Microsoft Innovation Center Brussels

Never afraid of a new challenge, always experimenting with fashion, fashion designer Cathy Pill decides after her brand’s success to enter the fast-paced digital world and create Musestyle in order to solve a problem she witnessed during her styling career - the gap between fashion content and e-shopping. She starts to develop the website concept with her friend, French online marketer Sarah Levin Weinberg, who has built her career in leading groups such as Expedia, Tradedoubler and Monster. Cathy and Sarah’s different paths, skills and experiences are a perfect combination and they know the link between content and e-commerce is one of the biggest challenge of the industry.

After a three-month BoostCamp at the Microsoft Innovation Center brussels during which they receive an intensive coaching and their ideas are constantly challenged, they both learn from valuable experts how to improve their pitching abilities and set up their business model. They proudly win the 3rd MIC Brussels Region Capital Prize, an award which gives them visibility and connections, and definitely opens the door to success. Musestyle is one of the 7th finalist at the US Decoded Fashion competition hosted in Milan that rewards international Fashion tech startups and few months later the website is launched: www.musestyle.com is a visual curation platform powered by style experts where every fashion & beauty product is shoppable - straight from pictures.

The concept is simple: On Musestyle, women discover and shop the latest looks of the finest style leaders, the ‘Muses’, whether IT-girls, fashion editors, top bloggers, models, or stylists. A select group of them are Musestyle’s Contributors who regularly post inspiring fashion pictures on their wall. Musestyle allows instant shopping of fashion and beauty products related to the featured pictures, by redirecting users to the relevant online retailer.
By bringing together top style experts, fashion brands and stores under one online roof, Musestyle positions itself as a high-end inspirational resource, a true time saver for shopping lovers and a great content partner for retailers. More above all, Musestyle aims at revolutionizing the way women shop online and become a major fashion destination.

In few months only Musestyle has managed to collect the finest fashion visual content and work with a great amount of fashion partners:
• Contributing Muses include Natalie Kingham (MATCHESFASHION.COM, UK), Béa Ercolini (ELLE, Belgium), Tiany Kiriloff (Belmodo TV), Zanita Morgan (Zanita.com.au , Australia) or Silvano Vangi (Luisa Via Roma, Italy).
• Musestyle partners with about 50 leading online stores (NET-A-PORTER, Farfetch, Mytheresa, Luisa Via Roma, Harrods,
MATCHESFASHION.COM , ASOS) promoting more than 5,000 top brands (Kenzo, Chloé, J.Crew, Isabel Marant, Topshop, Reiss).

Our advice for other startups:

• Don’t be too innovative to make sure your concept will meet customers, but be innovative enough to offer something your competition doesn’t.
• A good idea is not enough – what is important to succeed is how you execute and who execute the idea.
• Know your assets but also your limits, and make sure your team is full of talented people that complement each other in terms of skills and experience.
• Know your industry and your market – knowing and being connected to the industry key players is key.
• Never be afraid to share and talk about your concept – there is nothing better than getting constantly challenged and advised by experts but also friends and relatives.
• Keep always your goal in mind but don’t be afraid to try different paths to reach it.