. Hope Rasba gets funding before he/she gets fired for working in his free time and violating his non-compete agreement.
Is this article an ad?