Throughout the year, Lalawag will be interviewing some of the most innovative and exciting startups from the LA area in our ongoing feature series, “LA Startup Spotlight.”
Though Michael Meschures is a young, first time entrepreneur, he’s still managed to do what many aspiring entrepreneurs have not — launched his product! Spaphile is the fruit of his labors with co-founder Eli Natan and a small team of young professionals. They started out focused on servicing the LA region exclusively, but have recently expanded their efforts to San Diego as well.
Pitch us your service in three sentences or less.
Spaphile is a niche deal site that offers 50-90% off of local spas, salons, and beauty products. Spaphile also hosts monthly events with free food, drinks, and spa services for being a valued member of our site.
What made you decide to focus your company on that service?
We wanted to focus on a specific area in the daily deal space, which lacked a targeted site towards spas/salons.
How big is your team? Can you describe your company’s culture?
We have a solid team of 10. We are very young (all under 25!), ambitious, enthusiastic, and hard working! The culture of the company is friendly, accessible and very open to suggestions from everyone on the team. We all do what we can to help each other out.
How did your company get its initial funding? Do you have any advice for emerging startups on how to deal with funding?
My partner (co-founder Eli Natan) and I funded the business ourselves – we put in a lot of sweat equity! My advice for emerging startups and dealing with funding is to understand the risks involved — especially in the beginning — and to be patient! In such a fast-paced world, it is important to have patience.
“Local deals” sites have been springing up all over the place in recent memory. Many people are complaining about being overwhelmed and fatigued with having to keep up with too many sites and emails cluttering up their inbox. How are you guys positioned to stand out and compete in an increasingly crowded arena?
Although the arena has become increasingly crowded, Spaphile stands out in 2 different ways:
1) By testing what our users want, we have tailored our deals based on the feedback we have received to match our users’ demand. We also limit our deals to only 2 per week so we aren’t bombarding them with daily emails.
2) We have become very proficient in staging events that highlight new products, spas, and salons in the local area. These events have drawn increasingly larger crowds and helped grow our client base.
Has your company ever had to pivot? If so, what was that like?
Although we’ve never had to pivot, we are currently in the next phase of our build out — it’s more of an evolution than a pivot. We are evolving by expanding into other cities and using different avenues to increase our client base.
How do you deal with competition? Do you keep tabs on other companies that are doing similar things?
I was always worried about competition. As you said earlier, the arena is very crowded and getting more crowded all the time. I keep my eyes and ears open to see if anyone is targeting our client base or focusing on our narrow area of expertise. In order to stay ahead of our competition we try to find new ways to present our deals and promote our unique events.
Spa and “pampering” services have traditionally been targeted towards women (for obvious reasons). Are they something men should be making more use of? Do you see a lot of men utilizing your service?
I agree that traditionally, these promotions have been targeted towards women and that more women than men have been utilizing our offers. We feel that the market for men is largely untapped, so we are aiming many of our offers towards services that men can enjoy themselves – such as massages, haircuts, fitness classes and the like. We believe that as a result of this increased focus we will begin to see more men using our services.
Tell us a little about your background? What made you want to start your own company?
After graduating from UCLA, I worked in PR/Marketing and Business Management. I became interested in doing something on my own. A classmate of mine, Eli Natan, and I met to discuss business ideas, and we decided to work together to build an Internet marketing service company. The result of our efforts is Spaphile (www.Spaphile.com)!
What are your thoughts on the LA entrepreneurial scene?
From my observations, the recession has been a driving force for growth in the Los Angeles entrepreneurial scene. The number of people who had been recently unemployed along with new college graduates unable to find jobs has led to a class of people who are trying their hand at building their own businesses. Although I’ve only been doing this for a short time, I have been fortunate to meet many people who are running their own companies as well.
Who are your three most influential entrepreneurs? Why?
Andrew Mason, founder of Groupon, paved the way for a whole new market of online deal platforms. His idea has turned into one of the most lucrative and fastest growing companies ever.
Zack Anderson, my good friend and co-founder of Levant Power, is absolutely brilliant. I admire his ability to combine his knowledge of science with his business acumen to create his own company that has a very bright future.
Eli Natan, my business partner and co-founder of Spaphile. He is a very savvy entrepreneur. He is able to build and implement creative business plans for small businesses in any field. He founded Spaphile and many other successful small businesses and continues to be a driving force in the entrepreneurial world.
What’s the hardest/best thing about being an entrepreneur?
The best thing about being an entrepreneur is that I don’t have anyone telling me when to start or stop working. The hardest thing: I find myself working every minute of the day!
What’s one of your most successful decisions? Can you share something that’s worked really well for you that you think other entrepreneurs could learn from?
When I first started Spaphile, I wanted to put on events to build our client base and create awareness of our brand. It took us a while, but then I realized that the event itself could provide a new revenue stream for the company. I would recommend to any entrepreneur to constantly re-visit their business model or business plan to see if they can create an alternative way of creating a profit center.
What are your next goals? (Either for the current venture or for the company as a whole)
Our next goal is to expand Spaphile and create a community for spas/salons and consumers to link and network with one another.
You can follow Spaphile on Twitter (@Spaphile) and on Facebook.
