Yesterday, the first ever visual fashion search tool, Donde Fashion, launched. Some of you are like,”I don’t know what you are even saying right now!” So let me break it down. No more typing in “pink halter maxi dress” and receiving things that are 1. not pink, and 2. not maxis. This revolutionary application allows you to search based off silhouettes, colors, materials, patterns, from thousands of your favorite brands.
Earlier this week, we met up with CEO & Co-founder, Liat Zakay, and Head of Marketing, Jennifer Singerman, to discuss Donde Fashion from start to now.
Actually it came from my sister. Growing up I was always admiring my sister’s sense of style. She’s 8 years older than me and I always wanted to have the same outfits as hers and every time she would have come back home buying a new dress I was like, “Where did you get that and I want something like this.” I want to fit my body type, my style preferences and my style.” I’ve been searching for it on stores and online and just realized that it’s been taking me hours to find stuff. This is where I just said, “Okay, why don’t we have a tool that is very intuitive and easy.”
I have a specific look in mind for holiday family gathering and I can find it with Donde. This is basically the idea behind the product. I started coding it because I was feeling that there has to be a solution. The idea is that it’s the first search tool for fashion that allows you to have any fashion item in mind and find it within less than 15 seconds with images rather than texts. We don’t think about the keywords or the words we’ll use to Google it or to describe it, it’s not very intuitive. For example, (starts to demonstrate Donde) I’m looking for a dress and I want it to be this color, this length, this silhouette. I want it to be … I don’t like this sleeve, I like this neckline and of course I can skip it, I can choose only occasion if I don’t want to. I can immediately find exactly what I’m looking for.
Wait, is that the dress you’re wearing?
(laughs) I bought it on Donde but when it was on sale, not at this price. Actually I saw it on a celebrity, it’s a very popular dress and I’ve seen it on a celebrity and I was trying to find looks. I saw it and I saved it and it notified me when it was on sale on at Bloomingdale’s.
You can notify yourself when items are on sale too?
Yeah. I bought it half price and even less actually. I saved it, I have it here on my wish list, all the things that I’ve saved. It notifies me and I get a notification once it’s on sale and the basic idea is that I can, very quickly … it’s 6000 brands, more than 3,000,000 products that we’re analyzing based on the visual characteristics. The algorithm behind it, understands the color and the silhouette and the neckline and the length. You are able to just imagine something and get it in seconds. You can tag a friend on some things so I can immediately tag Jennifer and she can tell me if it’s cute, must have or say something that she thinks. I can send it to her on email, Pinterest, Instagram, I can…
Cool, you can send it to her on Instagram… Woah!
I can buy it immediately so I already have my credit card and shipping address inside. I can see more similar stuff based on the style on the visual. We have here all women’s clothing including shoes so if you’re looking for a specific shoe in a certain color, you get all the shoes. You can filter it by price, by brand. It’s basically helping the modern woman who’s busy, who doesn’t have time now to search through different websites, through different stores. It helps her just … She knows her cuts. She knows the style that flatters her and colors. It’s more for the working women or the business women or the more experienced shopper. It just saves time.
Right. Does it ship directly from the brand itself?
Yeah. You’re buying from the brand. We just make it very seamless.
So you’re the middle person basically?
Liat: Exactly. We’re doing the work for you but once you buy from Bloomingdale’s then you get a receipt from Bloomingdale’s, you return it to Bloomingdale’s.
Jennifer: The price is the exact same on Donde so we’re updated several times a day. You’re getting the exact same price you would at a retailer and you also have the option to insert a coupon or promo codes or if there’s a sale going on you can still apply that discount through Donde.
Liat: We’re the tool that allows you just to imagine something and get it.
How long did it take from conception to launch?
It’s been a while because it’s been … It’s a very complex technology behind it. We’re the first technology that actually allows you to search by images and not text. Unlike text search where text search pulls all the keywords that match the same keyword that you entered, that can be very inaccurate. We’re actually going through the image and analyze it to make sure that this is the color, this is the shade, this is the neckline. Sometimes in their website it’s not very accurate, you’re getting wrong things and the main technology behind it is that we’re learning how you think as a person.
We learn what are the features, what are the intuitive features that people use to find words. The algorithm, it’s based on artificial intelligence that finds the process of someone building an outfit, what’s important there. It took like a year and a half for us to develop the algorithm. I come from a tech background so I met my co-founders in the tech unit we served in intelligence in the Israeli Intelligence. We were all doing cyber security and I just told them that there is a big problem searching on mobile and we can make a real difference and just convince them that this is the greatest thing. It’s hard technology but for the user it’s super easy.
You can even filter by material?
Yeah. Every visual feature that somebody can think about, we made it very easy for you to customize. I want, I saw someone wearing something or … This is the thing, I’m getting inspiration from people all the time but I admit that I don’t have the patience or I don’t enjoy going to stores and start browsing.
No, it’s not fun. It isn’t because every store carries the same exact thing.
Overwhelming. The information is there where we had to do a lot of analysis and a lot of technology included to make it very easy. There’s no reason why you as a consumer wouldn’t be able to … In a few seconds, you have something great. Just have a tool that is easy and save you time so this is the concept behind Donde, this is “where” in Spanish where you find exactly what you’re looking for.
Exactly, that’s really cool. Do you ever think that you’ll take this app online just because … I think it’s something that people would like to see on their computer screen. A lot of people do online shopping and if they’re to be seen on their phone all the time doing phone shopping, your boss will be like, “What are you doing?” It’s easier to get away with it when you’re pretending to work.
It’s a good a point but I really think that mobile is the future and that we’re spending so much time on our phone and we are becoming addicted to it, it change consumer behavior. I feel like if it’s Waze, if it’s Yelp, if it’s different apps that you just think of something that you need and you immediately open it. I feel that as much as people are still used to maybe being on their desktop, the fact of product searching is more, it would grow here and actually mobile commerce is going to be more than 100 billion dollars this year. It’s growing and I feel that this is the future.
Right now is it only iPhone or is it iPhone and Android?
It’s iOS, I feel that also this is … Our target market is iPhone and we’re focusing on women shoppers in the US right now.
It’s sold also only in US right now?
Yeah although it’s language agnostic so every person can use it and I don’t even need to know English. It’s all visual but still we’re focusing on the US.
Download Donde now and try it out for size. Only available through the iTunes store.