
Ask HN: Why will my startup fail? - tenashas
Why will my startup fail?<p>Hi HN,<p>I am creating my first online startup and would greatly appreciate your input.<p>ONE LINE PITCH:<p>Outfyts.com is the easiest way to create, share and purchase outfits from your favorite retailers and fashion bloggers<p>LONG WINDED SUMMARY:<p>Purchasing clothing online is cumbersome and unintuitive. Lets say you want to buy an entirely new outfit for the weekend. You will need to find a pair of shoes, pants and a top but doing so will most likely take you to multiple website and you will have to click back and forth between clothing categories and your shopping cart, constantly checking if your items create the look you want.<p>Outfyts simplifies the above process by creating content "streams", clothing categories arranged vertically so that you can see the entire outfit as you build it. Clothing is aggregated from around the web from your favorite brands and stylists and can be filtered by price, style, brand, color, etc.<p>Please check out my site at Outfyts.com (http://outfyts.com/#/screens/d12245cc-1680-458d-89dd-4f0d7fb22724) where you can try a simple demo of this new method of outfit creation.<p>I am in the "validation" stage of my startup, therefore ALL feedback is appreciated.<p>-Do you think Outfyts will make online shopping better and simpler? Why or why not?
-Do you think you would use this service? Do you think your wife/daughter/friend would use this service?
-Imagine the one thing that you wish you could change about shopping online. Is there anyway that Outfyts can solve it?
-Polyvore.com has a free outfit creator here: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/app
-Do you like it more than Outfyts? Whats better, whats worse?<p>--Your input is priceless, thank you!--
======
Kanbab
People have contributed lots of words. Ask a sorority president if you can
give beta access to all of their members, send them all an email and see how
100 new girls use the app.

If you rely on HackerNews for your feedback exclusively, that is why you will
fail.

~~~
rdouble
I used to work at a big fashion e-commerce site, and this is the best advice
in the thread. Don't rely on nerds for feedback on anything related to
fashion. Try to get it in front of people who will actually be using it.

------
velvet
I can't see myself using this as a service for casual wear, or even office
wear.

In line with BobbyH's point 2 - I'd suggest looking into formalwear and
weddings markets. In the "not wearing a white/ivory/champagne gown", it's
really hard to find a way to match gown, hair accessories, shoes, bags etc,
and then add in bridesmaids.

If you can find a way to select matching gowns - that would be hugely popular
in both wedding and formalwear markets (going to prom with your besties with
gowns that look awesome together I'd bet would get people in the door to your
service, and if you can convert that to loyalty...)

Weddings and formal events are times when people spend more than they
otherwise might on matching clothes and accessories, and for many will be the
only occasions where they'd indulge themselves in a completely new outfit from
head to toe.

------
ConceitedCode
It's refreshing to see someone validate their idea like this and asking why it
won't work. Too many times I've seen start ups jump right in and go for broken
without careful validation.

Ultimately, I would not use your product because it's rare I buy a whole
outfit at once and I like to try on my clothes before I buy them. Usually when
I buy clothes it's more of an impulse buy and planning a whole out fit would
give me time to think about the purchase and by then the impulse is gone.
These reasons seem to be shared with the 2 low 20's females I asked.

~~~
tenashas
Thanks for your input (and that of your friends)ConceitedCode!

I realize that at this point one of my major faults is the confusion or lack
of information in the video. You mentioned that its rare for you to buy an
entire outfit at once. Once an outfit is created it is saved and displayed on
the website for others to see, comment, and puchase. Each article of clothing
could be purchased individually or as a whole. Discounts for purchasing whole
outfits come to mind but that's an entirely different topic.

------
EllaMentry
I like the demo!

Why I think you may fail:

* Shopping is still an in person, social experience - I only ever buy clothes online when I cannot find what I want in store (mainly for reasons of sizing and color).

* While there is definitely a market for online clothes, I do not believe it intersects much with the group of people who are willing to pay $700 for a pair of shoes (it is as much the experience of the store and the purchase as it is about the shoe) - I have paid $100-200 on a dress online, and it took me a long time to come to a decision (considerations of dealing with the hassle of sending it back, getting a new size etc. in the event it didn't fit.) Anything over that price range I would visit a store, the customer service element is valuable to me, I know I am going to leave the store with exactly what I want (and probably some extras...)

* For me outfits are nearly always a mesh of old and new, unless it's a dress then generally tights and some accessories are all that is needed. I don't think I have ever bought a complete outfit, just bits and pieces that may go together and with my other clothes.

* As others have said, a one-click buy everything would make this more attractive, having to buy each from a separate store and pay separate s/h would kill this idea for me completely.

