I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100 | Hacker News Reader

I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

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250 pointstimborden109 comments

I agree with you that perfect sizing is the future of fashion retail--especially online. However, I completely disagree with your methodology.

This demographic is going to be won over by marketing, and you didn't have the correct marketing play in hand when you ran this survey. I'm going to give you an example:

If you ask people: "When shopping for clothes on the web, would you submit your email address if...?"

Most people would probably say no. "Submitting your email address" sounds like you're about to "submit to" a bunch of junk email!

However, if you ask them if they want a perfect fit (you'll probably need a better way of saying this than you have right now--you'll want to do demographic research to find out how high-income women actually would articulate this), you can find a demographic that will say "yes". As a bonus, you'll have the lingo they use and be more easily able to sell to them because you are speaking their language.

tl;dr: Given the word choices and copy you could have used, "submit your body measurements" was almost guaranteed to bust, but it doesn't mean you have the wrong idea. It just means you have the wrong way of saying that idea in a way that appeals to your market.

"perfect fit" may be less of an issue than you think for high end fashion. If you asked them if they have trouble finding the perfect fit, I wonder what they would say. A lot of these women wear things like Lululemon, which fits really well, and makes their butt look good.

They don't necessarily wear high end fashion (heels, skirts, whatever) because it "fits". They wear it because they like how it looks, how it makes them feel, etc.

My wife is an independent high end fashion designer. Working on fit is incredibly hard and specialized, from a product and marketing perspective. Good patterns are the fashion equivalent of good software. They take a long time to get right and require a lot of work. They also don't necessarily translate to an online experience that well, for several reasons.

Any business in this space needs to overcome them:

High end designers usually target particular body types, and then market specifically to that group.

I worked on a project for Levi's in the 90s for getting the perfect fit for jeans. We had laser cutters, 3D body scanners, and more.

It failed. Getting the right fit wasn't a just a matter of measurements. It was a manufacturing issue too.

Even two garments that have the same measurements may not fit exactly the same because of manufacturing issues, fabric tolerances, even customer perception.

When a customer tries a garment on, it can stretch, alter or rip. So if they don't purchase it, the second person trying it on may not have the same experience.

A garment that "fits" someone may not actually look good, depending on their body type.

High end customers also have expectations of being able to return anything, for any reason (think of how Nordstrom's handles this for example) These things can really hurt margins.

I'm a little puzzled by the "perfect fit" thing myself. In college I worked for a men's specialty clothing store in NYC. All the expensive stuff (IOW, most of what they sold) was adjusted by the in-house tailors. You'd buy something off the rack, and then be immediately taken to someone who would take your measurements and take it in/let it out to get a good fit.

Doesn't this kind of thing happen anymore?

Even cheap stuff looks better if you get it altered, but yeah; the price-point this guy is targeting doesn't really wear 'off-the-rack' clothes. I wonder if he did any research at all, or he just thought "People with lots of money will pay lots of money for clothes". They shop pretty much entirely differently than your average (or even above average) consumer.

It is the difference between buying a shirt or suit (for men) that comes in Small/Medium/Large and buying one that is designed for a certain body type (broad shoulders, slim waist or short but fit) initial design. You can alter both, but a design that is more specific than S/M/L will usually look alot better after altering than a generic one.

I have both range of suits, and I can say there is a world of difference, even after altering between high end suits in fit than generic ones.

A very specific example a couple years ago when I got married, I ended up buying a really nice suit. That year trend by brand: Zegna suits were usually designed for the average man (height/weight), Ralph Lauren for more short guys and Armani for tall slimmer folk. As far as I've remember buying a suit, RL suits were always the better fit before and after alterations since I'm short, specially their more italian line that goes for short/broader shoulder/slim men.

To add to this, different market segments have different priorities. I once saw it explained with food. "Did you get enough to eat?", "Did you like how it tasted?", "Was the presentation good?"--these are very different questions, and the perfect restaurant for one person is not the same as the perfect restaurant for someone else. Knowing what your customers actually care about is the first step in selling to them.

More to the point, nicer clothes typically end up getting tailored before being worn anyway.

> I agree with you that perfect sizing is the future of fashion retail--especially online.

This assumes we don't go through another 90's-era fashion trend where very baggy clothes were extremely popular. Who cares if something is a perfect fit if it's going to be parachuting all over the place? Currently, trim fits are very much in style and require more precise sizing, but that's not guaranteed to remain the trend.

