Stardoll – Your paper doll heaven

We all have played with guddas and guddias (dolls) when we were kids. And we were so possessive about them and we wont let anyone go near them. They will be with us all the time :). If someone will touch them then that is the end of world :).

But the digital kids are different, aren't they. There guddas and guddias are digital. They love to share them with their friends. I am touched. New age kids understand that you get positive karma by sharing things :). Ahem ! Ahem !!. The startup behind this is Stardoll.

Stardoll.com a brainchild of Scandinavian-born Liisa. Inspired by her childhood passion for paperdolls, Liisa drew dolls and accompanying wardrobes, and also taught herself web design. Rapidly her personal homepage became a destination for teens. In 2004, with the help of her son, she upgraded the site and called it Paperdoll Heaven.

Stardoll is an online celebrity dress up and community site for everyone who likes fashion and celebrities. Most of the visitors are girls between 7 and 17.

The site offers visitors more than 320 dolls and tens of thousands of garments and accessories and there are new dolls created every week.

Since its inception Stardoll has gained popularity with girls young and old from more than 190 countries. Relying solely on “word-of-mouth”, the company has built a global membership base exceeding 900,000 and attracts more than one million unique visitors a month.

Just thinking a bit more strategically, this is a great example of blue ocean strategy where you think different from the crowd and create new markets. Most of the other startups out there are trying to get the attention of this demographic by dishing out more games or enabling them to socialize with each other better. This can disrupt the existing monopolies of Mattel (Barbie).

Btw it got funded by, none other than Sequoia Capital.