Dabble, the Online Marketplace for DIY Classes, Raises $1 Million
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Dabble, an online marketplace for in-person classes for everything from cooking to glass-blowing, has raised $1 million to support growth and new initiatives put into place since the company changed leadership in 2014, CEO Jay Swoboda said Tuesday.
Chicago-based KGC Capital, started by William Blair veteran Dick Kiphart, led the round. Hyde Park Angels, venture capital firm M25 Group and Vancouver-based Pallasite Ventures also participated, along with a number of angel investors including ChicagoNext chairman Mark Tebbe ⇒, OptionsXpress co-founder Jim Gray and Harbor Street Ventures managing director Steve Komie.
Swoboda said Dabble is now in a position to be a marketing engine for vendors and for venues willing to host classes.
“We want to be competitive with Eventbrite and Meetup and make sure we’re not losing out business to a platform that’s not local that doesn’t do marketing for you,” Swoboda said. Dabble also competes with CourseHorse, an online guide to classes that expanded to Chicago from New York in 2014.
Swoboda said the new funding will help Dabble hire a chief technology officer and three more employees. The money also will go toward rebuilding the company’s tech platform and introducing a mobile app, and toward marketing and branding.
In 2015, some 15,000 Dabble users have bought tickets to one-time, in-person classes where they can learn new skills such as applying henna or creating a blog. The platform currently has more than 3,000 teachers, Swoboda said.
Classes are available in dozens of cities, but the majority are in Chicago, Swoboda said. Classes cost $40, on average, and usually hold about seven students. Most classes let students take a finished product home.
The company plans to introduce a sister site in January called Dabble Kids, where parents can enroll children in one-time classes that cost $20 to $25.
Swoboda said he is focused on building loyalty among vendors by offering incentives to those who list their classes exclusively on Dabble as well as those who teach often or bring in the most revenue.
The highest producers — those who teach 25 classes a year or bring in $10,000 annually in sales — will pay 10 percent, a significant drop from the 35 percent Dabble currently charges vendors to be highlighted on the site. The tiered model goes up to 25 percent for those who teach infrequently or make less than $1,000.
Swoboda said vendors will be able to pay $5 or $10 to have Dabble mention their classes on social media or in its newsletter, similar to the way advertisers can pay Facebook to boost posts.
“If we can bring on large partners at a low fee structure, we’ll be able to quickly see user growth, which is what we need right now,” Swoboda said.
Swoboda sees that strategy as a way to right a company that he said lost its way under the original founders.
Erin Hopmann and Jess Lybeck founded Dabble in Chicago in 2011 and, by 2013, had raised nearly half a million dollars. The founders left Chicago, planning to launch Dabble in other cities, but failed to grow. In summer 2013 they chronicled their challenges in a blog titled “Thirty Days of Honesty.”
Hopmann and Lybeck did not respond to requests for comment. They retain a minority stake in the company but are no longer involved in its operations.
The following January, Swoboda, a St. Louis-based serial entrepreneur who was socially connected to one of the co-founders, reached out to Hopmann and Lybeck about an opportunity to secure a $50,000 non-equity Arch Grant. The catch: They had to move headquarters to St. Louis.
Swoboda said he persuaded the founders to move the headquarters and he joined the company as director of operations. By July, he’d taken over as CEO. He worked to shift the focus toward improving the product and refining the business model and away from expansion.
In September 2015, Swoboda officially moved to Chicago, bringing Dabble headquarters with him. He and four of his six full-time employees work out of Soho House in the West Loop, but he said he plans to move to the Merchandise Mart-based 1871 tech hub in the new year. Dabble also has one full-time employee each in St. Louis and Denver, as well as part-time contractors across the country.
“The focus of Dabble is in-person, human connection,” Swoboda said. “Most of the team is in Chicago and we’re going to continue to grow from our base in Chicago.”
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