With some clothes, suits for example, you could argue that a custom fit will always be in style, but I'm not sure if that's enough evidence to support a blanket statement that the future of online fashion retail is custom sizing.

(Warning, I'm coming entirely from a male-perspective and do realize that women's fashion tends to require more precise sizing and is also a substantially larger market.)

I don't think you should massage your sample into giving you an acceptable answer. No matter how you shuffle the words around, it comes down to the blunt action of "submitting your email address" or "submitting your body measurements." If your target demographic is repulsed by the bare truth, you have to decide whether it's worth combating this reality with a "market play." It might be better to change your target demographic, or your product.

But people will say and do different things substantially by how it is presented. "Would you carry around a device that lets a company track your location 24/7?" will get people to answer "no" who have a cell phone in their pocket. If you had asked the general population 10 years ago if they would give a company a list of all their friends, their hobbies/interests/religion/political beliefs and all their photos they would have shouted no, of course not, but they do that with facebook today.

Unless I'm missing something here it looks like there were a total of 17 responses (8 yes 9 no). Are you really making a major business decision on a survey with an N of 17?

This is a really good point, it was the first thing I noticed as well. 17 responses isn't even enough to throw a margin of error at, the entire survey is effectively a margin of error of 100%.

If it really was only 17 responses that's the equivalent of asking five people on the street if they like hot dogs and then deciding based on their answers to open up a laundromat in Brooklyn.

Once you add in a proper confidence interval, 17 responses on a yes/no question is enough to make decisions like this - as long as you know in advance what your target numbers are. The downside of the small sample is that your margin is going to be extremely large, of course.

Using Clopper-Pearson at95% confidence tells us that between 23.3% and 70.8% would answer yes to this question. I do agree that is probably still too broad to decide to kill a business, but if you know you wanted a 60%+ (for example) positive response from this audience to hen that sample is enough to cause some serious worry.

It's then breaking them down into subcategories. Look at the confidence interval on the posted charts: +/- 80% on the high income responses this survey was interested in. I.E. worthless.

Exactly. Furthermore - if you go to the link below, you appear to go straight through to his survey which now has over 400 responses. The results stil show a slight 'no' bias, but 59% of women in the $75k-$99k earnings bracket said yes they would.

http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=b...

Nice find.

There were only 2 responses from women earning $100-150k. A suburban woman answered 'No', an urban woman answered 'Yes'. The vast majority of the remaining surveys were filled in by women earning $25-49k, which isn't OP's target audience. However, most women earning <$75k answered 'Yes', so the market might be large enough after all. Maybe not for haute couture, but for reasonably good prêt-à-porter, sure.

it's also missing age.

i think the <20k are probably underage.

it's a catch22. when they are old enough to be their market, they are old enough to not want to mention age and body measurements.

> Methodology: Conducted by Google Consumer Surveys, March 26, 2013 - March 31, 2013 and based on 45 online responses. Sample: National adult Internet population.

When I was looking for a survey system, I looked into Google Consumer Surveys, but I couldn't set it up like I wanted to for my budget.

We found Survata, an Y Combinator company, they helped us a lot and overdelivered :) - our project is still on standby / awaiting money, but the results Survata gave us were top notch and gave us several insights. We were looking for a much better confidence interval, so we had a screening question.

http://survata.com/home/

We also thought of using Mechanical Turk, but it's the wrong place for Rewire Attire.

I've toyed with some notions for better fits :) , mostly based around getting measurements through photos (android, webcams, whatever), and systems for that appear every so often on the news :) .

Edit: I'm not related to Survata in any way, just a happy customer.

Only 3 of the 444 responses from women made over $100k. The chart in the article is only for women 18-24, 17 responses.

Looking at all 444 women regardless of income, 56% said yes, and their income chart is far more even. And in the next income range, $75-$99k, 59%, or 13 of 22, said they WOULD give their measurements. Fun tool to play with however :)

It starts at 10 cents a response I think, so at most he got 1000.

I do agree though if you're right, that is incredibly insignificant data.

The problem with statistics is that you'll always get an answer. Sometimes it's a garbage answer, but it'll be there...

The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money ...

Whenever I read "target audience" and "with enough money" in the same sentence, I run the other way.

My experience with prospects "with enough money":

  - there are far less of them than everyone else
  - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so...
  - they really don't really understand the concept of "value"
  - they don't understand investing vs. consuming
  - they think they are actually the source of their own gifts, so...
  - they think they're better than others, so...
  - they will treat you like shit, not like a trusted business partner
  - they will second guess you
  - they will override you
  - they'll blame you for the bad things
  - they'll take credit for the good things
  - they won't pay you on time
  - they will protest their bills
  - they'll make you hate them and wonder why you're doing this

Save yourself the agony and just build something for the masses, where no one can become big enough to make that much difference.

