Silicon Valley Arts and Crafts Instructor Gets $6 Million
Brit Morin profits, literally, from the Donald Rumsfeld school of reality: repeat something often enough and it will be so. Someone once called her the "Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley," and the label's been repeated in almost every article ever written about her, iota of talent not withstanding. Today, it pays off.
Brit + Co. sprung from Brit's ego, like Athena from the head of tie-dye Zeus, and basically organizes a panoply of DIY—the golden term—crafts projects. That is, essentially, her entire "startup" is an aggregation of recipes and elbow macaroni assemblages that other people came up with, formatted on a high-design website. Think Julia Allison's brain after a weekend of reading old magazines and a dozen strawberry jargaritas. It's hardly, in the traditional sense of the word, a "business," in that it doesn't try very hard to "make money." That doesn't matter. Brit is a sparkly brand. She's also married to Valley fixture and app spam kingpin Dave Morin.
Basic principles of capitalism notwithstanding, here are the ideas that Brit + Co's new investors say are worth (at least) $6.3 million:
Believe it or not, this geometric necklace rack was made with an old Jenga set. Find out how: http://t.co/nrZjwQFChy
— Brit Morin (@brit) June 13, 2013
Don't judge me when I say this, but the fanny pack is back and it's looking pretty "clutch". http://t.co/yGGudJagY1
— Brit Morin (@brit) June 11, 2013
Peekaboo! Check out these 20 classy ways to wear cutout shirts and dresses. http://t.co/bmUBz84KXF
— Brit Morin (@brit) June 2, 2013
I scream, you scream, here are 10 ways to throw an ice cream social! http://t.co/d30Sc734D3
— Brit Morin (@brit) May 27, 2013
All you need is bleach and a few basic tools to make a classic tee your own. http://t.co/al7UGnnmlo
— Brit Morin (@brit) May 23, 2013
These are multi-million dollar URLs.
These ideas might've been thrilling when they first appeared in a 1970s issue of Reader's Digest, but in 2013, it's not exactly avant garde. Or even particularly interesting. And besides, there's no real need for a handpicked collection of "Blinged Out Friendship Bracelets," or "Cookies ‘n’ Cream Cupcakes," because that's what's so great about Pinterest, right? Or, say, thousands of other Tumblrs that operate on zero budget. There's an entire universe of this stuff that runs itself without the need for capital.
But that doesn't matter—spinning millions out of glue gun projects is the ultimate DIY.