Pre-announcement jitters.

Fab famously got traction once the cofounders pivoted from gay Yelp to design-focused flash-sales site. But now that flash sales are no longer the darling of the tech industry, Fab is moving on. Hence the company's announcement at its kindergarten-like West Village HQ last night: "We're going to do a little pivot again," CEO Jason Goldberg announced.

"We're redesigning Fab as the world's number-one design store," he said. "We're going from flash sales to design store, and we're going there in a really big way."

That means a revamped website, products sold exclusively on Fab, brick-and-mortar stores, and the acquisition of a German company offering customizable furniture. 

"The vision that we had back in early 2011 was, we said we can be the global brand synonymous with design for years and years to come," Mr. Goldberg explained. "We said right then and there we want to build something really massive."

"We said we can create the Ikea/Amazon of design," he added. Don't be shy, fellas.

To that end, Mr. Goldberg had several announcements:

First off, the company has wholly redesigned its website and mobile apps. Search is better, and thanks to the addition of departments and other ways to sort products, it's now much easier to go looking for a particular item. (No more paging through the entire furniture category on a fruitless quest for a green rug.) They've added designer pages (opening up the possibility of marketplace-style selling) and an outlet, as well.

Not that this is an entirely new development. Two thirds of the company's daily revenue already comes from search and browsing.

Second: The launch of "Exclusively Fab," a line of products unique to the site. That might be products designed in-house, capsule collections from particular designers or lines of products where Fab has taken on the upfront costs of manufacturing.

Third: Fab has purchased the German company MassivKonzept, which makes customizable furniture. Fab will be launching the offering in the U.S. as Designed By You. So if you've got a weird corner in your house that needs an odd length of table, hold tight.

Fourth: Fab is opening actual brick-and-mortar stores, starting by converting a MassivKonzept showroom in Hamburg. (So Monocle!) "We're going to test a number of different physical retail environments," Mr. Goldberg said.

"There will be more than one Fab store this year, and there will be multiple formats," he said. "We're going to learn how to do this by trying it a number of different ways."

Also, Fab is launching in France.

What Mr. Goldberg didn't announce was a new round of funding. All he'd offer is a tease: "When the time does come for us to raise money--and we will raise money in the next few months, to build out our global footprint--we'll be looking for investors to help us take Fab and spread this brand everywhere we want to take it."

We assume that means: Get ready to write a really, really big check if you want in.

Yep. (Photo: Fab.com)

Fab.com has made more costume changes than a drag queen. Launched in 2011 as a social network for gay men (name: Fabulis), the company then transformed itself into a flash-sale site selling arty farty tchotchkes. Now, Business Insider suggests, Fab might be gearing up to design its own products.  According to a blog post written by Fab cofounder Jason Goldberg, details of the pivot have not yet been publicly released but it will be "gradual."

According to Business Insider:

"It will be 100% towards delivering the best customer experience in the world for discovering everyday design. We’ll offer even more unique products supported by an even better experience," wrote Mr. Golberg in December.

Business Insider speculates that it's moving toward an in-house model of designing, making and selling its own products. Bradford Sellhammer, the company's other cofounder, told Fast Company that it wants to become "the world's alternative to Amazon and Walmart."

"The only way to compete in the world of Amazon is to sell things that Amazon doesn’t sell,” Shellhammer said. “We’re building a brand, and part of that is bringing the brand to our own line of products.”

Fab said all will be revealed at a press event on April 29, but signs of its gradual change are seeping out. but signs of its gradual change are seeping out as the company held a design competition earlier this month. The company held a design competition earlier this month, and contestants--who consisted of designers and students--were asked to create product ideas for immediate judging. Winners will have their concepts sold on Fab.

Maybe one concept can be designing a sustainable business model.