Edit: Like OP, I'm referring to B2C, not enterprise.

Edit 2: Normally when I see a bunch of bizarre replies to a post of mine that begins with "My experience...", I just close my browser and go back to work. But I guess I'm in a strange mood, so in order to avoid cluttering up this thread (and in the spirit of good clean fun without malice), here goes:

diego, you say "One data point is not generalizable..." and then introduce your own data point. It was never my intent to "generalize", just to share my experience.

chc, I'd prefer to read about what you did over of what you hear. If I'm going to listen to someone else's antecdote, I'd rather do it over beers.

PaulHoule, nice story, but what's the point?

larrys, My list does not directly contradict the success of just about all luxury brands that have been successful. They would probably agree. They've just chosen to thrive in such an environment. I don't.

Samuel_Michon. I believe you. Thanks for sharing your experience.

fredsted, it pretty much does not differ from everybody else? I'd rather have 100 difficult customers with 1% of my ass than 1 difficult customer with 100% of my ass. That's all.

(Sorry if the tone seems negative. I'd love to learn how to better communicate in writing on-line without being misunderstood... It's a work in progress.)

High end consumers are often jerks, but so are some people who sell to them.

I know a woman who makes hand-knit sweaters for about $250. She makes them out of acrylic yarn, which shocks me. If I'm going to spend a lot for clothes I'm going to want a nice material, like wool. Particularly when you consider the cost of the labor, the extra cost of the wool is nothing.

She told me she did sell a wool sweater to somebody who went home and washed in hot, it shrank, and then heard no ends of complaints about it, so she resolved to never sell wool sweaters unless they are specially commissioned.

Some luxury retailers provide a great experience, like the ones around Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Other ones make it really clear they hate you. I know of one retailer in the UK where if you buy something with a credit card you'll get fraudulent charges from the UK just a day or two after your order.

Nasty.

> Particularly when you consider the cost of the labor, the extra cost of the wool is nothing.

> she did sell a wool sweater to somebody who went home and washed in hot, it shrank, and then heard no ends of complaints about it

If she still can sell all the sweaters she knit, her customers clearly don't care about the material. Using a matrial that doesn't shrink increases the percieved quality of her product and gives her less trouble.

Seems reasonable to me.

"She told me she did sell a wool sweater to somebody who went home and washed in hot, it shrank, and then heard no ends of complaints about it, so she resolved to never sell wool sweaters unless they are specially commissioned."

n=1 there then, right? Perhaps she was a bit to hasty based on that single data point?

One of the things luxury brands do is bake into their costs margin to account for customers like this. Or to account for unreasonable people.

I think I'm also unusually snobbish about materials.

If you go to a crafts store they usually have a big section of wall devoted to acrylic yarn. You might find one or two kinds of wool yarn and maybe a blend, but it's pretty clear that grandmothers who knit stuff for their grandkids value 20 hours of their time less than the $10 or so difference in the price of the materials.

Look at it the other way: maybe acrylic yarn serves a pain point. Maybe grandmothers spent 20 hours knitting a beautiful little hat or coat or something, only to have it ruined in the wash by a young, sleep-deprived parent, inexperienced in caring for quality hand-crafted goods.

Grandma figures out she can just use acrylic and now her work doesn't get ruined by washing & drying, and as a bonus the moths don't eat it because who has a cedar chest anymore?

Acrylics don't cause itching (unless you let them get filthy, at which point the filth may cause itching) and can be cleansed of the latest plague the kids brings home from school/day care. Wool, not so much. And it sure sounds like the value of the gift is in the work rather than the materials to me.

To the point of wool vs. acrylic with respect to knitting:

http://www.knittinghelp.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86186

Or they price discriminate, by selling the wool sweater at a high markup to customers who self identify as especially interested in handmade wool sweaters while advertising the cheaper acrylic sweater to everyone else.

I'll give you an example of this.

We offer a service which we charge $10 for. When we first started offering the service we didn't really commit to a time period for completion but generally did it as fast as possible, perhaps it took maybe 4 to 8 hours but sometimes it might be done in an hour or two.

We then changed the pricing as follows:

12 to 24 hours service ($10) 8 to 12 hours service $12 2 to 8 hour service $15

Many people pay the extra fee happily. Instant revenue.

