Tweet & Win Promotional Offer at RoomsByYou.com!

So listen up guys, we're doing our first Promotional Offer at RoomsByYou. We're offering everyone on Twitter a chance to win a FREE Customizable Decorative Pillow. And, for the next one week (last day: 1-31-10) EVERYONE gets $15 off on RoomsByYou! Just enter the Promo Code: rby-tw-012510-7 before Proceeding to Checkout and you'll get $15 knocked off the price before taxes and shipping!

To win a Pillow:

1) Go to RoomsByYou's Twitter page: www.twitter.com/RoomsByYou and look for our Promo Code Offer in our Tweets.

2) Re-Tweet our Promo Code Offer!

OR,

3) Write your own Tweet about RoomsByYou's $15 off Promo Code Offer. Be sure to include the Code: rby-tw-012510-7 !

There, you're done! Now wait to see if you're selected on February 1, 2010, to win a FREE Customized Decorative Pillow from RoomsByYou. www.twitter.com/RoomsByYou will get in contact with you and let you know how you can log on to www.RoomsByYou.com to design your own FREE Pillow!

Sneak Peak at our upcoming Teens RoomsByYou

We're busy working on mapping all of our designs to TeenRooms. As a quick preview, we wanted to share with you what a Teen Classic room looks like customized with Hippie Baby from Lisa VenVertloh. We're hoping to launch this week! Stay tuned...

Teen's Room will offer a selection of new customizable products including a Dog Bed, Bean Bag Chair, Laundry Bag and more. Also in the Teen's Room, you will be able to customize Curtain Panels, Valence Panels, Decorative Pillows, Wall Art, Lamps, Bedding and Shams. The selection of designs include hundreds of Print and Pattern designs and can be coordinated and arranged totally by choice in the 3D Room Customizer at www.RoomsByYou.com. Check it out!

New collection of designs! Fun, fantastic and... fierce? for your custom home décor. by Sheena McNeal.

Here is a sneak peek of a new collection by Sheena McNeal we're calling Mod4Mod. These custom surface pattern designs are fun, fantastic and fierce. Oh jeez, fierce? Sorry Sheena. This collection is turning out beautifully and we can't wait to launch it. More colors are coming and you'll love it!

You may select these patterns and hundreds more to custom design pillows, blankets, bed sheets, curtain panels, crib bumpers, baby towels and much more!

Check out more sneak-peak images of this upcoming design collection at our Facebook FanPage, http://www.facebook.com/roomsbyyou

Check out our updated 3D Room Customizer!

Quote of the YEAR

I recently read a research article on how the recession has changed moms & teens. It focused specifically on how people of means are finding it in vogue to be frugal. "Today's consumers are wearing this new frugality as a badge of honor". The article spent time discussing the notion of what "value" is.

Most retailers response to the value equation is to promote discounting. In today's world of mass production, every product carried by most every retailer has been turned into a commodity due to price wars. It's a very hard game to win and feels old school. The article went on to say that "Retailers need to innovate their way out of the recession."

In my opinion, Innovation = Value. There will always be a place in the market for the folks who can produce/source and sell inexpensive products. We all know the retailers who dominate this market.

I believe the retailers who really understand innovation first are those who embrace mass customization. To put the power of creation back in the hands of the people is beautiful and a VALUE. The power of creation is a VALUE. Manufacturing for a party of one is a VALUE. To provide tools to help everybody configure products that fit their personal style is a VALUE. To be surrounded in your nest by products that you created is a VALUE.

Mass Customization = Innovation = Fun = Value

That's the hope and goal at RoomsByYou. To provide the tools to help everyone play a role in creating the stuff that surrounds and defines them. To provide customization functionality in an application that is innovative & fun to use is pretty fantastic.

From time to time I'll be passing along blogs and sites that focus on reporting on mass customization. Take the time to follow those that I note below and keep abreast of the latest news in mass customization.

http://www.madeforone.com
http://www.milkorsugar.com
http://mass-customization.blogs.com

Cheers!

The Power of Customization

Roughly a year ago I was sitting in a design product review meeting with my boss and my bosses boss discussing the perfect color pink, when my habitual daydreaming took over. As my bosses were deciding what customers would love for Spring '09, I was thinking..."Why is it up to us to decide what's right & wrong for customers? Why not put the customer in control and let them design, customize and personalize their own products?".

I'd seen some cool applications at NikeID where you could customize your own kicks and there were other folks out there with applications that allowed users to put graphic design, photography and fine art on t-shirts, coffee mugs, calendars, wall art and mouse pads. Clearly mass customization was taking hold through sites with these applications as well others that permitted on-demand book & music publishing.

Upon further research into on-demand customization & rapid manufacturing, I found two interesting discoveries.

1. There were no meaningful players in Home Textile mass customization. There were old school players doing super expensive customization that takes 6-16 weeks to deliver, but no one with rapid on-demand manufacturing capabilities.
2. No one was truly offering a cross-merchandising event where customers could customize several coordinated products at one time with coordinating colors & patterns...didn't exist. Every customization experience online was customizing just one thing at a time...sneakers, t-shirts, messenger bags, coffee mugs, mouse pads, etc. Basically all of the customization configurators put one thing on one thing...one design on one product.

So, with this information and my deep seated entrepreneurial drive, I resigned as head of Design & Merchandising, wrote the business plan for RoomsByYou, partnered with a strong development team, found 10 amazing textile designers, sourced textiles from around the globe and procured the rapid manufacturing equipment. All-in-all, it took roughly 9 months to launch RoomsByYou. It was an amazing experience.

In order to scale the business from year one to future years, we launched with BabyRoomsByYou with the plans to roll out to every room of the house in coming months and years. I liked the notion of starting with one room in the house where there was...

1. Celebration
2. Typically a fun themed room
3. Involvement from a community of friends & family

So, we started with the Nursery. My sense was that if a Mom was into customizing nursery textiles, then she would also be interested in customizing textiles for other rooms in her house for her other children and herself. Therefore, in the coming year, we will be launching KidsRoomsByYou, TeenRoomsByYou, StudioRoomsByYou and BedRoomsByYou.

For BabyRoomsByYou, we allow customers to customize nursery bedding, wall art, decorative pillows, storage units, curtain panels, lamp shades, totes and even FABRIC-BY-THE-YARD.

Customers can either customize all of the products together in a 3D room setting called our "Room Customizer" or customize one product at a time in a more of 2D setting.

I'm just finding the time now to begin to tell the story about the business and our plans for the future. I'll also be looking into the market to chat about other folks offering powerful customization tools. Retail is changing. It has to. To coin a phrase..."we're at a tipping point". Let's celebrate putting the customer at the center of the shopping experience by giving them the tools to create their own products.

More to come.

Cheers,
jon@roomsbyyou