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bernieyooon My close encounter with a pay-to-pitch investor

ahh that would be because I"m an idiot. Thanks for the heads up.

bernieyooon My close encounter with a pay-to-pitch investor

No particular reason, just giving a 2-sentence context to why I posted the link.

bernieyooon The known unknowns of e-commerce startups

Just a ton of SMH moments. It's really funny, and then you realize those stupid things are costing you a lot of money.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Respectfully disagree, our goal is to establish a lifetime relationship with our customers, not churn-and-burn them out within first 3 months. If we sent clothes that fell apart people would stop using us.

We want users to come back to us for their wardrobe needs whenever they find they need them. That's why we built the product to be flexible, so you can schedule your next shipment when you want, or even pause indefinitely.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Ooh ok, not yet available up North - hoping to be there by summer.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

We do send multiple items per month on user request. Just email us at bombsquad[at]bombfell[dot]com after you sign up.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

That in a nutshell is what we want to fix. Clothing retail online and offline isn't built with the majority of guys in mind. I think there's a large, silent majority of guys who would buy clothes more often with better guidance and curation.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Yea we definitely want to offer clothing at reasonable prices. We're bringing web technology to the traditionally offline/manual process of personal styling so that we don't have to charge exorbitantly high prices to turn a profit. More automated, less 1:1 back-and-forth, but still with fantastic customer service.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Are you using any extensions? I'm using Chrome on OSX and not able to replicate that.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

And by abroad I mean "not US." Sorry, ignorant American here :)

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Sorry! Are you by chance located abroad?

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Thanks for the tip!

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Don't need to be embarrassed or ashamed. I think you'll find there's a marked quality difference at 10x cheaper, just because the economics wouldn't work out if you used higher quality materials and design and sold for 10x cheaper.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

I think the issue is cost-driven. Particularly if you're going to offer free shipping both ways, you're going to have to charge a certain floor to make a profit after the manufacturing cost of the clothes. If you ship a 2 pound package (pretty reasonable estimate for pants) across the US, you're potentially looking at $20 hit if you pay for shipping there and they choose to return it.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

@arethuza We've found the significant other's approval is a critical factor in keeping it :)

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Yes! Email me bernie[at]bombfell[dot]com and I'll save your email to the notify list for Down Undah.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Just commented elsewhere in this thread about this, we intentionally made the service super flexible so it's not a "cram things down your throat" model. You can rush or delay your next shipment, cancel a pick if you don't like how it looks, set frequency to every 2 or every 3 months or put your membership on pause indefinitely. Because we pay for shipping both ways, we only make money if we're sending you stuff you actually want.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

We've intentionally made it super flexible. You can rush or delay your next shipment, choose to skip a month, ask for another pick if you don't like it. Can change frequency to every 2 or 3 months if you'd like too. Can indefinitely put account on pause.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Hey I'm a founder. We actually just started picking up real Big & Tall sizing within past 2 months. Still gathering data on how B&T fits guys' bodies, but learning a lot.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

We love the Manpacks team! Lots of respect for the trailblazing they did.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

With e-comm, the issue with Europe (from the prelim investigations we've done) is the lack of centralized shipping service. Whereas in US you can use one system to cost-effectively reach any of 300 million people, for Europe you're dealing with lot of local fiefdoms, OR you're paying significantly higher rates for UPS/Fedex. Not to mention return logistics!

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Welcome aboard! Let me know if you have any questions or requests any time. bernie[at]bombfell[dot]com

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Not yet - still iterations on the service we want to push through before expanding to UK.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

I'll go ahead and definitively say "no it wouldn't make money" selling off brand goods at premium brand prices :)

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

1. We keep track of friends via the personalized invite codes to prevent just that. Even if you don't use those codes, every item is picked for your body shape, skin tone etc. so odds of that happening are low.

2. Already answered :)

3. You can also set preferences in your dashboard to NEVER receive categories (eg you can turn "jeans" off).

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

That's on the roadmap. We didn't start out with that because you run into the Kozmo.com problem (lots of human-powered service for a few bucks). We still have to make enough margin to clothe and feed the stylists making your picks :)

No it's not one-size-fits-all, every pick is personalized literally to you. We also keep track of friends through the invite codes to prevent #twinning.

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Undetermined - int'l shipping logistics are a Gordian Knot!

bernieyooon Subscription Men’s Clothing Startup Bombfell Raises $730,000 Seed Round

Sorry for the delay - international shipping is NOT pretty. Particularly when you want to enable cost-effective, painless returns.