We have something else which is higher priced, say $120. We offer expedited service on that as well charging $25 for "rush". Same thing. Many people choose to pay the rush fee for the better service.

I guess the only thing that is really different from what we do with this and what Fedex does is the fact that it doesn't cost us anymore to offer the service faster at all. We are just allowing people to self identify and feel better by having some kind of guarantee. (Although we don't really guarantee anything we just guarantee we will attempt to get it done faster if we don't they pay at the rate that they would have paid for the "default" service.

(Disclaimer: Figures approximate but accurate enough for the point I am making).

Exactly. Wool for a textilephiles, gold cables for the audiophiles.. selling to snobs is good business.

Your example is someone who doesn't sell something you in particular want unless you ask for it, at which point she will, and that makes her a "jerk"?

One data point is not generalizable. I was very successful building enterprise products, and I never figured out how to build anything for the masses.

I disagree strongly with your conclusion. If anything, save yourself some agony by building something for a market that you know well, and are interested in.

This is what I hear from everyone besides Ed that I've ever heard on the subject: It's easier to make money with a product that appeals to a few rich people than with one that depends on large numbers of average people buying in.

Usually what I've seen is that successful products are often ones that let average people become richer. ViaWeb, DropBox, AirBnB, AdSense, AdWords, EBay, Etsy, Kickstarter, Google Apps - these are all B2B2C products that let ordinary people make some small amount of money doing things that are quite within their grasp.

Goes all the way back to Levi's selling supplies to gold rushed.

It's easier, but what I've noticed with many companies that follow that model is that a handful of clients(maybe even just one) end up controlling most of the revenue. That sort of buyer power is not good for any company's long-term prospects.

In fairness, these elements of customer behaviour are actually in the favour of someone starting a designer clothes business targeting the rich:

   - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so...
   - they really don't really understand the concept of "value"
   - they don't understand investing vs. consuming

(that's also why "designer" markets don't appeal to me as a startup space either)

A bigger issues with targeting rich spendthrift consumers is that most people considering a startup don't know any and don't understand them. I expect that irrespective of any issues with sharing their body size, wealthy women who buy fitted designer clothes really enjoy the experience of visiting high end stores to touch the material and be complimented on the fit by a helpful attendant, are prepared to pay the resulting premiums and wouldn't replace the experience with a super-efficient website even if they already do all their grocery shopping and flight-booking online. (But then that's a hypothesis too as none of my female friends qualify as rich yet)

The main pain in the ass I see in that is you need to travel to one of a few big cities to find a store that sells certain brands.

Personally I live the Howard Hughes lifestyle and don't travel a lot and being able to get fancy stuff without going anywhere.

For many people in that target market, that's probably a feature; use your shopping trip as an excuse for a vacation in NYC.

>I'd love to learn how to better communicate in writing on-line without being misunderstood... It's a work in progress.

Try actually replying to people! Repeatedly editing your posts to add "presponses" subverts the format of a forum.

Your list directly contradicts the success of just about all luxury brands that have been successful.

Could you therefore clarify what you mean by 'prospects "with enough money"'

I'm going to guess (purely a guess) that before your experience with rich people you already held some sort of grudge against rich people in general.

I say this because most of your complaints (besides the first complaint, obviously) either apply to consumers in general or are based on nothing more than your opinion. And it appears to be a poisoned opinion.

If I have a net worth of $10B or -$100K, paying $250 or more for a pair of jeans is going to make me far more critical of sub par performance from the vendor.

Do you think rich people go raise a fuss at Walmart when they get poor service or a poor quality product? Of course not. There's no expectation of a great experience at Walmart. Paying extra for a high end experience makes critics out of everyone. And if you start the experience with a vendetta against people who have more money than you it's not going to turn out well.

On the contrary, people accustomed to fine things often forget how "roughing it" works.

All your points except number 1 and 2, I’ve experienced far more often with small clients (self employed, or a small business), not with larger companies or independently wealthy individuals.

It’s the ‘I Built This!’ mentality.

You don't need to actually have "built this" to act as if you did, naturally.

Sure, but they are the people who feel that they don't need to pay taxes and that anyone doing work for them are lucky not to be unemployed and can easily be exploited.

You don't need to be a Randian ideal self-starter to pretend that you are and use those same entitlements to abuse your workers.

"larrys, My list does not directly contradict the success of just about all luxury brands that have been successful. They would probably agree."

But your first sentence said 'My experience with prospects "with enough money"' where is the evidence (even anecdotal) to indicate that luxury brands would agree?

