Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Alyssa Royse

I’m a low-maintenance chick. I like things to be simple, real, logical,rational and dependable. I’d take a Volvo over a BMW any day, thinkdesigner clothes are for suckers, and would snuggle up to a good geekbefore I got anywhere near a playboy type. So it should come as nosurprise that I have a soft spot for businesses that are simple,logical, low-maintenance, dependable and not wrought with bells andwhistles – or with fancy offices, proprietary technology and a lot ofoverhead. But damn, those are hard to find.

Fortunately, here comes the bride. BravoBride, that is. BravoBrideis the brainchild of the recently married Susan Alexander, who startedthe virtual wedding marketplace after being unable to buy or sell usedgoods for her own wedding.

I am in love with this business.Why?  It has a huge addressable market – more than $161 Billionannually. The buying and selling of wedding goods is evergreen – notdependent on season or trends. The problem and solution – acquisitionof goods – are simple.  There is virtually no R & D, no need forcomplex infrastructure. Revenue exists from a variety of sources, froman enormous number of people in small enough transactions that itshould be steady and without a need for a big sales effort.  Amen.

I asked Susan a few questions, and she gave me some simple answers.  

Although I can probably guess, where did the idea for Bravo Bride come from?

Igot married this past July 4th and when I was planning the wedding Ifound it frustrating to pay for expensive wedding items that I’d useonce and only for a few hours.  I looked on Craigslist and Ebay butthere wasn’t anything focused on just the bridal industry.

When you were first starting Bravo Bride, what did you see as your biggest obstacles?
Iwas worried that I would have to spend a lot of time on customerservice questions or even worse that no one would use it. Luckily,neither has been the case.

What made you think you could do it?
Iam a big believer that not trying is a much worse failure than tryingsomething and not succeeding at it. I figured if the site didn’t workout at least I knew and instead of wondering what could have been.

You made the choice not to take on investors, why?
Iknew I could bootstrap it and that I didn’t need to take on investorsin order to figure out if brides were going to use it. A few thingsthat really helped with costs were that I designed the site myself andmy programmer gave me a really good deal on the development cost. I dida trade with a copywriter for the content of my site and as I mentionedearlier I hired interns to help market the site. All of these thingsreally helped keep costs down. It was also nice to know that if thesite failed it was only my money I was losing. :)

What do you think sets you apart from your competitors?  
Whatsets me apart is that you won’t find fish tanks and bicycles on thesite, we only focus on wedding products. Craigslist and Ebay areprobably my biggest competitors but you have to search through so manythings on Craigslist to find what you are looking for and it’s only forcertain regions. Our site is nationwide and we have an advanced searchso you can quickly find what you are looking for. The site is alsobroken down into different categories, such as dresses, jewelry, itemsfor the ceremony and reception and more. Unlike Ebay is completely freeto list items and there’s never a sale upon commission. There’s anothersite that sells pre-owned wedding dresses but this is all they sell andthey charge a $25 listing fee.

We live in the land oftechnology and widgets and gadgets and gee-whiz features. Your companyis about as simple as it gets, so you’re sort of going against thetrend…..
I think that’s why Craigslist is so successful,it’s easy. That’s how I wanted my site to feel too. Sometimes when youadd too many features and options it gets so confusing and convolutedthat people don’t want to bother with it. That’s the good and bad partof technology, it’s there to make our lives more simple but sometimesthat doesn’t always happen.

A business isn’t any more orless complicated than any relationship. Identify the needs of allparties, meet them simply and directly, focus on what really mattersand be committed. Don’t get distracted by fancy cars and bling, it’swhat’s underneath that matters. In business – as in people – rational,dependable, logical and low-maintenance is good. As is getting alongwell with others.

* Disclaimer, Alyssa is not a fancy wedding person, at all. Not even kind of. And she would never wear a diamond.

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