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Sooooo...it's that time of the year again. SXSW (a.k.a. Spring Break for Geeks) is right around the corner, running March 8 to 12 in Austin, Texas. And you know what that means: Parties, parties 'n more parties!! :) So, once again, we're putting together what we hope will be THE definitive guide to all this year's SXSW Interactive parties. We'll be updating this list regularly, so check back often. And email me if you're organizing an event or a party.

Of course, I'll be at SXSW ... attending all (or as many as humanly possible) of the amazing parties, mixers, networking events, lounges, panels, keynotes, BBQs, nuclear taco nights, concerts, happy hours, karaokes, food trucks, block parties and what-have-you.

So if you can't make it down to Austin this year but still wanna get the word out about your amazing startup / company / firm / service / app / project, you can do so. How, you ask? Well, by sponsoring my Red Tie of course, and covering it in your company's awesome logo stickers and giving me your company's elevator pitch. If you're interested, shoot me an email at gary@garysguide.com for more details.

In the meantime, here's my blog post / highlights from last year's SXSW to give you a little taste of what to expect.

FYI, next week is probably the most exclusive hackathon of the year. Google's Project Glass will be holding a two-day hackathon (February 1 to 2) in New York City that'll allow developers to get an early look at Glass so they can start developing for the platform. Google engineers will be on site to help at any point in the process, and developers will have the opportunity to show off what they’ve been working on.

So, how to score an invite: Your guess is as good as mine! If you were one of the smart ones who shelled out $1,500 for the early access to Google Glass you're on the list. Or you could try pinging Googler Aygul Zagidullina and hope you get lucky! Well, for those of you who don't make it, here's a pic of Sergey Brin sporting his Google Glasses on the subway.

In other news, the NYC EDC is partnering with the Lawrence Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College to create Competition THRIVE, and they're seeking original, innovative strategies and programs that help immigrant entrepreneurs succeed in business. In Round 1, $25,000 will be awarded to five semi-finalists to pilot their program and create a business plan. And in Round 2, $100,000 will be awarded to one grand prize winner to further scale their program. Submission period is February 1 to March 7. For more information, check out the website or email competitionthrive@baruch.cuny.edu.

On January 30, my buddy Haithem is organizing the Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party. It's gonna be a crazy night of dancing, drinking, mixing and mingling--on a yacht.
You'll be getting photographed on a red carpet, and you'll have a shot at an audition for an entrepreneurship TV series and book.

More stuff you don't wanna miss this week: AppNexus Speaker Series (with Fab.com CEO Jason Goldberg) on the 23rd, PandoMonthly Presents (with Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson) on the 24th and Amusemi's 1 Year Anniversary Party+Dinner on the 26th.

Last week my buddy Charlie Todd & the folks at Improv Everywhere organized their twelfth Annual No Pants Subway Ride. Over 4,000 participants showed up. Here's the recap and video. And my friends Jen and Allison are back with another hilarious edition of Blogologues, playing this week on the 24th, 25th and 26th at Under St Marks (and yes, there will be giveaways!).

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

DUMBO Improvement District Annual Meeting
All members of the DUMBO community are invited to hear the latest on hurricane recovery efforts and learn what's in store for the neighborhood in 2013. The coveted DUMBO "Magic Feather" awards will be given to Rachel Haot (New York's chief digital officer), Susan Feldman (artistic director, St. Ann's Warehouse) and Jerry Hultin (president, NYU-Poly).
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 5 p.m. @ Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street

Next Top Makers: The Business of Design
Join the creators of New York’s Next Top Makers for an evening of education, guidance, and networking. Hear from IDEO storytelling gurus why good design doesn’t always speak for itself, and learn about the role of a designer in a world of 3D printers.
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 7 p.m. @ 3DEA Pop-Up Store @ Eventi Hotel, 835 6th Avenue

The Future of Education #1: New Models for 21st Century Learning
Panelists include Brad Hargreaves (founding partner, General Assembly), Kane Sarhan (cofounder, Enstitute), Juliette LaMontagne (founder & director, Breaker) and Abigail Besdin (head of Skillshare's education team).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ Centre For Social Innovation Pop-Up Space, 601 W. 26th Street, #360

