Disrupting the Beauty Market – AGORA visit the Condé Nast College
This week, the Condé Nast College were pleased to welcome Riccardo Basile – entrepreneur and founder of AGORA – a new app set to disrupt the ever-booming beauty market.
Riccardo Basile visits the Condé Nast College
Riccardo Basile (Founder) and Rosi Lederle (Head of Community) of AGORA visited the Condé Nast College to share the exciting new platform that hopes to change the way we shop by integrating genuine reviews of products and giving consumers a voice.
Entrepreneur, Basile has had an exciting career to date which includes spending six years in South-East Asia where he co-founded the Lazada Group, the leading commerce in the region, acquired by the Alibaba Group in 2016. At Lazada, Riccardo had several leadership roles, namely Chief Mobile Officer (in charge of the development of the Group’s consumer platforms), Chief Commercial Officer (in charge of category management, brand/ merchant relations and retail business) and Chief Executive Officer of Lazada Thailand (the largest country by revenue).
Following on from completing his MBA, he worked in Uganda for Technoserve, a pro-bono consulting firm, then it was off to McKinsey & Company ( working in both the Milan and London offices). During his four years at the firm, he worked largely with leading Financial Institutions, as well as with Private Equity clients.
AGORA – where beauty gets real
During the industry talk, students were given a chance to download the BETA version of the app and were shown how to use it, they were also invited to become part of the editorial side of the app. Basile noted that “Beauty is functional but also supposed to be fun” with the app aiming to replicate the social aspect of shopping, but in a digital market place, noting that “Video is a great way media to break the cycle as it is more genuine.”
How does the AGORA App work?
The AGORA App enables users to all have profiles where they can post videos of up to 100 seconds long. During these videos users can demonstrate and talk about beauty products. They can then include a link to the product which people can purchase through. Users then build up points which can then be claimed on “free” products. They can also then use referrals to gain points. The App is available as of 9th March.
Key take-aways from AGORA’s visit to the Condé Nast College:
Gamification is on its way to Europe’s e-commerce scene in a big way, and we’ll all be banking points in order to get our hands on the latest beauty goodies!
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