043 - Pooja Badlani and Sarika Doshi of Rank and Style – The DJ Of Lists

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Data driven content…

Pooja Badlani and Sarika Doshi (Co-Founders of Rank and Style, on online fashion and beauty list platform) join Pavan Bahl (OS Fashion), Rob Sanchez (Manufacture New York / Ralph and Remington [Episode 22]) and Marc Raco (The Hope Is Project and Monkey Radio), in studio. After the hosts admire the beautiful Rank and Style website, a segment of the FashInvest Investment News touches on Stella Service’s recent Series B round raise of $15M, for an online services based on offline and high touch methodology, mystery shoppers, independent customer service ratings. The segments prompts discussion of behind the scenes ratings, usefulness to companies and consumers/investors, building research teams, expanding data, and high touch personal feedback vs. algorithms/computer learning side, and why Rank and Style went the algorithm path.

Badlani and Doshi touch on the way to accomplish ranking data more scientifically, the impact of the relationship between editorial opinions, consumer opinions and data to drowning out bias, and how the truth emerges, inspires confidence, trust and urgency. They reveal their success with conversion, a data driven approach to relationships with consumers, how rankings impact potential ranking-changes of brands/products within the rankings, the recipe of how list topics are decided, the independence of data from human interference, reliability of objective data, journalistic influence and the potential for audit, the importance of context for rankings, and the intent to grow the business from B to C to B to B. They talk about how people love lists rankings, weekly basis syndication, what leads to provocative headlines and the impact on sales.

How Badlani and Doshi met, the light bulb moment idea for Rank and Style, a fitness tea company, Hurricane Irene, a tropical vacation, sunscreens, and the search for a business idea, and a detailed discussion on chutney. Giving back via mentoring young female entrepreneurs, the biggest hurdles to date, how industry politics figure into ranking and lists, maintaining objectivity in light of relationships, the plan to move to other verticals, the goal to “rank the world”, the importance of what other consumers are doing, vulnerability to bot attacks and credibility of reviews, and the surprising use of Rank and Style for brand and product discovery.

Plus Feed the Animals brings a big surprise, Pavan’s discovers a life-changing bug repellant, a plug for the podcast to appear on a list, and Rank and Style’s SEO challenges. Off the Grid Questions reveals taco, tea and salad obsessions, a CHOPT challenge, cheese as legal tender, the Disneyland of grocery stores, cow secrets, working for dad, and a great American story.

043 – Pooja Badlani and Sarika Doshi of Rank and Style – The DJ Of Lists