Tyrone Rubin, the co-founder of the brand new ‘HipCloset’ , his partner David Franciscus and lead engineer Esmerino Costa, have developed an online market place for people to buy and sell fashion in South Africa. In this interview, Tyrone reveals their goals for the startup, the social media app he can’t live without, and more! Our curator for South Africa, Lauren Wallett, got the lowdown.
How did you come up with the idea for HipCloset?
We had witnessed thousands of girls on Facebook using their profile pages to sell their clothes to friends, and we wanted to create an independent platform for people to legitimately buy and sell from. I was inspired by international fashion marketplaces in the sharing economy space and noticed a huge gap in the market for a similar concept in not only Cape Town, but the whole of South Africa.
Do you think that South Africans will embrace a formalised online marketplace for fashion?
Although South Africa is relatively behind the rest of the world in terms of online market places, we are currently experiencing a mobile growth explosion and it’s a very viable tool in order to trade online. That together with the fact that the average woman has over a dozen items of clothing in her closest that she would like to sell, are two of the reasons why we believe that the time is right to launch this specific online solution.
What are your goals for HipCloset?
The company has been in development for 6 months prior, and is now in the final stages of its online setup. The toughest challenge in building the HipCloset brand and business has been finding like minded people who clearly relate to our work ethic, culture and ethos. Now, with a team in place, the next challenge will be scaling HipCloset into a national operation. We are set to launch in April.
We aim for HipCloset to be the front of mind solution when people are thinking about buying and selling clothes online, initially in South Africa and ultimately in all of Africa. So far, the research feedback has all been positive. People agree that HipCloset is going to be something that everyone can use and benefit from. I think our key to success will lie in taking full advantage of local, mobile and social platforms to extend the brands reach.
How did you choose the name HipCloset?
We are obsessed with names that stick and went through thousands before deciding that HipCloset had the perfect fit.
Thank you. Now for some personal questions. If you could meet any 3 people in the world one day, who would they be?
Elon Musk, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese
If you weren’t an entrepreneur, what would you be:
Definitely a lawyer or psychologist.
What social media hit can you not go a day without
Instagram.
Who should be watching out for in 2014:
Young people in Africa exploring alternative renewable energy sources.
Tyrone is passionate about unique, specific marketplaces and well studied in the collaborative consumption movement. Tyrone is already at work on his second project, TaskBox, which is set to launch soon after HipCloset.