* Another of my pain points of shopping online is delivery times. Having lived in the UK, where I can get next day delivery from certain stores (even shopping as late as 9PM) it was a culture shock when I moved to Canada to be faced with week long delivery times even if I get express delivery! My understanding is it is very similar in the states. When I buy clothes I generally want them ASAP!

All the best with the idea though!

------
anywherenotes
>>Imagine the one thing that you wish you could change about shopping online.

I think it's about time we (consumers) can test out clothing online. Upload
our picture, or better yet 3-d render us. Make sure we can move around, to see
how the clothing looks like when sitting, walking, whatever.

If you're selling a car, let us drive it in your virtual space, let us drive
up to some other cars, and take a look how our car looks like compared to
others.

Since you're letting users match outfits, will there be an option to match
current items of clothing? Lets say user has a skirt and shoes, but not a
matching top. Would they be able to find matching top using same mechanism for
skirts+shoes your site sells?

Personally I never bought clothing online. To me the most important thing is
if it fits, and if it's a shirt than how it feels (I don't care how pants
feel). If you can take my measurements over built-in-camera, find matching
pants, and send them to me for a low price, I might use the service. If you
send it to me with a return-bag (just in case pants don't fit), I will use the
service. You don't have to target me though. Good luck.

------
josephpmay
I'm really, really impressed. This is one of the best implementations I have
seen of "visual-based" online shopping. My biggest questions are: 1) How
seamless will the purchasing experience be? Can you purchase the entire outfit
from the website, or do I have to go to each individual retailer's website to
make the purchase? This could make or break the website, and I would highly
encourage you to find a way to be able to allow customers to purchase outfits
directly on your website and have the orders forwarded to the retailers. 2)
How customizable will the website be. I almost had a heart attack
(metaphorically, of course) when I saw how expensive the shoes were in your
demo video. I would suggest that you have options to put a price cap on the
outfit and to launch with many different customization options (such as
choosing outfit type by occasion, only showing clothes available in your size,
etc.) -I really liked how it said "Don't worry, I'm only 40 seconds long" on
the video.

------
6d0debc071
> Do you think Outfyts will make online shopping better and simpler?

I don't know. It looks very slick. I'm just unsure whether many people
actually buy outfits as a whole.

> Do you think you would use this service?

Probably not, I don't buy my outfits all in one go.

On the other hand the ability to quickly compare a variety of different
combinations of things with your scrolling mechanism is a plus. I might buy a
skirt because I can see it goes well with a _variety_ of tops similar to the
ones I already have. You might want the ability to stick things in the basket
individually to cater for people who like to mix and match in that way.

> Imagine the one thing that you wish you could change about shopping online.
> Is there anyway that Outfyts can solve it?

I'm never entirely sure that something's going to fit. If I could just enter
my measurements on one site and it could handle the working out for me, that
would be good.

> [Polyvore] Do you like it more than Outfyts? Whats better, whats worse?

No, I don't like it more. The main thing that's worse is that it doesn't run
properly in my browser (Opera). Firing up IE however....

Making me load the next page to see the next set of clothes is annoying.

Having the filters for tops and so on as tags that I have to manually take off
rather than just being able to click a larger button to return to the root of
the interface is non-intuitive. I may like a top and want to compare it with
one of the skirts I've been looking at very quickly and then go back to the
jeans I was just looking at and see them with another top. The ability to jump
back and forth between different categories like that isn't really there for
them.

It does let you sort by price and by colour. Which is nice.

Considering its drag and drop nature, it should let you dress up a doll - or
an outline or something like that so that there's something visual to put the
clothes onto. Not having the outfits all in the same scale so that you have to
drag about resizing the things by hand is tiresome.

------
orangethirty
Have you ever watched people shopping? Buying the clothes is part of the whole
experience. Abstracting it away removes a big part of it. You buy trendy
clothing in trendy stores so that people can see you buying there. Why do you
think clothing stores have such big and attention grabbing bags? People want
to be seen walking down the mall with the bag.