While luxury brands certainly have customers that fit all the points that you make I find it very hard to believe (from my anecdotal experience) that what you are saying is ubiquitous among luxury brands and that they would agree.

Use the reply button to reply to people.

> Edit: Like OP, I'm referring to B2C, not enterprise.

> - they will treat you like shit, not like a trusted business partner > - they will override you > - they'll take credit for the good things > - they won't pay you on time

None of these are relevant to a pay-then-goods b2c scenario. And somehow plenty of companies have managed to make money off of rich people, so maybe you were doing it wrong?

> I'd love to learn how to better communicate in writing on-line

Replying to people instead of editing your post helps.

This might be late, or a topic no one wants to bring up, but I am supremely pleased to hear your voice in these parts again. Thank you for contributing.

Yep; I was immediately reminded of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com

Number 7 and below: how does that differ from everybody else?

I don't buy this. There's something about the article that annoys me, too. I can't quite put my finger on it. I think it's because it has a linkbaity title, a tone of confidence, but is filled with weird stuff.

Disclaimer: I co-founded Everlane (http://everlane.com), although I left to start Dev Bootcamp (http://devbootcamp.com) last January. I'm just speaking for myself.

First, look at the error bars. 100.0% (+0.0/-79.3) Saying "the sample size is too small" doesn't even do it justice. Looking at numbers like this will put you in a mindset where you make silly decisions because, hey, they're numbers! They're objective!

Second, this is not how fashion works. As a rule I don't trust survey results early on in a product life cycle -- customer's don't have sufficient context, so you're learning more about their predispositions and biases than their actual attitudes about your (potential) product.

Talking "scientifically," there's a huge uncontrolled variable here: brand. Would women share their measurements with Hermès if it meant proper sizing? How many women who shop for high-end clothes employ something like a personal shopper? What about stores that sell more intimate products, like lingerie? How about wedding gowns? Of course a woman would share he measurements to get fitted for a high-end wedding gown.

I have yet to commit any capital or conduct any surveys and already I feel like I have a decent framework for approaching these issues. If there are high-end retailers with whom women are comfortable sharing their measurements, what is it about those retailers that makes them comfortable?

Why would a woman be willing to share her measurements with Hermés but not Ross Dress for Less?

IMO that's a 1000x better starting point than the one asked in the survey.

This survey is neither reliable nor valid.

You're right, there was more to the decision to pull the plug. Credibility was something that we thought and worked hard on. If you're credible with your shoppers, they'll trust you more. I still believe that data can improve fit, but it may be better suited for a company like Everlane (that makes their own product) than Rewire Attire (that retails product). The truth is, the survey was the nail in the coffin. The suggestion of the blog post is that I might have saved myself a lot of money had I done the survey early. The unspoken question is, would I have proceeded with the business had I known earlier? Is it an obstacle that I could overcome? Who knows. Do I regret the experience....never.

This entire article is based on a failure to understand error bars. The graph clearly shows that it's possible up to 79% of affluent young women would answer "yes" to this question, and more data is needed to draw an actual conclusion.

Wow...thanks for all the comments. I've been a causal reader of Hacker News, but this was my first post. I'm really impressed all the comments. Lots of great questions/comments.

There was one thing I neglected to mention in the blog post, that I should mention now. We ran a contest (prior to the survey) that required contestants to submit their body measurements. We wanted shoppers to see the power of submitting their measurements. We threw quite a bit of money and traffic and the contest and we saw almost no engagment. My thinking was, if we can't get shoppers to submit their measurements for a chance to win a free high end fashion design, we might have a problem (let's do a survey!)

As @lmm suggested the demographic for high fashion is mostly women. Also, we struggled to find high end men's fashion designers interested in our offering.

@ericabiz - We played around with the language on our site, however, admittedly, I'm not a marketer, so there was definitely room for improvement here. Which is why I've signed up for CoFoundersLab (http://www.cofounderslab.com) so I can find a compatible partner before jumping into my next start up.

Yuck. Without a doubt, the biggest failures in my marketing career started with "let's give them a free..."

Gaining market share or customers via free X promos is a doomed strategy. I have my theories, but the main thrust is some mumbo jumbo about perceived value. I've sat in interviews with more than one company that said with a not-ironic face that suffering now will cause explosive results in the long term. I pipe up and explain why this isn't so. Why I offer this advice for free is beyond me.

