By: thalia kaye jacobsen
Can love and business ever thrive under a hectic and sometimes harsh environment? Apparently they can. For Eric and Susan Gregg Koger, they are living proofs that love conquers all – including business, as they came a long way as far as their personal relationship is concerned. The Kroger's love story bloomed together with their online retail business, ModCloth – an entrepreneurial venture they both started from scratch which became a huge business success.
Susan started ModCloth with the help of her then-boyfriend Eric in 2002 while they were attending college at Carnegie Mellon University. Susan has always loved anything vintage, and would go to local thrift stores and browse for hours on end so much so that she would end up buying clothes even if they wouldn't fit her or even if they weren't her style. Her collection became huge that Eric convinced her one day to set up a site where she can sell some of her vintage finds. Thus, came the birth of ModCloth.
Like most business success stories that started from scratch, Eric and Susan launched ModCloth in January 2003 during winter break. They operated the site from Susan's dorm room, with Susan personally fulfilling orders and maintaining a full course load at the same time. Eric, with his web hosting and designing experiences, provided the technical support for the site. They both decided to run the site full time in 2006 and expanded their merchandise from one-of-a-kind frocks to multiple vintage and retro-inspired pieces from independent designers.
This business success story gets better and better. Eric and Susan married later that same year and moved into a house in Pittsburgh and later moved into a converted steel mill in Pittsburgh's Strip District to accommodate their expanding business.
What sets ModCloth apart from the rest is that most of the employees, including the founder, are women in their 20's – just like their target clients. They have firsthand knowledge to what women their age want and what the current trends are. One major contributor to their business success endeavor was enlisting customer involvement and participation by launching contests through social networking sites as well as the company's blog for new names of indie labels and submission of photos of stylish fashion ensembles.
Customers are ModCloth's top priority. Envisioning ModCloth in the future that will imitate the feel of combing through racks of clothing in search of the perfect outfit, it has attracted investment backers – which make this vintage clothing company an even bigger force to be reckoned with. With this kind of guiding principle in a company, the rest will surely fall into place – just like love. Truly an inspiring business success story!