AppNexus Speaker Series
Brian O'Kelley (CEO, AppNexus) will host a fireside chat with Jason Goldberg (CEO, Fab.com) and Jared Cluff (VP Marketing, Fab.com).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street

How to Build Great Communities: Lets Collaborate!
With Sheila Karaszewski (community manager, Airbnb), Tony Bacigalupo (cofounder, New Work City), Andrew Wagner (director & editor-in-chief, Krrb) and James Wahba (cofounder, Projective Space). Moderated by Melissa Young (founder, Let's Collaborate!)
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

#ArtsTech 4 Year Anniversary Party!
Open Bar with 3 Pernod Absinthe cocktails from 7-8 pm. Variety of grilled panini appetizers. Photobooth by Styleblaster. Tunes by DJ Winslow Porter. Video art by Sabrina Ratte, Mr. Div, Yoshi Sodeoka and Andreas Nicholas Fischer
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ The Counting Room, 44 Berry Street, Brooklyn

PandoMonthly Presents
A fireside chat with Chad Dickerson (CEO, Etsy)
Thursday (Jan. 24), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

dd:COLLECTIVE - The Changing Retail Environment (Presented by Digital DUMBO)
Featured speakers include Philippe von Borries (Co-Founder, Refinery29), Keith George (General Manager, Gilt Man by Gilt Groupe) and Claire Mazur (Co-Founder, Of a Kind).
Thursday (Jan 24), 6:30 p.m. @ Huge, 45 Main St , Ste 220, Brooklyn

Dinner, Cupcakes, Wine & Technology!
Introducing the inaugural NJ Tech Gals meetup!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ Hoboken Business Center, 50 Harrison Street (2nd Fl), Hoboken

Nike+ Accelerator (powered by TechStars) Recruiting Tour
Join the team from Nike and TechStars to hear about the Nike+ Accelerator. Some local quantified self demos. And the team from Nike will be bringing along some SWAG, including some Nike+ FuelBands!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ TechStars NYC HQ , 36 Cooper Square, 6th Fl.

Power Breakfast
With Susan Feldman (cofounder, One Kings Lane)
Friday (Jan. 25), 8 a.m. @ Fordham Graduate School of Business, 113 W. 60th Street, 12th Fl.

NYC Mobile Startup Weekend
Where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and buddying entrepreneurs gather together to share ideas, form teams and spend the weekend building and launching a startup.
Friday (Jan. 25), 6 p.m. @ WeWork Soho Lounge, 154 Grand Street

2013 Brooklyn Inventgenuity Festival: Digital By Hand
A popular annual winter celebration of making things for kids and their parents. With public projects and workshops led by Beam Center’s faculty of artists, engineers and big thinkers. This year’s theme: Digital by Hand.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 11 a.m. @ The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen Street

Amusemi 1 Year Anniversary Party + Dinner
Celebrate the anniversary of our first startup dining event. Register for Amusemi to get on the guest list.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 7 p.m. @ TBD

More events on the horizon...
TEDxBroadway: Industry leaders envision the future of Broadway on Jan. 28 @ New World Stages
NYC Gaming January: Demo Night on Jan. 29 @ Microsoft
Brooklyn Tech Meetup with Victoria Brown on Jan. 29 @ Feil Hall, Brooklyn Law School
Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party featuring a chance to Audition for a TV Series! on Jan. 30 @ Hornblower Inifinity
Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry on Jan. 30 @ Professor Thoms
dd:SOCIAL - 4 Year Anniversary & dd:A-LIST Crowdfunding Launch on Jan. 31 @ The DUMBO Loft
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb. 06 @ Pier 60
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb. 06 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 09 @ Hearst
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

Mr. Ohanian (Photo: Twitter)

r/findmeaparkingspace ParkWhiz, the Chicago company that enables users to find and reserve guaranteed parking spaces before reaching their destination, today announced that it has closed a $2 million Series A round of funding led by Hyde Park Venture Partners. Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian also took place in the round along with Hyde Park Angels, Amicus Capital, and others. In a press release sent to Betabeat, the company said that since its launch in 2006, it has driven $10 million in parking revenue to parking operators and provided access to 3 million parking spaces nationwide.

