Ron Johnson, Apple’s ex-Retail Chief, is getting back into retail with a startup that will help online shoppers choose what they want via a company called Enjoy. After Johnson helped to build Apple’s line of retail stores, he worked as a chief executive of J.C. Penney Co, which didn’t turn out so well, and took some time off before this well-funded venture. Enjoy, according to Johnson, will “change the way people use and buy the things that matter” in a culture where most people start their consumerism lives with online purchases. The service should start in 2015. Right now he’s keeping a lot of what Enjoy will do and how it will do it a secret, much like Steve Jobs did at Apple. We do know that Johnson’s goal is to get Enjoy to help people develop a connection with new products that might need a bit more explaining than what one would see on an Amazon page.
One of Enjoy’s investors include Andreessen Horowitz and there was a recent found of funding by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Oak Investment Partners. So far funding has been brought to $30 million; Johnson won’t say what the company is valued to at this date.