Also, validate by taking a laptop to a clothing store and standing in front of
the fitting rooms. Have people use the system. Realize how different it is
from reality. Adjust accordingly.

~~~
caw
Case in point - I saw a vanity plate this weekend that said "Shopper" on it.
That's probably an extreme case, but it may provide insight into what
influences a heavy shopper.

------
sharemywin
If you can buy the whole outfit at one store. Also, be able to click on items
to see them closer up. a tooltip that has size and availablity. a little left
and right arrow that allowed it to scroll automatically. Also, people need to
be able to tag or pin or share on facebook pintrest. Maybe even let friends
comment on the outfit you arranged. Also, be able to scramble the
combinations.

------
josho
Have you considered working with the retailers or manufacturers? I suspect
retailers would love something like this if you could bring their past
customers back into their store.

My second thought is that I hope you are spending most if your energies
talking to your potential customers/channels. I suspect the feedback here will
be of limited value give. How far we are from your target.

Good luck!

------
BobbyH
Good luck! In the spirit of your post, here are four reasons that I think the
opportunity you are currently pursuing will fail.

First, you are not making something that people want. The primary customer you
have to satisfy here are fashion bloggers (as once you get them, you will get
access to end consumers). However, I would speculate that the ability to
easily create "outfits" is not the #1 pain for fashion bloggers. In general,
customers want to solve their #1 pain. If you solve a problem that is NOT your
customers' #1 pain, you will find it very hard to get the attention of those
customers.

To address this issue, I would call fashion bloggers and ask them what their
problems are. I would speculate that "easily making outfits" is not their #1
problem.

Second, fashion bloggers aren't a very profitable customer to pursue, so a
business that targets that market will find it hard to make money. By
contrast, if you targeted an industry that makes money, your customers would
have more revenue to share with you. On a related note, many fashion bloggers
are not making enough to make a full-time living, so they don't think of their
fashion blogs as a business. Thus, even if you create a product that makes
them money, they may still not adopt your product.

To address this issue, I would find a more profitable customer to pursue that
makes at least $50,000 a year. Also, I would make sure that those customers
consider what they do to be their main source of income. This would exclude
hobbyists.

Third, I would be concerned that it's hard to reach fashion bloggers to market
your product to them. Yes, you can pitch them by email or Twitter. However,
fashion bloggers are innudated with pitches, and often ignore them.

To address this issue, I would target a market that wants to be reached, so
you can easily reach them to pitch your product.

Fourth, fashion bloggers aren't used to paying for software. Thus, you would
have a harder time convincing them to pay you for your software. Compare this
to, say, a salesperson, who is used to paying for a CRM and all sorts of
software.

To address this issue, you would have to find a way to make money without
directly charging your user (the fashion blogger). One way to do this is to
require your product be linked with your third-party affiliate codes, and then
do a revenue-share on those affiliate earnings. However, this would be hard
for fashion bloggers to accept, and would require policing on your part.

In conclusion, I would urge you to switch your focus to (1) solving the #1
pain for (2) a lucrative market that (3) you can reach easily and (4) that is
used to buying software.

Good luck!

~~~
sudoscience
One one hand you say fashion bloggers are a small market because there are not
a lot of them, and on the other hand you say you have to cater them to get to
a bigger market; this does not compute.

To the original poster: I don't think you have to market to fashion bloggers
at all. It helps if they see value in what you do and they promote it, but
they are not your final customer: pay attention to your end customer's needs
instead.

------
xijuan
I think I am extremely bad at matching clothes. If this website can really
solve this problem for me, I would use it in a long run. So in short, I would
try and if it works for me, I would continue using it. If the result is not
too great, I won't.

------
sharemywin
Make sure people can share the whole outfit with friends and you won't have a
problem. Your's is better than polyvore.com. Adding filters would help though.

------
meric
Sounds like something I'll use once or twice - and if it's particularly good,
maybe once or twice every one or two years.

Corresponds to my frequency for clothes shopping.

------
timmm
Just seems like a gimmick and not exactly useful. I just don't think it's a
big pain problem.

~~~
tenashas
Hi timmm thanks for your reply. The long term goal is to translate this into a
mobile app. Have you used netflix or pulse on your phone or ipad? Both have
implemented a side scrolling UI which makes it easy to navigate. Assuming you
are accustomed to online shopping would it be easier to create and purchase
outfits this way?

~~~
timmm
I don't see the value of comparing consumer device navigation techniques to
the idea/gimmick of designing a whole outfit on a website.

Sure the navigation strategy is good for mobile/tablet browsing - no question
there. But I'm not sure the designing an outfit in this way is something
people will want.

But hey, give it a shot. Who knows.

------
sudoscience
The two big reasons startups fail are:

a) They don't provide benefit to the customer b) Their product isn't directed
towards the right customer

In context of your product, here's how I think each of those may apply.

    
    
        a) They don't provide benefit to the customer
    

Here you have an interface to help create whole outfits. This is ostensibly
valuable because most agree that a complete outfit is generally a better
fashion choice that unrelated pieces of clothing. However, does this provide
benefit to the customer? Well, I am not sure. For example, myself, personally,
I pick out six outfits at a physical store and buy maybe one or two of them.
Some of the clothes just don't fit well, others must don't quite go together
(this shirt is too long for these pants). It is sort of hard to say if you
have a market that would love this; if you do, I am not it. I feel there are
two types of shoppers, those who want to pick out the whole outfit, and those
who would rather have their entire outfit chosen for them by people with
trusted fashion taste. I am actually the first one, but I still don't want
this. My suspicion is that you may have built a feature and not a benefit.

