The ADHD CEO: Greg Selkoe, Karmaloop
The Way I Work: Founded in 1999 in Boston, Karmaloop began as an e-commerce site, but has grown into a burgeoning hipster media empire. Here's how its CEO navigates a day.
Jesse Burke
Curator in Chief Greg Selkoe (center), photographer Jackie Earhart, and her assistant, Tommy Vo, check out some product shots.
Jesse Burke
Artist, Designers, DJs And office workers. Many of Karmaloop's employees have a cool gig on the side.
Marketers call it verge culture-teens and young adults who grew up on the Internet; multicultural, global early adopters who communicate digitally to spread the latest trends in fashion, music, art, technology, and action sports. Few people understand the demographic better than Greg Selkoe, the 36-year-old CEO of Karmaloop. Founded in 1999, the Boston-based company started out as an e-commerce site selling hip and edgy clothes but has since grown into a burgeoning hipster media empire, encompassing music, television, and Japanese animation as well as apparel and footwear from more than 500 brands. Revenue last year topped $130 million, up 81 percent from 2010. Karmaloop's edge: The vast majority of the company's 220 employees, including Selkoe (a former break dancer who still busts out his moves at company parties), are DJs, artists, designers, or otherwise active participants in the verge culture to which the site sells. As told to Liz Welch.
I'm not a morning person—I check my iPhone when I wake up, around 8 a.m., to see if there's any urgent news or if I have an early meeting. I rely on my assistant, Lauren: She texts me first thing to remind me where I need to be. I take a quick shower, rush out of the house, and usually pick up breakfast or eat a Nutri-Grain bar. If I have an early meeting—say, with an investor—I'll do it at the Four Seasons, which is next door to our office. I'm usually the only person in sneakers.
My commute is one minute and 20 seconds. I live two blocks from work, which is why I chose this office. The building was slated for demolition, but then the economy tanked, so I contacted the landlord, and he gave us a great deal. I wanted to stay in Boston. It's my hometown; plus, there are a lot of really smart kids coming out of the universities here, so we grab them before they go anywhere else. What makes us successful is that our employees reflect the street culture that we market to: Some are DJs or musicians or artists. They're young—the median age here is 26—and from most every race, religion, and ethnicity. Basically, they're the market we sell to.
Most people don't arrive at the office until 10 or 10:30. I try to get there by 9 to have time to go through e-mails and think about what I want to do that day. I concentrate best if I have really loud music playing—I have playlists on Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes. It's always eclectic: like Serge Gainsbourg and Kanye West. I like music that pumps me up.
As people arrive, I tend to walk around the office. There is a lot of joking and camaraderie, but you have to work hard or you won't last here. And you are always on duty: I'll call people on a Sunday at 4 in the afternoon because I've thought of something I want to talk about. As a result, we have very high turnover among new hires. Often, people will fit the culture—they like the lifestyle, the music—but they don't want to work that hard. Or, some people are great workers but can't get into the groove.
We have three floors in the Boston office. My office is next to Chris Mastrangelo's, our chief operating officer. He started out as our legal counsel. My wife, Dina, a lawyer by training, was interning at his firm when I started Karmaloop, and she said Chris reminded her of me, because he was one of the few people who partied. He helped me launch the business. So did Dina, who is now our creative director. She was in law school when I first started and still wanted to marry me even though I was launching a company in my parents' basement. I lost money hand over fist at first, and she supported us. But then as we grew, she came to work here.
I oversee all of the company's departments. Karmaloop.com is the regular site; Kazbah is our marketplace where we sell up-and-coming designers; PLNDR is a flash-sale site, which is growing like gangbusters; Boylston Trading is our higher-end men's site; Brick Harbor, a skate site, just launched; Monark Box is a subscription-based model in which we get exclusive deals with brands for subscribers. And then MissKL, for women, is coming soon. We also have 11 private labels—most of which are based in California and New York—that we sell on the site. And then KarmaloopTV is based in New York City and features exclusive interviews with designers, brands, musicians, and artists who matter in verge culture.
I have a biweekly meeting with my senior team, which consists of Dina and Chris plus our CFO and various other department heads, like merchandising and marketing. We go over detailed financial numbers, and people update me on what's going on. That's the only formal meeting I have.
People come in and out of my office all day long. I leave my door open on purpose—if I need to work quietly, which is rare, I'll close it, and people know to come back another time, or Lauren will run interference. People don't have to make an appointment; they'll just pop in and say, "Hey, dude, can we talk? I'm so-and-so in customer service and have this idea for a promotion, or I have a clothing line." I won't tell them to get out of my office. I listen to everyone. In fact, Lauren is trying to help me get better at saying no, because I get easily excited about potential projects.
Lauren really has to manage me, because I can go off on a tangent and miss everything. I was diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school and actually got kicked out of several schools before landing in one for kids with learning issues. What made me not do well in school has actually been very beneficial in business, because I can focus on something very intensely for a short while and then move on to the next thing. That's how my mind works, and Lauren understands that. She often has to interrupt me or come into a meeting and say, "Greg has to do this other meeting right now."