I recall reading an article about a pair of grad students who realized that there was a correlation between price and perceived value. IIRC they were researching condom use in the third world and figured out that the locals would use condoms purchased at stores, but would discard condoms passed out for free by NGOs. So the grad students started their own NGO that uses "cool" Trojan/Durex-style marketing to sell condoms dirt cheap.

I can't find the article, but it may be this group:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/2005/summer/classno...

Also see:

http://www.fordham.edu/images/undergraduate/economics/facult...

From page 4:

Obviously, the whole point of providing condoms is that they be used for sexual activities...They are not meant to be used, for example, for water storage. However, if they are free, then there are a large number of possible uses for condoms that generate positive utility even though the benefits do not cover the costs and they do nothing to prevent the spread of HIV. For example, Epstein (2007, p271) reports that when the CSM run by PSI in Zimbabwe tried to distribute free female condoms, the officials found that people were removing the plastic rings and selling them as jewelry.

Hi Tim--thanks for replying! To show my full hand, I'm the business/marketing co-founder/CEO at a software company--though I have a strong tech background, I chose to go into the marketing side because I love psychology and analytics so much. (I'm running an analytics startup.)

I'm also a woman who's been known to drop some serious coin on clothes, and finally, I've previously stated publicly that I believe the future of clothing/fashion is getting exact fit/measurements (which sparked quite a heated debate when I published those thoughts to my audience on Facebook.)

You don't necessarily need a "marketing co-founder"--you can learn much of what you need simply by reading some books by famous copywriters. Start with John Carlton's "Kick-Ass Copywriting Secrets of a Marketing Rebel" and branch out from there. Read some classic "ad men" books--John Caples and the like. Dig up all of Eugene Schwartz's old ads. Put aside your gag reflex and cringe factor and delve in deep. You'll learn a lot about people and copywriting that way.

I also have some great free resources on my blog and I am launching my own sales course soon as well. See my latest post: http://www.erica.biz/2013/macklemore-effect/ for more details.

Awesome...thanks for the advice

“We ran a contest (prior to the survey) that required contestants to submit their body measurements. [...] We threw quite a bit of money and traffic and the contest and we saw almost no engag[e]ment.”

You’re a new website with zero brand recognition. If you had promised a free Cadillac in exchange for someone’s home address, you probably would have seen the same level of engagement. That doesn’t mean people don’t want to receive free luxury vehicles, they just don’t trust you with their data.

why not simply reverse it, like they do in the sale of used Levis and suits?

Force the high end designers to measure everything thigh hips, waist, shoulder width, etc.

Then let people sort down based on drop down settings

THEN suggest others that fit the settings they used.

Don't actually ASK for their measurements.

Clever suggestion...thanks

"I found this out by spending $100"

"The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money to afford high end fashion and that are young enough"

Not so fast. Forgetting even the small sample size and methodology I'm wondering whether the OP did any other research at all? And "sharing measurements" is only 1 factor in making this business a success.

Additionally no reason that they couldn't have forked/morphed/pivoted the model built to some other group (say the men who buy custom made suits for thousands - not saying that would or would not work but even if OP is correct about the market info (and I don't think enough research was done to prove out the point anyway) it could work in another group.)

Surveys may be getting at the wrong question.

As http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html says, you want to work on an idea that a few people really want. Then you want to go out and find some of those people. Talk to them. And make what they want.

Concrete case in point. I remember reading an example of how an early focus group mostly panned a particular automobile, but 1/3 of people REALLY LOVED IT. On a survey it would have looked bad, but went on to be one of the most successful vehicles on the road. (I think it might have been the Ford Bronco, but don't quote me on that.) You don't care how many won't buy, you want something that you can find sufficient enthusiastic customers for.

When a woman finds something perfect, she likes to tell her friends about it. Suppose that your friend is standing in front of you in great clothing talking about how good the clothing from ____ is, you just sent them your measurements, browse the clothing, and they will send them to you tailored to fit, then you're likely sold. You've got to get those women started.

To do that you've got to do like Zappos did. You've got to have a generous return policy. Furthermore when you get returns, you need to try to get information about why it is returned. Because one of the reasons why stuff will get returned is fit, and the descriptions you get back are going to help you learn more about how to customize clothing to that women to give her a better fit next time. This is essential.

There is a lot to learn to make this work. And if you want it to work, it is absolutely necessary that you've got to get it right before trying to get popular.

that's a good point. there are plenty of successful niche market businesses. sometimes 5% of market share is all you need. It stands to reason that the more niche your audience, the more important marketing becomes.

It looks to me like out of 899 responses, only THREE were from the $100K-149K female target.