Fab Goes To India Jason Goldberg, the founder and CEO of Fab, took to his personal blog yesterday to announce that his company had acquired new funding. Times Internet, the digital arm of The Times of India Group, India’s largest media company, has chosen to invest in the company. Mr. Goldberg notes in the post, "As part of this investment Fab will be working with Times Internet to explore and execute on our India market strategy in the coming years." Since launching in June 2011, Fab has raised over $150 million from investors.

Tumblr For Your Tablet Tumblr just updated its Android app to support use on tablets that run on Android. So if you've taken some cool black and white pictures of ladders next to lakes, you can now upload them straight to your Tumblr with ease. Thank the artsy lord.

Disruption Gets You On The Nice List Harold DeLucia, a 27-year-old New York City public school teacher from Astoria, Queens, and Josh Lanzera, 29, a construction foreman from the upper West Side, are the founders of NYC Trees Direct, an online Christmas tree ordering service. The two New Yorkers saw a open market and went for it, investing $6,000 of their own money into the seasonal business.

Go Back To School NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) in Downtown Brooklyn announced this week that the New York State Education Department has approved its curriculum. Now that New York believes it's a real school, the University is now accepting applications for the fall semester of 2013. CUSP's website has the application up now. Please post videos of yourselves opening your acceptance letters to YouTube.

The September App Bloglovin', the blog reader for fashion and lifestyle blogs, just launched its first iOS app. The company says that it has 1.8 million members as of this December. The company raised $1 million back in July in seed round funding from investors such as Betaworks, Lerer Ventures, RRE Ventures, Bruce Jaffe, Hank Vigil, Fritz Lanman and others. In a press release sent to Betabeat, Bloglovin' cofounder and CEO Mattias Swenson said, "Our goal with our seed-round was to build an fantastic app that would bring people an optimized and highly visual reading experience. So it’s great to finally see it in the app store!”

Bosses Are Really Happy Charley Polachi, a partner from Polachi Access Executive Search recently polled tech CEOs and found out that they all think the futures is extremely bright. 85 percent of respondents had a neutral or positive outlook for hiring in 2013, 79 percent said they had a neutral or positive outlook for hiring from 2013-2017, 84 percent had a neutral or positive outlook for expansion in 2013, and 81 percent had a neutral or positive outlook for expansion from 2013-2017.

Learn About Your New Hood Spun is a news discovery app that shows you stories based on your location. It was recently launched by the same team that made Broadcastr and Electric Literature. It could definitely be useful to fresh New York transplants. AOL gave the new version of the app a nice tour and it looks pretty cool.

School Mascot Is The Rose H. Bloom, a subscription based flower delivery service, is expanding its efforts to educate its employees. Right now they have the SEED (Startup Education and Entrepreneurial Development) Program, that shows current employees to make a big local impact. But starting this week, the company is using a new program called H.Bloom University, a six-month program that educates current employees in leadership and business.

The Customer Is Always Right Gripevine, a site where you can complain about customer service and review companies, just launched an updated version of their site. It now includes ratings and reviews. The same team also launched Resolution 1, a tool for businesses that lets them manage feedback from multiple sources at once.

(Photo: WN)

The Reddit AMA (or "ask me anything") is a free-for-all question and answer session where big names duke it out with anonymous users masked by handles like "testees_testees_123." It can be delightfully informative, but also delightfully weird. Some even morph into uncomfortable grilling sessions, as was the case with Woody Harrelson's AMA, which quickly devolved into a game of rape accusations.

