Building 'From Holden', an apparel manufacturer, from the ground up

What we think is disruptive is the ability to be a trusted go-to site/brand, while not having to support the overhead of retail stores -- inventory, labor, etc are no joke. If we offer a superior product at a lower price, and you buy from us and enjoy it, we think you'll be back over and over -- that means we can keep margins a bit lower, and earn a good revenue stream from each supporter over a long period of time. It is a different model. We think we can continue to communicate new things you'll enjoy, and that is something traditional retail just can't do well. They largely have to wait for you to return, or spend absurd amounts on television and magazine advertising in hopes you'll come back.

I do think it is a disruptive model; but some things remain the same -- quality matters, and your brand represents who you are. Further, we think in this day-in-age, who you are is increasingly important. A lot of old school apparel brands are a fabrication of some fantasy land... we can't and won't do that. Social media is our mouth piece and only authenticity carries.

I think you're wrong in terms of disruption. The people who go by brand equity, in my opinion, are the uninformed consumer. This tends to be the 30 year old+ demographic, people who don't know how to exploit the internet. On the other hand, you have 20 year olds and younger that are extremely informed due to familiarity with internet discussions. The rate of information is incredibly fast in this case, and word of mouth can be a powerful thing. And this group is only getting larger and getting more buying power.

In fact, there's been a large rise in direct-to-consumer apparel retailers, and by all accounts they are doing very well. Take a look at Everlane for example.

The reason large luxury brands compete on image, and not necessarily on quality, is because they can. They've taken years to get there. Many of them are also public companies, so they're under intense pressure to expand profit margins and tighten costs. If Ralph Lauren can make a shirt for $5 and sell it for $50, and could make the same shirt for $2 and sell it for $50, they will take the latter option. Likewise, if they can make it for $5 and sell it for $100, they'll take that option. And if they can make it for $2 and sell it for $100, even better. They're creating shareholder value by doing so, and doing so at scale.

Conversely, startup clothing brands typically begin by addressing a specific niche, and addressing that niche's dissatisfaction with the status quo. A friend of mine runs an extremely successful tie company by following this strategy. You might think: why ties? Who actually wears ties these days, and does anyone actually care about their quality? Well, it turns out that, of the set of all people who do wear ties every day, some of the deepest-pocketed and most frequent purchasers of ties care a great deal about quality. Luxury brands have been pissing these people off by cutting corners on quality and coasting on brand image. So...enter my friend's startup, addressing this small but lucrative customer base. Bingo.

(Incidentally, Ralph Lauren himself started off selling neckties).

I think you are right that some consumers buy because of brand equity. But it certainly isn't 100% of the audience. Bonobos ($40M revenue company) is a perfect example. They broke through the noise and found an audience that wanted to buy based on fit + quality. Not until a couple year into the company did they really start to try to expand their brand equity.

I think there is a sizable audience out there willing to buy based on quality + fit and a lower price (I'm in that audience). But of course at some point to continue growing into a massive company you need to start developing that brand equity.

People in this domain care about fit, look, quality, American made and then maybe price.

I can fufill all of the requirements above except American Made in SF with my tailor and an $80-90 shirt isn't going to make me cry.

Get the hard stuff done, and then don't worry about the price point so much until you scale. We get it, we'll support you and we'll take the price break later.

Sea Island cotton is excellent. Egyptian, Pima and Swiss are also pretty good.

Is your CA cotton the ELS gossypium barbadense, the common gossypium hirsutum or something else?

Please reach out at william [at] fromholden.com and stay in touch. We want your ideas on what you'd like us to design!

This has the effect of giving employees who already make, say, $100 / day more options as to where to work, while refusing to give those who make $10/day (or $1/day) workers oversees choices like this.

I find this effect to be stunningly at odds with most of the stated political goals that usually correlate with this opinion.

If redistribution from the $100/day person to the $50/day person is good, why is redistributing employment options from a $10/day person to a $100/day person a good thing?

We love a lot of what American Apparel has done. We've certainly taken a lot of plays from their book.

That said, we think there are a lot of ways we can improve on the model:

1. Price - we think $25 for a tee shirt and $50 for a hoodie is too expensive; at scale we want to be lower on our basics. We won't be supporting retail stores, so this is very feasible. AA can't come down anymore in price, they've had a rough couple years as it is.

2. Quality - we're confident we can make consistently higher quality garments; more consistent in quality and fit, and better fabrics.

3. Style - on items outside their basics, we're not big fans of AA's fit or style. That is personal preference, of course.

4. Focus - we're only focused on men and will keep a very small line. Instead of millions of colors and styles, we're going to focus on delivering things every guy should and can wear. We want to be a safe bet so dudes can trust us.

LA and NY are really the only two places you can live if you want to be down the street from where your production happens. This is important if you are a micromanfacturer and want that kind of control for quality.

The KickStarter looks great, really pumped to get that first hoodie. Congrats on launching it man!

1. Comparing prices with designer brands such as Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, and Burberry is disingenuous. Consumers are paying for much more than the physical product when they buy goods from those brands.

Your real competitors are companies like Hanes, Gildan, Fruit of the Loom, perhaps even Uniqlo and American Apparel. All of these sell basic garments, of reasonable quality, at mostly reasonable prices.

2. There is no such thing as the "perfect" fit. Everyone has a different body shape. In fact, this is one of the reasons retail clothes shopping continues to thrive. People want to try things on, to check the fit, and assess the quality before buying.

The "Made in XYZ" does help but only if the product is truly superior. Are you going to sell individual shirts for $29 / each?

I moved from Boston -- LA is cheaper for me, but that is a pretty small part of our overall costs. We're all tech guys and are used to living on ramen. :)

We're going to strive to hit price points that the average American (US!) find reasonable. As we build the company we'll have an increasing ability to do this.

Our first run, however, just isn't feasible at the quality we are holding ourselves to (plus Kickstarter and Amazon both take a cut).

I think we'll hit $25 for a polo quickly. We hope you'll follow the progress and buy when you're comfortable!

Flint and Tinder was the first thing I ever backed on kickstarter, and even though there were some production issues, they managed to pull through with some pretty darn nice underwear.

Experience was a big part of it, too. The package came with a beautiful map illustrating where the fabric was grown, processed, and assembled. It also came with some matches, which I don't have an immediate need for, but are cute nonetheless.

2. We will expand the colors, and, in fact, will be using our members to help guide us. So shoot us an email and let us know what you want! That said, we'll definitely be more conservative than AA. A lot of the time more choice is not a good thing -- AA has some colors that no guy should wear.