Two of them said NO, and one said YES, making the results 66% negative and 33% positive.

Just not enough "on target" data to surmise anything.

I believe we all make this mistake, event outside of startups. Think way back to middle school when you had a crush on that girl or guy and everything seemed perfect, and you were in love, but they didn't know it yet. All the signs were pointing to, Go for it! But you still waited months and months developing in your mind a perfect moment where you would ask them out, and they would say, "Yes!! I've been waiting for you to ask me forever!!" Then, you finally get enough courage to ask the question, just to get shut down.

A 10% positive response is often enough to ignore the other 90%. It's something we're all working on.

>> The pitch was to get away from inaccurate generic sizing terms like “small”, “medium” and “large” and move to a system based on body measurements.

I'm a man and possibly missing something, but it seems to me that women's clothing is deliberately inaccurate.

When I buy pants (in America), the measurements are expressed in inches. I rarely even try them on.

Women's sizes vary by brand and seem engineered to flatter rather than describe. A woman buying a "size 0" has not expressed her desire for a predictable, sensible sizing system.

You should, there's lots of vanity sizing nonsense going on. For example, a 3sixteen ST-100x in size 30 is actually a 31 inch waist, and it will stretch about another inch!

http://www.3sixteen.com/collections/homepage/products/st100x...

It should be noted that while the screenshot shows only 17 responses, the actual survey* has 899 responses. Looks like only 17 responses fit the filters on the sample set.

http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=b...

He filtered on Female and 25-34, while comparing on income. That shows the same chart as his screenshot.

However, that tendency holds at higher age groups which do have more data. I noticed the charts also have what I believe are standard deviation bars, which show that the results are not even close to being statistically significant.

I wonder if the age filter was too low. Older women are more likely to be affluent, and to be more comfortable sharing their body size. Women over the age of 35 buy lots of stuff online, at least the ones I know...

Quite an intriguing article. Just wanna add that the opportunity cost of 1 year is way more than 40 grand. Back to biz school 101, market research is always step 1.

Why would it only be for women? I live in Europe and would love to get some thinkgeek tshirts. The shipping cost is high however, so I'd order multiple at once, but I have no clue whether "small" or "medium" will fit me better. So I don't risk ordering them, or they could all be the wrong size. I'm male by the way.

He was deliberately targeting the high end, designer stuff; the demographic buying >$500 clothes is overwhelmingly female.

Ah, I see. True that :)

https://www.thinkgeek.com/help/sizing-info.shtml

>"high end apparel/fashion" x 4

Everbody wants clothes that fit.

I don't know the first thing about fashion, and my wardrobe is anything but high-end.

However, I'm well-paid and ready to be a lifetime customer for anyone who can sell me slacks that simultaneously fit a >36" inseam, <38" waist and thighs which are no stranger to squats.

This is good advice in general, but the trick is knowing what questions to ask. To knowing which of your (many, many) assumptions might just be wrong.

Humans are strange beasts. There are so many seemingly simple things we could do that would vastly improve our lives, yet we refuse to do them.

The data is interesting, but maybe incomplete. Doesn't look like you have quite enough information to truly understand the market.

Apologies for name-dropping a colleague's project, but you might want to look at http://validate.io for a more comprehensive, scientific analysis that's actually done by someone who knows how to design surveys and analyze data (they have a PhD design and run a survey for you, it's pretty sweet). A little more than $100 but worth it to have good data on your market. You might still avoid wasting $40k going the wrong direction, but you might be able to trust it more.

Did he tried with men?. I defenitely would give my measures to be able to buy clothing online, tshirts, hoodies, pants, even caps. I don't buy online right now unless is a bramd I already know and I go directly for my size. Is

http://www.ratioclothing.com is superb for dress shirts.

If you click on the google survey results image he links to the results where you can look at the male segment as well.

Thank you. Any way I was meaning if he did pivot to men apparel, sports tshirts, etc...

You should check out http://www.angora.io/feed

I end up just going with Asos due to their excellent return policies. There's too much variance among body types and brand-reported sizes that this doesn't seem like something crowdsourcing alone could ameliorate.

The OP is way overestimating the importance of body measurements and is targeting the wrong demographic.

1. What looks flattering varies drastically from one woman to the next, and the determining factor of what looks good on you isn't body measurements. It's body shape. Designers tend to target a specific body type, and women who shop for designer clothing need to identify which type they are. This is where style is hard, and where women could use help.

2. Body measurements help determine type, but it's not that straight forward. Petite women with have smaller differences in measurements to indicate type. Shape of certain body features (especially bust) isn't fully indicated by measurements.