Fab CEO Jason Goldberg took to Reddit yesterday for an AMA following the news that the company had raised $105 million, and while his experience wasn't nearly as torturous as Mr. Harrelson's, Redditors certainly didn't cut him any slack.

Some questioned Fab's members-only strategy. The model, Mr. Goldberg argued, "led to more than 5 million members signing up in the first year to Fab. We are going to be removing the login requirement in just a few weeks."

One Redditor took issue with Fab's incessant emails: "Why won't you stop emailing me?"

"Change your preferences," quipped Mr. Goldberg.

Another was angry he couldn't shop on the site at work due to its occasional NSFW nature. "Can you stop having vibrators on the front page of your site?" he implored.

Mr. Goldberg copped to making a pretty penny off of swanky sex toys. "Are vibrators really that risque?" he asked. "I mean, we've sold tens of thousands of them. They're well designed and clearly in demand." A very modern man, that Jason Goldberg.

Other Redditors complained about the site's slow servers, while others were nicer, congratulating him on the funding and asking for advice from the successful CEO. Unfortunately, a lot of the more positive questions didn't get any upvotes, and were relegated to the bottom of the thread. But to his credit, Mr. Goldberg was kind enough to answer almost all of them.

The minefield nature of the AMA encompasses the joy of Reddit, though: you never know what kind of interactions might emerge.

Sadly, Mr. Goldberg's AMA only got 25 upvotes.

Mr. Goldberg on stage at the Fabby Awards last night (Photo: Laughing Squid's Instagram)

A scant seven months after Andreessen Horowitz "plowed" $40 million into Fab at a $200 million valuation, the pivot-happy flash sales site for design items just announced a massive Series C. The company closed a $105 million round led by Atomico, an international investment firm out of London run by Skype cofounder Niklas Zennström. The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news, says the new round values Fab at $600 million.

Yes, folks, that's a 200 percent jump in valuation in seven months. We bet even Fab doesn't sell a sleek-enough vessel to hold all that (theoretical) dough.

In a press release, Fab said ru-Net Technology Partners (RTP), the international fund backed by Russian billionaire Leonid Boguslavsky--with an office in New York City!--also participated. As did Palo Alto's Pinnacle Ventures and DoCoMo Capital and Mayfield Fund. (It's worth noting that Mayfield previously backed another flash sales venture, the troubled startup BuyWithMe, which was acquired by Gilt Groupe, the mother of flash sales sites, after major layoffs. Gilt Groupe, of course, later faced its own brutal round of layoffs.) Existing investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Baroda Ventures also participated.

In a blog post on Betashop, dated for tomorrow--guess the Journal beat 'em to it--CEO Jason Goldberg said financing will be put towards making Fab "the definitive global brand synonymous with design," noting Atomico's success in helping portfolio companies scale globally:

The new round of financing was led by Atomico. Atomico is an international technology investment firm focused on helping the world’s most disruptive technology companies reach their full potential on a global scale. Atomico was founded by Niklas Zennström, the co-founder of Skype. I first met Niklas and his partner, Geoff Prentice, back in March of this year. I was immediately struck with their long term view of our business and their perspective on the potential for the Fab brand. Through our discussions it became clear that Niklas, Geoff, and the entire Atomico team shared our vision for Fab. We believe that we have a special opportunity to create one of the world’s next great brands. We believe that Fab can become the definitive global brand synonymous with design. We also know that it will take a steady focus on making our customers smile. It’s not a leap to compare Fab with Skype itself, and with another Atomico investment, Rovio -- the makers of Angry Birds. Like Skype and Rovio, Fab is focused on developing and nurturing our long term brand relationship with our customers. We're building a franchise based on a consistent, thoughtful experience that puts customers first, not profits. We're focused more on ensuring the long term success of that franchise than we are with near term gains. We're in this for the long haul. Atomico is the perfect partner to help us grow.

