Gay Facebook, Gay Yelp, Gay Foursquare, Gay Groupon: The Many Phases of Fab.com

Ben Popper — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:31:47 -0400

The biggest come-from-behind startup story this year has to be Fab, which tried out a bunch of different services focused on the gay market before landing lightning in a bottle with a design focused flash sales site. The company just sent along a hilarious slide presentation summing up their year and revealing some new numbers on their rapid growth.

The way Fab CEO Jason Goldberg sees it, the company began as a sort of "gay Yelp." When that didn't work they tried to become a "gay Groupon." Apparently somewhere along the way they also contemplated "gay Facebook" and "gay Foursquare," as detailed in this handy chart.

Never say die.

According to Mr. Goldberg, Fab was cash flow positive by June 20th, just 11 days after launch, leading to an $8 million series A one month later. They hit 500,000 members by August, 1 million by November 14th, raised a $40 million series B Dec. 7th.

Growth seems to be accelerating, the company says it added almost 500,000 members in the last month and a half, topping out at 1,444,443 on December 27th.

Check out the whole presentation on Slideshare:

Fab 2011 timeline

View more presentations from Jason Goldberg

Betabeat » Gay Facebook, Gay Yelp, Gay Foursquare, Gay Groupon: The Many Phases of Fab.com

Gay Facebook, Gay Yelp, Gay Foursquare, Gay Groupon: The Many Phases of Fab.com