The Cool Hunter
The Cool Hunter is one of the world’s most popular blogs with over two million visitors to the site every month. The founder and Cool Hunter himself, Bill Tikos, has the rare ability of finding new and unique objects and destinations that strike a chord with readers all over the world. However a little known fact is Bill is Australian and grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Watsonia.
Tikos left school at the beginning of year 12 eager to experience life. Through his work experience, pre TCH (The Cool Hunter), he discovered he had great marketing skills and an amazing ability to connect people to make magic happen, which he did to great effect as a band manager and literary agent.
TCH follows this innate skill, of bringing the work of emerging talent to the fore and exposing them to hundreds of thousands of people who instantly react. Designers report massive spikes in traffic on their websites, avalanches of international enquiries from agencies, retailers and other potential clients wanting to get their hands on their work, as well as being inundated with enquiries from international media – major magazines and newspapers. In terms of the media, many influential titles rely on TCH to find content for their pages.
Bill is a rather shy man who does not see himself as particularly cool. “I just find things that I like and post them on my website,” he says. When planning his Pop Up Boutiques called “The Cool Houses”, Bill asked his team if he could drop the word “cool” from the boutiques branding because “I’m really over that title”. Of course the team advised against it. As Bill is a great one to take advice and is a pleasure to work with, he was happy to retain the branding.
“I’m not a trend forecaster but it seems that the things I like – other people seem to like too.” This is typical of Bill’s down to earth and somewhat self-effacing approach. He is not a self-promoter either. The Cool Hunter was launched seven years ago and there has been little written about Bill over the years. However with the launch of his boutiques and online store, Bill has agreed to a few interviews and we have been lucky to get to know him a little better.
“I am really excited about The Cool House Pop Up Boutiques as it is the first time I’ll witness first hand the reactions from people as they interact with the pieces I’ve gathered for them,” said Bill. “It will be a refreshing break from the mind-numbing sameness of the retail stores around the world,” he said.
It’s not surprising that Bill chose a Porsche 911 to signify “The Cool Car”. A silver 911 convertible will grace the garage of The Cool House in Melbourne to celebrate this very website – womanwithdrive.com.au.
There will be several new items at The Cool House including Bill’s first venture in product design – the Koo Koo bird-shaped letterbox. What a poignant product selection this is. The boy from Watsonia who is now one of, if not the world’s foremost commentator of what’s cool, has reinterpreted the quintessential suburban item, the letterbox.
Visit: www.thecoolhunter.com.au
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