Nashville Startup: Taigan Lets You Shop The World From The Comfort Of Your Own Home

The days of wandering the halls of a mall in search for rare shops with cool, exquisite, beautiful things are long gone. It’s rare that you find an independent shop keeper who is willing to put in the overhead it costs to be in the nicer malls typically anchored with a Nordstrom, Neimans, Bloomingdales or Crate and Barrel. Boutique shops can be found on the strips of the more popular touristy towns but more often than not you find yourself paying 2 to 3 times more than you should because of the address.

If you’re one of those people that enjoys shopping boutiques and loves a good treasure hunt at a store off the beaten path, then you need to pay attention to Taigan and how they let you shop the world from your computer chair, or smartphone.

Taigan is like an online mall comprised of boutiques and individually owned shops. Maybe you’ve shopped at a handmade jewelry store nestled into a backstreet in Georgetown. Perhaps you found nice cashmere sweaters and artisan designer clothes at a shop on Main street in middle America. Those kinds of stores and more are curated and then added to the wide array of merchants you can find at Taigan.com

As you will find out in our interview with Taigan’s CEO Elizabeth Nichols, this unique, well curated online community of shops is the brain child of Mary Catherine McLellan and Mark McDonald. Nichols was a hired CEO who had built her own shopping center development company from start to going public. In our interview Nichols highlights how Taigan is uniquely different and an amazing experience.

The other thing that sets Taigan apart from anything even remotely similar is that they vet all of their merchants, you can’t just sign up and have a store front at Taigan.  The Taigan team travels around the country, and the world to see the merchants using their service. If they can’t get to a merchant they require a chance to review the products in hand to make sure that they are good quality and that the merchant isn’t fly by night.

One other thing we will touch on in the interview is how when we began working on this story I noticed that while the items in the merchant stores may be on the high end of the quality scale, the Taigan team isn’t snobby or snooty and just about everyone feels like they belong at Taigan and can find something they like using Taigan.

Interview after the break



Who are the founders of Taigan can you give us their/your background?

Taigan was founded by Mary Catherine McClellan and Mark McDonald. Mary Catherine had a successful career as a partner at Ernst & Young, travelling the country for work and enjoying the discovery of great little shops in her spare time. Mark is a long time commercial developer, working with retailers for over 20 years. Through their travels and their careers, both realized the great potential in providing online access to wonderful little shops they’d discovered, yet shopping one little shop at a time online is cumbersome. The initial concept was called “Shop the World” where a shopper in a secondary market would be able to shop the world’s best small boutiques/retailers from their laptop, creating a website where small retailers could join a highly curated community of similar shops to be presented to a sophisticated shopper.

How would you describe Taigan to a complete stranger?

Taigan is an online marketplace of highly curated boutiques, designers and purveyors presenting otherwise hard-to-find items, from fashion to accessories, jewelry to gourmet food & wine, children’s clothing and toys, health and beauty and more. We think of it as a lifestyle site for those enjoying the “road less traveled” – a place to find a wonderfully talented canoe paddle craftsman working along a creek in North Carolina, or a boutique wine maker at the end of a dirt road in Sonoma, or a women’s boutique we all know and love, but cannot always get to town to shop her store.

Why did you start Taigan?

To be clear, Mary Catherine and Mark came up with the idea of Taigan. I had a background in retail real estate having built a successful shopping center development company (from start to going public!). I had known both Mary Catherine and Mark for a number of years and was “brought on” to bring the idea of “Shop the World” to fruition. As a public company President I had traveled extensively and enjoyed the ART of shopping boutiques around the world – the idea of bringing wonderful shops and designers to the fingertips of consumers “whenever and whereever” was an exciting proposition. I additionally felt that there was a tremendous “value-add” for the small boutique owner or emerging designer. After all we could provide them with an e-commerce solution, help expand their customer base and increase sales, and give them more power in negotiating with such providers as FED EX and UPS. I like to think that we try to give the small “guy” a bigger voice!

When and where did you start Taigan.

