A new company called OpenSky, which opens to the public on Wednesday, lets them turn that into a business by selling things to their friends, fans and followers.
“If you look at the power of people brands — authors, celebrities, models, bloggers — they have basically invested in building a brand around their own passion, but there literally was no way for them to build a business,” said John Caplan, OpenSky’s founder and chief executive, who was formerly chief executive of Ford Models. “With OpenSky they are able to complete commerce in a very authentic way.”
Bloggers or Web site creators who use OpenSky can suggest that a supplier sell goods through OpenSky, or can pick goods from OpenSky’s stable of sellers. Sellers include companies that make custom cupcakes, reusable shopping bags and hand towels.
They can set up shops on their sites or simply link to a product. When someone buys it, OpenSky handles the transaction, the supplier ships it and OpenSky and the Web site creator split the profit evenly.
