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Comment by ismail | Hacker News Reader

“Given that Netflix is a $60 billion company—and we don’t have to watch TV or movies every day, but we do all have to get dressed—the potential for Rent the Runway was 10 times bigger than I ever thought,”

This sound like a terrible investment thesis?

It is ignoring all the differences between how you consume clothing vs media. The fact that there is physical distribution required vs digital.

OR am I missing something key?

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No, you're spot on. It's a wildly incorrect premise.

Example: Apple is a $670 billion company. We don't all have to own smart phones. We all have to sleep at night, therefore Beds 'R Us must be worth ten times what Apple is.

You'd be hard pressed to invent a more comical economic premise than the one used to compare Rent the Runway to Netflix. It's in the same fantasy league as proclaiming: if I can only capture 1% of the oil industry, my company will be huge!

Or put another: why aren't lettuce farms worth 100 times what the NY Yankees are?!? Surely lettuce is higher on the needs table than baseball much less one MLB baseball team!

I'm also sure people actually feel inclined to rent movies more often than they need to rent clothes.

People buy the clothing they need to wear every day.

People also tend to throw out a lot clothing because they're bored with it, not because it gets worn out. There does appear to be a pretty big opportunity there.

It's called Goodwill. You may have heard of them. ;-)

And I buy a lot of that clothing from Buffalo Exchange and similar stores, but in spite of Buffalo Exchange being a national chain it's a modestly sized private company: http://www.buffaloexchange.com/about-us/

> People also tend to throw out a lot clothing because they're bored with it, not because it gets worn out.

"Bored" is probably not the right word; getting rid of clothes that aren't worn out is driven, AFAICT, largely by changes in fit (because people change over time) and changes in fashion; the former doesn't tend to be planned/anticipated except for children or people engaging in deliberate programs (like planned diets), the latter also entails significant depreciation in the clothing (which occurs even if the reason the particular person gets rid of clothing is the first.)

There's obviously some opportunity for rental services (and several online rental services exist), but its not clear to me that its a "pretty big" opportunity, because for most people, the turn around times, even when they don't involve wear, are long enough that they involve significant depreciation.

The depreciation issue is offset by the fact that you could get more usage out of a single outfit before it goes out of fashion if it was shared. People aren't wearing the same thing every day. Clothes sit unused in closets for weeks at a time while they are still in fashion.

> The depreciation issue is offset by the fact that you could get more usage out of a single outfit before it goes out of fashion if it was shared.

Remote sharing of clothes imposes latent constraints; being available "on demand" is a key part of the value. And the things for which not having the clothes immediately on-hand is most acceptable are the things for which personal tailoring/alterations are most likely to be desired.

Indeed, all of that is true. Not saying any of this is easy, but when I see giant closets stuffed with clothes that are rarely worn I continue to see opportunity. Feels like someone will crack it eventually.

* Note: not a women, Do not fashion trends. This is purely based on my observations of the women around me (wife, sisters etc etc), and some cursory reading on Zara etc.*

1. Things come and go into fashion, you have trends and 'mini-seasons' or something like that.

2. This is still driven by the major fashion labels

3. A critical thing has changed though: quite a number of companies have optimized their supply chain. I believe the term is called "Fast-fashion".

5. Examples: Zara, H&M, Mr Price (South Africa).

6. They are cost effective.

7. This means they get can a new design in stores within 2-4 weeks.

7. In other words, you could wear something that is 'in-fashion' at the same time as other high-end labels, previously with the long lead times and manufacturing in china you would get the item a season later. The followers were always behind.

8. This has resulted in changing behavior. Buying items from these stores. Using them for a few weeks or 1-2 months. And then getting rid of the item.

In other words, i believe the value proposition for rental of 'every-day' wear is quite weak.

It's interesting that you admit that this is a topic on which you are largely ignorant and yet you speak with such confidence about your beliefs.

It's interesting that you are unable/unwilling to address the points the author made and instead chose to just attack the author.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_fashion

"Fast fashion has also become associated with disposable fashion because it has delivered designer product to a mass market at relatively low prices"

Sure, it's not a nonexistent market, but the number of people willing to spend $1200/year to be allowed to borrow three items of second hand clothing at a time from a catalogue is likely considerably smaller than the number of people wanting to regularly watch movies and TV series. Their current model seems to need a target audience that's both willing and able to pay a premium for designer clothes and focused mainly on value for money. That might not be the smallest niche in the world, but it's probably not Netflix-sized either.

I'd have thought second hand trading would be easier to get right than juggling all the variables of a rental model too...

We all have to breath way more than we need TV, yet oxygen isn't a 60 billion market.

It's just a nonsensical statement.

Actually she's not that far off. It's a stupid way to phrase it, but the global apparel and global entertainment market sizes (as well as their corresponding USA measurements) are pretty similar (~500B/2T).

http://www.statista.com/statistics/279735/global-apparel-mar...

http://www.statista.com/statistics/237749/value-of-the-globa...

Don't forget the thousands of years humanity spent naked. Thankfully, startups are now here to solve that problem.

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