The What, A Love Story.
The photo we posted in 2015 that led to THE WHAT. After receiving 200 likes, it made us think “hmm maybe we should start something again...”
Before we can tell you about The What, we have to start with our first company …
Splendora was one of the first women-focused lifestyle sites on the web and Splendorina #1 was my best friend Zem Joaquin. She was living in Milan and I lured her home by faxing my Executive Summary to a Mercedes dealership near her apartment. She didn't yet have email but made friends with the floor manager so she could use their fax machine. I was a behind-the-screens nerd and Zem was a natural frontman. She could talk anybody into anything and both she and I were confident she could help me launch my first company. Zem moved back to San Francisco and became my Obi Wan teaching me how to negotiate deals, and how to get out from behind the computer and ask clients and investors for money. I raised a little over a million dollars and by 2000, we built a beautiful website, hired 16 employees, and worked with dozens of freelancers. But by the end of our first year, the dot com bubble burst. We were nearly insolvent and Zem went on maternity leave to have her first baby. But before she left she hired Amy Parker, another extroverted frontman for me, since she knew how little I liked to leave the office.
Zem and me in Splendora’s early days
Through a combination of elbow grease, denial, and Amy beseeching me to keep the company running because “It’s such a good idea, y’all!” Splendora survived and evolved. Amy became my co-Founder and a fixture at Splendora's helm for the next ten years. Our inaugural Editor-In-Chief Karen Bard Sayah was our third Muskateer and we kept afloat with a small team that celebrated so many firsts: we were a pioneering women's site (there weren't a lot of us at the time). We also published three books, infiltrated blue chip retailers and brands like Chanel, Neiman Marcus, Saks, Mercedes, and Bloomingdales (we were Dior's first electronic advertisement), and we went from charging a local spa $250 for a year-long online ad to $250,000 for a one-night Splendora-produced event for American Express. We built a team and a brand beloved by so many women but perhaps our biggest success is that we couldn't wait to come to work every day.
In 2011, after more than a decade in business, we wanted to evolve and scale so decided to sell Splendora to Joyus, an innovative video shopping retailer. Three of us joined the new team: Amy, Jen (our cherished Director of Sales), and I while the rest of the team opted to pursue their dreams elsewhere. After an 18 month sprint as Joyus's Chief Creative Officer, helping the company to create a short-form shopping format via video, I left to spend time with my young children and Amy stayed on handling media partnerships. We longed to return to our roots of running our own company, connecting women, and curating content that interested us but it wasn’t until 2015 that we decided to start our third venture: The What.
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