One of the few start-ups to have emerged from the carnage of the dot-com implosion of 2000, Natalie Massenet’s vision of an “online magazine-you-can-shop-from,” now the luxury fashion version of Amazon.com, just earned her a neat £50m when she sold her shares of Net-A-Porter to luxury giant Richemont this spring. The reasons for her success and perhaps the failings of others is that in the world of fashion, more than anywhere, “people don’t trust who they don’t know”. As former editor at WWD and Tatler, Massenet put her intimate customer knowledge to use and created the ideal balance of commerce and content.

Following a behind-the-scenes video of their chasmic new headquarters (where 90% of employees surveyed found their boss to be “inspiring”) the lady in red answered questions from The Business of Fashion‘s Imran Amed. Topics included Net-A-Porter’s iPad app (launched that day), her prescription for the breakneck fashion cycle, the best and worst way to get your products on their site, bricks and mortar vs. e-commerce and their soon-to-be-launched menswear site Mr.Porter. The highlights:

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