Atomico is already helping us with our global expansion through their impressive footprint in London, Tokyo, Beijing, São Paulo and Istanbul.

Somewhere in Manhattan, we bet Gilt Groupe is shaking its head with some words of wisdom about growth that seems too good to be true. But this does explains the elated atmosphere at Fab headquarters last night where Mr. Goldberg got on stage for the "Fabby Awards." Here's a recent video from Fab on their spectacular run over the past year:

Name-changer. (Photo courtesy of Fab.com)

Fab took another step toward design-savvy world domination today, with the announcement that the company has acquired the British Isles' own Llustre, which will become Fab UK. The move follows the February purchase of Casacanda and relaunch as Fab.de.

In a statement released this morning, Mr. Goldberg also announced that Maria Molland, previously of Thomson Reuters, will now be Chief European Officer for Fab, a role which is clearly on a growth track.

Shortly after the news broke this morning, CEO Jason Goldberg and CCO Bradford Shellhammer appeared across the pond at Le Web, where they were grilled good-naturedly by Mike Arrington about the announcement. Curious to know more about the team's U.K. plans, we caught the talk via livestream.

Most of all, Mr. Arrington wanted to know why Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Shellhammer decided to buy "a clone" rather than "crushing" Llustre. The Fab.com certainly hadn't responded well to the existence of the Samwer brothers' copycat Bamarang; why give quarter to this company?

For one thing, Fab decided to move fast in Europe, and the U.K. market required a good team. They could either build or acquire one, and "Bradford fell in love with the team here," explained Mr. Goldberg.

But the pair also disputed Arrington's characterization of their new purchase. Mr. Shellhammer argued that Llustre, rather than a mere cheap copy of Fab.com, had its own precise buying aesthetic and "unique point of view." "It's very British, it's very ethereal, it's very pretty," he elaborated, adding that he looks forward to seeing how that point of view might influence the U.S. store.

They also said they're planning to grow Llustre's staff of 25 dramatically. But they wouldn't disclose how much they paid.

Another interesting tidbit from the talk? Fab.com's single bestselling product of all time is a high-end vibrator, and all in all the site has sold "thousands and thousands" of vibrators. Mr. Arrington looked surprised, which suggests to us he has a rather limited view of "luxury."

A glimpse at the changes. (Courtesy Fab.com)

Fab.com got its latest revamp this morning, introducing a host of snazzy new social features. We hope your Facebook friends have good taste.

Fab CEO Jason Goldberg walked us through the changes via phone, boiling them down to improving the product discovery experience. Though the site adds new features regularly, the changes going live today are the first big revamp in "quite a decent amount of time," says Mr. Goldberg. "There's a hundred-plus new enhancements." He explained that it's all "about how do you help people discover stuff better than just throwing up a catalog."

And the organizing principle is social. The site, though just under a year old, is currently north of 4 million members, with 3.5 million in the U.S. and almost a million elsewhere. A big part of that growth is thanks to social. The site gets more than 50 percent of new users through social sharing, of which Facebook is a large part. "On any given day, we have upwards of 30 to 40 percent of our traffic coming from Facebook a day," Mr. Goldberg told us.

Mr. Goldberg also told us that 15 percent of visits to Fab live feed--which shows what every Fab user is up to, not just one's friends--result in a purchase.

Add those details up and you get a "friends" tab on the feed. So the site is "enabling people to see not just what is all of Fab liking today, but what are my friends liking? What are my friends buying?" explained Mr. Goldberg.

They're also integrating deeper with Pinterset, having seen 2 percent of traffic coming from the hot new social network. They're working on ways to "foster" people's pinning of favorite products, i.e. making it possible to pin products directly from the live feed. (Currently that's just an option on items that pop up in the live feed because someone has already pinned them.)

All that said, members can choose what types of purchases they'd prefer to keep private, and the site shields things like gifts and adult purchases by default. But you might want to double-check your settings, lest your mom see that luxury vibrator purchase.

