Fashion, Friends and Fun Spell Success for Shecky's Media

Claudia Chan's unique business model includes shopping 'til you drop. The single, 33-year-old president of Shecky's Media Inc., a multi-platform women's media and marketing company, is the co-founder behind Girls' Night Out (GNO).

Girls' Night Out is a beauty and fashion shopping event held over several days in major cities across the United States. Distinguishing characteristics include its welcoming reception and gift-bag giveaways. Chan describes it as girlfriend entertainment. "Women love to shop and be with their girlfriends," she says, "and our Girls' Night Out events have become the go-to event for the savvy, sophisticated woman in the 21-to-35 age range."

Chan also produces Shecky's Beauty Week and Shecky's Beauty Night Out, smaller events focused on women's interest in fashion, beauty and health. Her partner in Shecky's Media , Chris Hoffman, manages the publishing side of Shecky's, with titles such as Shecky's Bar, Club and Lounge Guide NYC, Shecky's Beauty Book, Shecky's Girls' Guide to NY Nightlife, and more.

I caught up with Chan and her public relations director, Krisse Mansfield, at Pegu's, a stylish, second-floor club on Houston Street in New York City. Pegu's is just blocks from the Puck Building, where GNO was in full swing. A few days earlier, on opening night, the admission line for GNO went around the block, with more than 1,000 women paying $25 for a ticket that would get them a goodie bag full of free products and the opportunity to purchase designer dresses, jewelry, shoes, handbags and cosmetics with girlfriends and office associates looking on. The five-night event drew 10,000 women, with 90 percent purchasing the more expensive Deluxe Goodie Bag ticket, rather than the $10 general admission ticket.

In 2008, Chan expects Girls' Night Out to attract 150,000 shoppers, and more than 1,000 vendors and sponsors spread across 18 U.S. markets, which include New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and the Hamptons.

Chan stayed calm and collected about the frenetic GNO production taking place while we sipped cocktails at Pegu's. Not surprising when you consider that she has 34 GNO events in the works, with a team of three executives, more than 35 full-time employees and hundreds of part-time employees--event managers and security guards--in cities across the country. The woman knows how to delegate. Born in New York City to parents who emigrated from Taiwan, Chan says she always knew she'd be an entrepreneur. Her father opened a few Chinese restaurants in lower Manhattan, and her mother made them successful, she says.

"All the women in my family brought home the bacon," she says, "and my mother was great at customer service."

Chan started her career at publisher W.W. Norton and Company after graduating from Smith College in 1997. Two years later, she was drawn to the dotcom business and became director of business development for money.net. After two years of working for someone else, Chan developed what she calls net.com networking events in NYC.

iLounge LLC was her first venture. Chan would identify a bar or club that had slow weeknights, secure the location, find a sponsor to cover the first couple of drinks, market iLounge to dotcomers on her database and charge a modest admission fee.

"It was a no-brainer," she says with a laugh. "They'd been home all week, sitting behind a computer and needed to relax and talk to other dotcom associates." It was a win-win all around: Her costs were practically zero because she was using e-mail as her marketing vehicle; sponsors were pleased to get in front of the dotcom market; and the bar owner had people coming to his or her bar on weeknights.

In 2002 Chan formally teamed up with Hoffman, a Wall Street trader and publisher of , to create Shecky's Media Inc. "Merging the two made sense: The events and guides support and promote each other," Chan says.