3. Type is important not for fit but to determine what styles you should wear. If a user's measurements indicate narrow shoulders, you should not be displaying halter tops, even if the bust, waist and hips sizes are correct.

4. Women with enough money to buy designer clothes and care about fit also have enough money to pay a tailor. They are much more concerned about style and quality, and will pay someone else to make it fit them.

Mr. Borden, if you're still interested in the idea I have a few suggestions for your next iteration. Target women with enough money for nice clothes, but don't know how to shop for them.

Use either body measurements or some sort of questionnaire to determine a few important body characteristics- type, bust-size, petite, plus, tall, broad shoulders, ect- you could even ask what part of their body they like most/don't like. Market your platform to women as a way to discover their own personal style, to feel more confident in the body they have (self-image is a huge source of shame for many women). Hire some personal shoppers to help write blog posts on style, body type, confidence.

Then display clothing based on what would look good on that woman. Not size, style. So if she has a large bust, don't display turtlenecks. This is where you provide value.

You could take this a lot further- a user clicks on a top, show pictures of skirts or belts or shoes that would go with it, or even generate outfits that will flatter her.

Search is another way to provide value here. It would be awesome to say, I want to look at dresses with this or that neckline, or shirts that match this color.

Surveys have their place, but I'm a little surprised that a student of Steve Blank/Eric Ries' teachings wouldn't be "getting out of the building" and talking to people.

Indeed. Surveys can help you frame what you're looking for, but you need to talk to real people and get a bit more of an understanding of why they feel the way they do.

Sometimes it's tough, and a survey is a poor but doable substitute - I don't know how I would go about interviewing women in the +100k earnings range, and for one of my projects I did a survey because the potential customers were geographically far away.

However, I'd never have invested so much before knowing the audience.

And he had this HUGE problem of having invested his ego on a (probably very cool) solution, which is one of the toughest challenges for us tech types.

Fun fact: Women seem to be more willing to share their body measures than men:

http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=b...

n about 450 each

I'd wager that women are more likely to confidently know their measurements than men.

OK, that's what they say ... the body measurements these women say they'd submit, are they their actual measurements in units of length or their "dress size" in the shop that makes their sizes bigger every year to flatter their customers? Maybe that goes for men too?

What I can't get my head around is why anyone would choose to get clothes that don't fit when they could have ones that do? It seems like going to a restaurant and refusing to tell the waiter what you'd like to eat and instead hoping that what they'll bring is something you like.

Well I can imagine some scenarios, perhaps a spendthrift likes to get roomy clothes and so doesn't want a "perfect fit" because they can't afford to grow out of them after Sunday lunch. Or, maybe a "perfect fit" is interpreted as "skin tight"?

People are strange.

Any user who upvoted this story should lose all of their karma. A grade schooler could point out what is wrong and horrifically unscientific about this blog post.

The margins in high-end apparel are so high that it would be better to send three sizes rather than magically select the right one. It's also a better customer experience as the consumer gets a chance to try on merchandise that feel their way to the right choice for their particular body. It also appeals to affluent buyers because they feel the merchant is catering to them in a way that is common in an in-store experience.

This is why I wouldn't want to build a product where I'm not the target audience. You don't see me doing women's fashion startups, or tampon subscription as a service, or child/teen games, or whatever.

It's a problem because ~no 3 year old is an iOS developer, and most developers are 15-40 year old men, so it's less likely you'll find good products for 3 year olds vs. developer tools, but it does avoid this particular problem.

FWIW, some developers do have young kids. I make software for mine.

I this not just knowing your market?

I had a friend drop $20,000 on a new supplement and training business, built out an app for trainers the way he saw thought it should be, and recruited trainers. Lots. Showed them the app, and got a lot of feedback, but by then it was too late. He was out of money and no dev wanted a piece of the pie.

He should have done his market research first. The OP too, no?

http://fits.me/

These people are trying to solve this problem. They have also taken a very interesting route and built a robotic mannequin which can change it's shape.

In any case I don't think I will ever be able to give a better overview than the site itself.

It's funny.

If you want to look better than average, the first thing to pay attention to is how your clothes fit.

It is not possible to infer anything from such a low sample population (45). For statistically significant results, you would need to spend on the order of $1,000 not $100.

> I dropped over 40 grand

Pick it up and be more careful next time.

But really, the best line from Good Will Hunting is the "how about them apples" line. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmRe_fK7pbw

So many good lines....and I agree, that is the best

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