Mr. Goldberg made ambitious claims for the new features: "We really feel like we're the first ones to be able to successfully almost replicate the experience people have when they go shopping with their friends in the physical world." Fab isn't the only ecommerce company chasing that particular pot of gold, and thus far it's proved rather tough to locate. "That's hard to do online," he admits, "but we think we're coming a lot closer to that."

Besides the addition of the "friends" tab, members can now buy directly from the feed, as well as sorting by category (so if I want housewares, I can skip the jewelry) and they'll be able to see what's trending. The home page now includes search functionality, and they'll be showcasing designers using "smile" pages.

"We're bringing a whole lot of color and innovation to the otherwise pretty boring world of ecommerce," said Mr. Goldberg. Bold words, sir. Bold words.

Mr. Kirsch.

Wilkommen! This is part one of Betabeat's new mini-series, Die Startup-Szene, a peek at the up-and-coming tech hub of Berlin. We sat down with entrepreneurs from three leading young companies here in the city that is only very, very occasionally referred to as Silicon Allee.

Roman Kirsch, who skipped two grades, has studied in Los Angeles and London, backpacked in Australia and interned at Goldman Sachs. In July 2011, he and two cofounders started an Internet company most recently reportedly valued at $10 million. About six months later, he sold it to one of the hottest startups in New York. He is 23.

It's enough to make you wish for some Schadenfreude. Until you meet Mr. Kirsch, that is, who gave Betabeat a hug when we met with him on Monday morning at Wohnzimmer Bar, or "living room bar," a quiet and quaintly-decorated cafe in Berlin's startup-heavy Prenzlauer neighborhood. Wrapped in Abercrombie, he ordered a hot mint tea with honey in place of coffee. He struck us immediately as, well, calmer than the average starry-eyed 20-something New York startupper, an even speaker with wry, smiling eyes. Still, he described his company's acquisition by Fab.com as "the best thing that could ever happen." The exact terms were undisclosed, but it was an all-stock sale.

Mr. Kirsch launched Casacanda, a flash sales site focused on well-designed, unique products, with two cofounders he met in business school. (The school, WHU, located in a small town between Frankfurt and Cologne, produces most of the startup entrepreneurs in Germany, Mr. Kirsch said, including the infamous copycat brothers, the Samwers, as well as the founder of DailyDeal, which was recently bought by Google.) The cofounders bootstrapped until the fall, when they raised a quick $1 million right before the site's launch in September.

The company started making millions in revenue as it grew to 250,000 members and 45 employees. That's when it caught the attention of Jason Goldberg, the CEO of New York's fast-growing flash sales destination Fab.com. The road to acquisition started when Mr. Goldberg was in Berlin to give a speech. He budgeted 30 minutes to meet with the Casacanda team. He was so enthralled with Casacanda that he tried to cancel his talk. That proved difficult, so he met with the young founders afterward. Mr. Goldberg was drawn to Casacanda's attention to design details as well as the details of its numbers; its focus on finding products so unique that members would be compelled to share them on Twitter and Facebook; and the raw ambition of the founders. Mr. Goldberg, who aspires to make Fab the next Amazon, is a great appreciator of ambition.

The acquisition, a stock-only deal, solidified Casacanda/Fab.de's position as a leader and role model for the fledgling Berlin startup community. As of now, Berlin's startup scene has a few standouts. SoundCloud, the audio hosting platform, is internationally know. Wooga, Germany's Zynga, is the second-largest social gaming company on Facebook. But unfortunately, Germany still has the reputation as a sort of European copy machine for successful American startups.

That's because investors in Germany are cautious, Mr. Kirsch said, and it's difficult to get anything truly new funded. The copycats are also an important part of the Berlin ecosystem, he said, and in addition to introducing people to entrepreneurship, many of the copycats evolve beyond clonehood. "It's harder to sell innovation," he said. "So people say, 'If I'm going to do something really innovative, no one will fund me anyway. When I get the money I can still be innovative.'"