Conclusion: if you haven't done market research DO IT. Run a Google Consumer
Survey if you want to get something done quickly. Troll fashion forums.
Question customers on their process of picking an outfit. How do they do it?
What is important to them? You might find most people do not want to buy total
outfits online for the reasons I mentioned above (or others). Or you may find
I am an outlier.

    
    
        b)   Their product isn't directed towards the right customer
    

So, it could be that your product has value but it isn't directed at the right
customer. To riff off of above (and to use examples others in this thread have
noted), what if you turned the idea on its head and only had precompiled
outfits (cater to men/busy professionals). Alternatively, someone mentioned
price...do people really buy $700 shoes online? (Cater to market that is
possibly more likely to buy outfits online).

Conclusion: Again market research can solve this for you (Q: How much do you
normally spend on a pair of shoes when you buy them online? $0-50, $50-100,
$100-200, $200-400, $400+).

The validation stage of your startup should happen before you've built
anything. If you've done this, great! If not, get on that before you type one
more line of code.

Now, smaller reasons it might not work:

    
    
        a)  The name
    

Yes, you can overcome screwy names with a great product, but it is best to try
not to. I know you may have actually paid a lot for the domain, but if you did
consider it lost money and move on. The real problem with it is that everyone
who actually wants to use your service will go to outfits.com instead, get
frustrated it isn't what they wanted (it just times out, looks like someone
has been sitting on the domain for 15 years), then give up on your service.
The only way cute names work is if they are both easy to say and cannot
possibly be confused with another domain (i.e, not a real word, like Quora) or
spelled quite different but easily distinguishable from the word they are
replacing (Boxee).

    
    
        b) The demo doesn't work
    

For me, it doesn't behave like the video--I don't see prices as I shuffle
outfits. This may be intentional at an early stage but that video sets my
expectations it works already. Aslo, right and left clicking don't work for me
either as the instruction below the outfits suggest and get in an inconsistent
state where I can't reselect. Sure, this would never make it front of
customers as-is, but unless you are bootstrapping this you'll want somthing
far better than this to show to investors.

    
    
        c)  Revealing lack of traction
    

Only 15 people like this on facebook? Reddit famously padded their service
with fake comments and articles when they started. I am not suggesting you do
that, but fashion is a trendy business and unless 1k people like this no one
else is going to hit that button. My friend is a SHITTY photographer and she
still has 80 pity likes from her friends for her photography business page on
FB, you can get at least a couple hundred (or not show the number). Play the
fashion trend game: know your audience and appear in fashion yourself.

Now some things you've done right!:

    
    
        a) design
    

It looks good. The logo is great, the animation makes sense. It is clean,
functional. Great job!

    
    
        b)  Gathering feedback from others
    

This is good you're asking us. Asking customers questions is better, but this
is good. So many startups just go, hey, let's launch this thing with no
questions asked and a bunch of assumptions.

~~~
tenashas
sudoscience I really appreciate your detailed input!

As it turns out the video is confusing viewers about some of the features of
the site and will have to be changed asap.

a) They don't provide benefit to the customer

You mentioned that users may not want to buy total outfits and that other
users prefer to have an outfit chosen by someone else. The outfits that
shoppers create are saved on completion and displayed on the website (think
pinterest) for others to comment on, save or purchase. Each item could be
purchased individually or as a whole outfit. If buying the entire outfit is
not required would the website appeal to you?

If a casual shopper does not want to create an outfit but instead is looking
to buy a certain item or maybe change his/her style she will be able to follow
other users (think lyst.com) based on the outfits that they create and make
purchases then.

b)Their product isn't directed towards the right customer

You are right about the cost of items vs. purchasing them online. The $600
Jimmy Choo does not reflect the type of user that I would expect to have. On
the flip side there are online luxury retailers that serve up items well over
1k (net-a-porter) but that is a smaller market.

b) The demo doesn't work

Bootstrapping. The demo is not intended to work as you see in the video and I
understand that a viewers expectations may be broken after giving it a try. I
did not want to use one of those someones-hand-draws-explanation-of-website
videos. When I created the video I wanted it to be flashy and enticing,
encouraging the viewer to sign up for the future service. Would you recommend
that I change the video to someones-hand or remove the try me section
entirely? Which was more attractive to you, the video or being able to get it
a (very limited) try?

Thanks again for taking the time to offer your insight!

~~~
NoodleIncident
My two cents:

Isn't one of the stereotypical first world problems, from before the term even
existed, finding out you're wearing the same outfit as someone else? Why is
the ability to copy an outfit a desired feature?

