10000+ people told us their size in their favorite brands. Here's our site. | Hacker News Reader

10000+ people told us their size in their favorite brands. Here's our site.

fitbay.com

3 pointswylonis8 comments

I was expecting an article, not having to request an invite for a service. Maybe change the title to make it clear the result is a company, not information?

I can see how you would have expected that. I have changed the title, but I think it's too late either way. I'll have to be clearer next time!

I flagged the submission before reading this response. I clicked the link from my feed reader (which is how I consume HN). I was expecting some insightful commentary on the data collected, but was instead dumped on a lead generation form. In the consumer expectation context, I was "offened".

If this is your general marketing tact, I'd consider revising it a bit. The text of a link sets an expectation for users. When they click through, the degree to which the content matches that expectation will set the tone for the rest of the interaction. The feeling of being "duped" in to clicking is amongst the worst that a user can feel.

Please understand that I'm not making an indictment of the character of your marketing. I anticipate your gut reaction will be "we didn't intend that". No one intends to offend customers, but sometimes it happens.

I’ve always had major difficulties with finding clothes that fit. For as long as I can remember, I have been tall & skinny with an extremely narrow waist, and so pretty much every shirt or pair of slacks that I have ever owned have fit me poorly. To make matters worse, I decided to try online shopping a few years ago, only to realize that I was spending even more time returning clothes because they were the wrong size or fit.

While growing up, my best friend and I have always shared the same exact height, weight and body type and so we've always been able to share our wardrobes and advice with each other. It then came to me last year that this act of sharing was something people all over the world could truly benefit from.

So we slowly started building our website, www.fitbay.com, with the ultimate goal of building a community that would help everyone with discovering all the brands and products in the world in the right size & fit. Basically, you plug in your height, weight and body type and we’re able to instantly show you clothes that fit you based on the recommendations people with your exact measurements have made.

To get the initial recommendations we needed, I organized about 3-4 coffee meetings, inside & outside of work each and every day, asking friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances (and people on Reddit) to share with us their height, weight, and sizes they wear in their favorite brands. In doing so, we were able to, quite early, create the sensation of a “personalized store created just for you where everything fits” and a community of people who share the same fit-related issues.

In just 5 months we’ve now grown from just 50 to over 10,000 unique profiles on Fitbay having shared a total of 60,000+ unique product recommendations.

Help us out by visiting the site www.fitbay.com and sharing your thoughts here, and please do let us know if you have any ideas or feedback. Keep in mind that the community is still invite-only, but if you sign up using the link above I’ll do my best to make sure you get access within 24 hours.

Your site... in under private invite, with a CSS spam popup? TC;DR

Sorry about that Adam - it's the only way that I can track and make sure people get access if they sign up.

Maybe just put the article up on your blog? So it can be read without having to sign up?

I am still curious about the sizing data. Think about how well okcupid did by publishing blog articles analysing their dating data!

You're completely right - I should have posted it on my blog. Would be happy to answer any questions you might have about the sizing data btw.

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