Mr. Kirsch decided to be an entrepreneur because of the speakers who came to WHU. The investment bankers and consultants pitched their industries hard, he said, but there was something phony about it. By contrast, the entrepreneurs "had these little sparks in their eyes" and truly seemed passionate about what they were doing.

Although it didn't have the double mega-pivot Fab did (the progression as described by its CEO once included "Facebook for gays" and "Groupon for gays"), Casacanda started out with a focus on home decor and interior design, and then expanded its product catalogue after the site launched. Mr. Kirsch is a big fan of pivots, himself. "Every day, you have to ask yourself, 'is this the best we can do?'" Mr. Kirsch said, citing Nokia, which originally sold a diverse product line that included rubber boots.

As Fab.de--Fab's first international acquisition, by the way--the company will soon have about 80 percent product overlap with its U.S. counterpart, as most suppliers are more than happy to sell in both countries. It's up to 55 employees and in the process of moving into a new office. The flash sales space is hot, and Mr. Kirsch feels motivated by all the competition between startups on the Internet. "Some people even refer to it as war. Every day you have to prove that you're the best person to serve your customers," he said.

Last week, on the day Casacanda relaunched as Fab.de, it snowed hard in Berlin--which was perfect timing. "People stay at home and just have more time to browse the Internet," Mr. Kirsch said. (Also, Betabeat arrived after the melt.) He gave Betabeat another hug as we parted, and recommended we check out Berlin's art history museum.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Mr. Kirsch's surname. Betabeat regrets the error.

Last November ccTLDInvestors, "the online magazine for global domain investors" noted that a company called Sedo made a tidy profit by selling Fab.de for $50,000. That same week, Fab also purchased Fab.eu for 35,000 Euros, so expect more updates for Fab's fabulous European adventure.

According to Mr. Goldberg, Casacanda has been on something of a roll. The site has 250,000 members and grew by 90,000 in just the last 30 days. Add that to Fab's existing membership, and the company has won over more than 2.3 million users in the past 8 months.

Mr. Goldberg dropped a few clues about international expansion at the end of January when he celebrated hitting the 2 million member mark. For a startup that boosted its valuation by a $175 million in six months, it makes sense to leap across the Atlantic in search of continued growth. The search for new verticals and markets to sustain growth is something other flash sales sites, like Gilt Groupe, which recently laid off 10 percent of its staff, have struggled with as well. As Mr. Goldberg tells it, going global was part of Fab's plan all along:

As early as October 2011 when we were just 5 months old, we began thinking and strategizing about which markets we would bring the Fab model to next. We quickly honed in on Germany, and Berlin in particular, as being the first major Fab center outside of the U.S. It’s a natural first-choice; the German economy is strong, Berlin is an awesome startup hub, and the German people have deep rooted passion for design and the types of products we sell on Fab. In fact, the stuff we sell every day on Fab drives a lot of inspiration from German design and many of the Fab products are very similar to what you might find in the boutiques and shops of German cities such as Cologne, Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Berlin.

We did a study of the German market in October and November and went through a decision process of whether to build or acquire. In early December we took a trip to Berlin and met with a few potential partners to explore launching Fab in Germany. Of all the teams and people we met with in Berlin, we were far and away most impressed with the founders and team at Casacanda. We returned to Berlin in January and spent even more time with Casacanda to figure out if it was a good match. It was, and then some. Casacanda’s CEO, Roman Kirsch, is a true superstar. That guy is so impressive that I immediately wanted him on team Fab. Watch out for Roman.

By Mr. Goldberg's estimates, this acquisition will enable Fab to generate at least 10 to 20 percent of its overall revenue from international sales this year. Hey, Andreessen Horowitz doesn't"plow" $40 million into an eight-month old startup without thinking about the bigger picture.