We launched Taigan in the end of 2009. Looking back, it was an interesting time to launch what some people considered to be a ‘luxury goods’ site, but we saw this as an opportunity to help very talented small businesses stay afloat by enhancing their brick and mortar business with an online distribution channel. When we first launched we knew that a few of our shops were working very hard to stay “afloat”, but we were thrilled when we saw that we could bring them an expanded audience of great shoppers – we helped these shops stabilize during some really challenging economic times for small businesses. Taigan was started in Nashville, Tennessee, a great place to build a business due to quality of life factors and the great young people coming to the workforce out of such schools as Vanderbilt University and Belmont College.

Did you find challenges launching a company outside of Silicon Valley or New York?

Absolutely. While Nashville is growing as a tech town, its roots are in healthcare. You can imagine the challenge of presenting the concept of a high-end website, run by women in the middle of a recession to a town of healthcare executives! But we knew what we had. And of course accessing strong technology talent is always harder outside of a major technology market. But we’ve never been limited by where we pay the light bill – I spend at least half the month on the road, either in New York or other markets that provide opportunities for us.

Taigan is a woman operated start-up, do you feel there were hurdles that got in your way because you’re women and what advice can you offer for getting over those hurdles?

I spent over 25 years in a male dominated business and never used the “gender” card as an excuse, so I won’t start now!!! In terms of accessing captial I have wondered if it would have been/would be easier if we had a man on our senior management team. And, of course, I would LOVE to find a guy to “curate” our men’s category. But, we have carefully chosen our team based on its talent and contributions, not on gender. The women we have on staff are tremendously talented and passionate about what we have built. We are all clear on our goal – to build the best business for our shops and our investors and to provide a great customer experience. If the perfect male candidate for any position in the company walked in the door, we’d welcome him.

I noticed when quickly perusing Taigan that there are a lot of nice things and one of a kind vendors working with you but, it didn’t feel exclusive or uppity can you tell us about your target customer?

Thank you! That is a wonderful compliment, and something we strive for. As we launched the site in late 2009, we were very cautious to stay away from the words luxury and exclusive and preferred such words as uncover the elusive to describe the products on Taigan! We picked merchants that presented really special products and were genuinely committed to great customer service. The Taigan shopper base is sophisticated and delights in discovering things that are hard to find. By the way, a Taigan is a sight hound from Kyrgyzstan known for its tenacity and hunting skills; it uses all of its senses in pursuit of its game and has a passionate loyalty to its master. We loved the name, as it really speaks to what we’re are – constantly on the hunt to uncover surprises for our shoppers. Our shoppers are Taigans too – they love finding that which is special, undiscovered and rare, not showy or ostentatious. Every one of us wants a friend “in the know” – we try to be that friend! Each month we introduce 6-10 new merchants – from an incredible Danish bike maker to an organic cheese purveyor to the best shoe boutique on the East Coast – and our shoppers love to see what’s next!

What’s next for Taigan?

That’s no small question – the online retail world is constantly evolving and we must stay one step ahead! We’re focused on delivering a great customer experience (something very hard to find in online shopping), while growing the merchants on the site. The strength of our site is based on the quality of the merchants we present, so we are very thoughtful in our selection process and must continue to be. We will continue to develop enhancements to support a consumer-centric site experience. In the future you will see limited time trunk shows on the site, a Taigan store presented once a month for one week (name TBD) with very limited supply, and we are holding a series of in-home trunk shows around the country to help build our brand and the brands of our designers. Please excuse me for not unveiling all of our plans as we don’t want to let all of our secrets out of the bag!!!

How do you balance your work-life mix?

Balance??? I’m afraid if you asked the team at Taigan, or my husband or daughter, they might suggest that I’m not great at this. But I’m passionate about everything I do, and I think we’re doing something really special. Many people think my job is simply “shopping all over the world” which is true in many respects – it takes me down rattlesnake-lined dirt roads, dark alleyways and other mysterious places and to meet some wonderfully talented and interesting people. It’s hard to complain about a job like that!

Fun question: What’s the best thing about building a start up in TN Nashville?

I am a native Nashvillian and therefore have a great infrastructure here – our angel money was raised predominately in the Nashville community. And our first office was in my pool house so I had the best commute ever! In Nashville we have access to extraordinary smart young talent. The other best thing is American Airlines non-stop to New York!

Linkage:

Check out Taigan here