The highly over-hyped E-commerce website Beachmint is just about dead. This is the same Beachmint that was supposed to revolutionize the way you (the consumer) buy stuff on the internet by letting you purchase things picked by celebrities.
According to PandoDaily's Michael Carney , Beachmint's board booted the company's founders CEO Josh Berman and president Diego Berdakin after failing to make any significant inroads in the profitability front. (Three years and zero profits is a hard pill to sallow even for today's Silicon Valley, unless your Tumblr).
Three years earlier Beachmint was one of the hottest startup on the block to cash in, receiving major funding from Goldman Sachs, NEA and Accel Partners. In its heyday Beachmint raised a total of $73.5 million from backers, but today the company had to return $20 million of that back to investors.
Competition from ShoeDazzle and JustFab was too much for the Los Angeles startup. Despite the "significant traction" the company saw from its JewelMint and ShoeMint brands and having the Olsen Twins as celebrity endorsers, it still wasn't enough.
I'm sure both investors and founders wish that ShoeDazzle merger thing didn't fell apart last year.
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/overhyped-e-commerce-startup-beachmint-crashes-and-burns?cid=roadrunner