Friday, March 2, 2012

Visiting with MyGlam HQ



I had a great and productive day today, how about you?

So, this Tuesday, MyGlam Facebook page had an announcement for Bay Area Glammies to participate in a feedback pannel. Given that I have opinions about everything in life, I decided to email them my application, hoping that I'd get picked. Being a lucky duck that I am, I got an email right back inviting me to join the team on Friday, March 2nd (today) to discuss the future of MyGlam. I was ecstatic! My, how fun does that sound?

Well, I got all dolled up and went to their offices this morning (in San Mateo), equipped with the signed NDS (Non Disclosure Statement) form, my camera and my awesome self.
[Please note that because of the sensitivity of some of the material discussed, a lot of it will be omitted in the post. This is really more of a personal omg, I had fun post, than an informative one. Although, I am hoping it will be somewhat informative too. We will see when I get done typing it...]

Before I go any further, I must mention how nervous I was before this - I mean...
I had no idea how big or small this place was going to be, how personal it all is or how welcoming these people would be towards us.

The feeling changed immediately as I opened the door to the office and was welcomed with happy faces. How can you not love these girls:



[I am not going to be mentioning any names, unless they comment on their own to protect their privacy. No stalking, loves!]
I am sure you recognize me and a few other girls, but can you guess which ones are working there and which ones are visiting? Hmmmm...

Also, I could not help myself and had to snap an Instagram photo of this banner. It's just so...awesome. Feels like all the photos should be taken in front of it:



Fun facts I learned throughout the day:
- MyGlam strives to differentiate itself apart from "subscription" services such as Birchbox etc by providing their consumers with more of a community than just a way to try out new stuff
- Unlike a lot of large volume customer service representatives out there, Glam Girls actually go through every single one of your questions submitted through the tickets and reply to them personally. There is no computer program scanning for key words and shooting you a generic email that does not answer your question - it's actual people actually reading your concerns and trying to solve them for you.
- There are people behind everything - no part of your Glam Bag is assembled by a machine. It's real people, really putting their hard work into each and every one of them.
- There will be many exciting things coming into the community in the near future.
- These people believe in what they are doing - it's about you, about the community and about beauty.

Delicious sandwiches provided by the MyGlam team. Yummy! Another fun fact: Instagram filters make everything look cooler. Just sayin'


And then came the discussion part...it was long, it was intense and I believe a lot of great ideas were shared by a lot of creative and intelligent people. I am glad I was a part of this and that I got to meet these incredible human beings!

Just before departing for the warehouse tour, a group photo is in order. These people make it happen, but not without you!


I am quite excited to mention that we got to meet Michelle Phan herself, and have her participate in our discussion. She is quite a smart and sweet person, and her style makes me a happy camper. Her shoes were bomb. Side note - I look way too tall:


There is one photo I took at the warehouse that I will post and talk about, just because I believe it is important to address and does not reveal any secrets, really:

See that? That's a past (January) Glam Bag. Except it's a bunch of defective ones. You know what this means? This means that a human being is testing out your bag to make sure that it comes to you non-defective and in the best condition possible. This means that a human being is packaging your bag and that they try to ensure the quality of the bag, the products and how they are packaged before they are sent to you. This means that someone cares enough to throw away quite a few products and lose that "profit" they could be pocketing so that each and every product sent is non-defective. From first look, I could not even tell that they were broken...but then even the smallest thing would lead them to throw it in a pile and not even consider sending it to the Glammies. If that is not love for the MyGlam community, what is?

It was definitely a pleasure to meet the MyGlam team, Michelle Phan and the other Glammies/Ambassadors and I believe that they are well on their way for grandeur for such a recent company. After today, I must say that I am extremely proud and happy to be a part of such a great community, especially with the upcoming things (oh, man, am I excited!) and with the people behind all of this.

...After all, the people who create this for all of us are regular people like you and I - people with a vision for a community of beauty and people. The MyGlam team was quite a blast to hang out with (even before the happy hour!)


As a farewell, the participants were given a gift bag each as a thank you. Even though I believe that being able to give my input and having someone actually listen and take my recommendations is a gift in itself, I cannot say no to a gift that someone took their time to put together for me - especially if it includes a hand-written note:


And man, oh, man, do I love stickers! [Side note - stickers are my guilty pleasure...] Just look at these babies:


A "little thank you," as they called it. I am very excited about the chocolate [can you say "omg, she is such a pig!" because I totally am!]:


To wrap it all up - for those of you who are subscribed to MyGlam, I hope you enjoy it and are just as excited as I am about the development of the community. If you are not a subscriber and you'd like to be - make sure you keep checking back: I was only got into it in February, as they were sold out of the rest. For those of you who are done with Glam Bags and no longer wish to stick with them: that's okay too - Glam Bags are not for everybody, however, I do hope you stick with MyGlam as a community and bring something of your own to the mix, as well.

In other, unrelated news, I am turning 23 next Friday (March 9th), and I still have not decided what I am going to do. Bring on the scotch!

And now I am off to play some video games. It's been a long and exciting day and I need to get my overly excited brain to rest some.

Frowne

6 comments:

  1. to be frank, I've been pretty disappointed with the bags since December. I didn't even get my January one, though I was refunded my money back. I personally haven't encountered terrible customer service myself, but I know other people have complained about that. I will say that the last two bags just don't feel like they were even worth 10$. I speak mainly from a beauty-centric point of view, as I feel that there haven't been enough makeup products to remain loyal to them. however, I am holding out, and hoping that product offerings will improve. also, it's nice to get a glimpse behind the scenes, since I want to be understanding that they're a new company and still adjusting. and reading this post made me validate that opinion a bit more.

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  2. Me, I've only gotten the February bag, and was really "meh" about it. I am definitely more into makeup than skincare, so I felt iffy about the products in it. But then I thought about two things a) they are only 3 months old, and it may take months to negotiate with brands/have them give you enough product to ship to all your customers, so it's bound to get better and b) Birchbox was worse before it got better (I think I did tell you that I got a hair band as one of the items once, right?). So I thought I'd hold out for a few months. Then the opportunity to visit them came up and I jumped on it, because I wanted to understand it more/give my input.
    I am glad I did, because now that I understand how the process works, and am a bit more patient. Every startup has its ups and downs, but what makes me stick with these guys as opposed to canceling them like I did with BB after that awful box (full of hair bands and granola bars) is the fact that they care about what their consumers want - BB never even addressed my concern and did not give a damn that I was not happy >.>
    I am glad that my post was informative and I do hope that they stand by it, which would make me a happy camper!

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  4. This is awesome that you got to go when this all happened I had just started subscribing so I didn't know too much about them yet. I follow a few other bloggers that got to go it looked like a great time. It's great they took the time to listen to bloggers :)

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  5. It was quite wonderful - the fact that they took the time and so much care in showing us around, getting our feedback (and some of them have already been listened to!) is quite impressive. I have not heard of any other such service doing anything like that, so it made me believe in them more :D
    And so glad you are a subscriber too! Personally, I find something worth it in every bag, although some people complain to no extent - let me know how you end up enjoying your first bags~

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  6. So far I've liked at least one thing in each bag the only big bummer for me was the March one because the bag smelled so bad and I couldn't get the smell out so I ended up throwing it away. I'm not sure what made it smell that way but I figured whatever it was couldn't be good. Yeah I try not to go on their FB wall because of all the crazies that complain lol they can get out of control!

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