Rank & Style: How a Dynamic Austin Trio is Curating Fashion with Data

A business executive wakes up, goes for a run, showers, prepares breakfast for the family, drops off the children at school, heads to the office, comes home to make dinner and entertain the children, while still making time for some alone time with her husband after the little ones head to bed.

Then, before she knows it, she wakes up and starts the routine all over again.

She’s desired a wardrobe makeover for weeks now but can’t find the time to shop. Even online shopping takes time away from important meetings or nighttime tucks. Maybe tomorrow she’ll have time to hit the “purchase” button on that shopping cart.

Thanks to Rank & Style, an Austin-based online platform that aims to simplify shopping by bringing users unbiased, data-driven Top Ten lists in fashion, beauty and lifestyle products, busy people everywhere have a one-stop option for everything from mascara to shapewear leggings.

The platform uses an algorithm to rank products in a range of categories, which means the user doesn’t have to spend time shopping at department stores, boutiques, blogs and style magazines.

Rank & Style does it for them by using an algorithm that methodically researches, aggregates and indexes data based on user reviews, best-seller lists, editorial recommendations and expert product reviews. Users can subscribe to the Rank & Style newsletter to get Top Ten lists directly to their inbox.

At the company’s helm are three Austin entrepreneurs, women and mothers – Jamie Chandlee, Beth Zerdecki and Dalton Young --  who want to make shopping easier for busy people. They acquired Rank & Style in 2016, though the company was founded in New York City in 2013.

“The three of us have a very powerful blend of talents that we can all bring together to the table, so it was a very seamless thing for us to come together,” said Chandlee, who serves as the CEO and has 12 years of experience in advertising, including as a former leader on Facebook’s retail team.

She is passionate about giving people back the time they use for online shopping for the parts of their lives not behind a screen. Chandlee is a University of Texas at Austin graduate and is engrossed in social impact organizations like The Seton Fund, MJ&M, Dell Children’s Council, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, UT College of Natural Sciences and Human Ecology and the Longhorn Foundation.

“We saw a huge opportunity. What had been built, they did a fantastic job, we just knew there was a lot we could do to continue our mission of simplifying that shopping experience,” Chandlee said. “When we came together, we got started and were working out of Beth’s house, sometimes we giggle about how far we’ve come. Now we have a team of 9 here in Austin and we’re growing fast.”

Their work has been compared to Wirecutter, but they say they are growing at an even faster pace, with 18 million total users and 1 million monthly users as of February 12.

In 2018, they expanded Rank & Style’s offerings to include menswear, Plus-Size and Petite options to better serve the needs of a diverse customer base. To help achieve this, they brought on new CTO Troy Green, who co-founded Celebrity Style Guide.

Rank & Style formed new strategic partnerships with Bonobos and Everlane, and strengthened its reach with its existing Amazon, Nordstrom and Sephora partnerships.

They launched a fully redesigned and rebranded, mobile-optimized website with faster speed and more user-friendly, shoppable links.

“In general, we know that the world of e-commerce is growing and is not going anywhere,” said Zerdecki, CPO and CMO, who has 14 years-plus experience in merchandising, including at Lafayette 138, Ann Taylor and Esprit. She previously worked as vice president for omni-channel software solution and e-commerce startup Brandleap and Prelaunch Labs.

She has a passion for facilitating retail experiences for customers as well as helping mentor the next generation of Austin female leaders.

“We know that 96 percent of Americans shop online and the amount of time they are spending online doing that shopping is continuing to grow (roughly two hours during the day) as brands continue to offer up more options,” Zerdecki said. “As busy moms, and as a consumer in general, being bombarded by all these options and it’s just really important that as a platform, we’re pushing to streamline the entire shopping process and leverage all the data out there so that instead of asking consumers to look at the blogs, the magazines, ask your friend, read the reviews, we’re doing all of that for them and combining all of that information into one place.”

Rank & Style also led campaigns with key fashion industry leaders such as Kendra Scott, Molly Sims, Camila Alves and Nicky Hilton.

Rank & Style made diversity and inclusion an area of focus in 2018 and adjusted its algorithm to include plus-size and petite fashion, as well as foundation, concealer and other beauty products for darker skin tones.

“Our ultimate goal is really to help anyone interested in a service like ours so really just building this platform that anyone can leverage to improve their life,” Zerdecki said.

Young, who serves as Rank & Style’s COO, joined the company from the legal world as a former president of a technical and data-driven legal support company. She merges her devotion to upscale, high-end fashion and entrepreneurial passion with her legal background amid a constantly evolving technology landscape. She attained her law degree from UT-Austin.

The trio is dedicated to growing their business in Austin, attracting top talent in the industry and giving back to the community, such as working directly with students at UT-Austin’s Division of Textiles and Apparel. Two former interns have recently been brought on as staff, as well.

“We are constantly doing lists that either include different price points and products or we have lists that are dedicated to different price points,” Young said. “We have lists that are say, ‘Best T-shirt under $25,’ or we’re doing ‘Best High-Trend T-Shirt’ and we’ll have a $500 T-shirt in there. We’re constantly keeping an eye on inclusion of different price points and giving up to three different options of where to purchase each product just to make it as inclusive as possible for many, many different consumers.”