
99Dresses (YC W12) wants to give women an infinite closet - garry
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/26/99dresses-wants-to-give-women-an-infinite-closet/
======
guynamedloren
For those of you who are confused about the 'button system' (virtual
currency), here's what I think they're going for:

By introducing virtual currency, the money put into the 99dresses _stays_ in
the 99dresses system. If real money were traded, a person could easily dump
all of their unwanted clothes and be done with it. This isn't what 99dresses
want. They want to build a community. They don't want to lose you after
dumping your clothes - they want you to engage and interact by picking up
secondhand clothes from other members of the community. They want to be your
primary clothing provider - or close to it.

It's also worth noting that spending 'buttons' doesn't _feel_ like spending
money (even though they are equivalent to real money), which leads to impulse
decisions and less friction. For the users, it feels more like an exchange
than pouring in your hard earned money. The obstacle, of course, is drawing in
new users, but once they're in, they're in.

~~~
jmilloy
By using the buttons, 99dresses makes their system more fragile than
necessary, and excludes people who could help build the community. Consider
that most people won't need more than a few dresses worth of buttons. So
someone who has 300 dresses has no incentive to upload them all to the site.
Someone else has already pointed out that dresses need to be able to come
_out_ of the pool. Again that doesn't happen if money can't come back out. I
might not even get to choose a dress I want if I'm worried that I won't be
able to trade it again. The flow of dresses in and out is restricted, and
that's not a good thing for the company.

Why not allow people to exchange buttons back for money, just at a lower rate?

~~~
guynamedloren
> _dresses need to be able to come out of the pool_

Why? When you receive a dress, it is set to a disabled state on the site
(rendering it unavailable for others). I'm guessing a dress can be in this
state indefinitely, if one desires to keep a dress forever.

> _I might not even get to choose a dress I want if I'm worried that I won't
> be able to trade it again_

When would this happen? Why would you not be able to trade it again?

It sounds like you're confused about the logistics in play. The system is
effectively the same as any other buying and selling marketplace, but virtual
currency is used in place of dollars.

~~~
jmilloy
You're assuming that the supply and demand of dresses is balanced, and in
particular that any particular dress will always be in demand.

You're right - you can keep a dress forever and it's not on the website.
That's not really what I mean by "out of the system". Dresses need to be able
to come out of the system because they go out of style, or get too used, and
nobody wants them again. If I'm trading dresses and then get stuck with one,
in a way it's still "in the system" and clogging it up. I can't participate
until I buy back in again.

On the other hand, I already can't really remember why I blamed the virtual
currency for this particular problem, so you're right about that, too. This
problem exists when you use dollars, too.

------
samstave
This is interesting. My wife has a closet full of literally ~300 dresses. Many
she has worn only once. They range from forever 21 to Bebe, BCBG, Dolce and
Gabana and the like.

This would be ideal for her - however I think the button thing where you get
button credits, but when it says "the seller pays for shipping and handling"
this seems a little like a disincentive.

Do you get button credits for the shipping costs?

Who determines the button value of a given dress? The site or the seller?

Whats the typical shipping cost - and are savvy selleres accounting for this
in their set button price?

It would be a hell of a lot smoother if you would print out a shipping label
from 99dresses which has the buyers address etc on it. The cost comes out of
the buyers button credits etc..

When I buy something from Amazon, I pay the shipping cost as the buyer - why
the heck is it good to make the seller pay this, get a box fill out the label
etc...

This alone will prevent my wife from using this service. Even though she is an
ideal candidate.

~~~
marquis
Shipping labels is something I would pay a subscription for, as well as early
access to newly received clothes. Try as hard as I might to buy beautiful
things that should last me a lifetime, I am excited to try this service out.
What will be the killer for me is the fit of the clothes. The _real_ killer
app that many are waiting for, is the ability to match an item to our figure
and a get a real-time preview. I've seen suggestions of this at Siggraph but
nothing consumer-ready.

~~~
AlexDanger
_The real killer app that many are waiting for, is the ability to match an
item to our figure and a get a real-time preview. I've seen suggestions of
this at Siggraph but nothing consumer-ready._

I agree 100%, this is the killer app. My wife independently suggested this
idea after buying some clothes online that technically were the right size but
didnt provide a good fit for her body. I told her that it was a _very_
difficult problem from a computer science perspective. Have you got any links
(to Siggraph or others) which have taken a look at this problem in detail?

Aside from the obvious technical challenges, I did wonder how a site like this
would handle some of the delicate issues around uploading pictures and/or 3D
models of a woman's figure. How would this work? Would women be standing in
their underwear in front of a webcam and rotating the body as prompted? Even
if the collected data is a single texture or point cloud, it still could be
considered a little...invasive? Not to mention the privacy issues.

~~~
samstave
You'd need to be able to upload pics, convert to a 3d point cloud based on
height and weight entries and not store the original pics.

Then use that information to construct a 3d model and apply clothing textures
accurately to them

What would be really cool though, is an inflatable mannequin which could be
inflated to near perfectly match that point cloud, which would then be clothed
in the garment you want and you would receive a pic of your figure in that
actual garment.

~~~
swombat
<http://fits.me/> does exactly hat. Not sure why it hasn't picked up yet,
though...

~~~
samstave
HOLY SHIT

That is awesome!!!

<http://i.imgur.com/s47Z8.png>

------
nostromo
I love these business models that find ways to put unused inventory / capacity
to good use and reduce overall consumption in the process. My most recent
favorite is a "tools as a service" co-op in Seattle:
<http://wstoollibrary.org/>

Cheers to fewer underutilized dresses and belt sanders ending up in landfills.

~~~
nmcfarl
Well that link just got mailed to everyone I know in West Seattle. Definitely
more useful to my demographic than the product being discussed. :)

------
nicolethenerd
"... Durkin decided to shut down the Australian site and give the US market a
go — So she applied to Y Combinator, and got accepted. ..."

Doesn't it bother any of you that she abandoned her entire Australian
userbase?

~~~
rodh257
exactly what I came here to say.. What happened to all the virtual buttons?
Whoever currently had a dress keeps it and those who didn't ended up with
nothing? Or did she pay them out for their buttons?

'She says the site was so beloved in Australia that women still email her
asking when it will be back up, “I’ve proven the model in Oz."' If it was
proven in Australia, why shut it down? Did she need to shut it down for
investors to take a look? Is there some YC criteria that wont let you have a
successful product already?

~~~
marquis
She may not have been making a lot of money, and I'm sure she did the best she
could for her customers (returned dresses or money). If it was her full-time
job, Y-Combinator isn't going to work well for her if she has to also manage a
company in Australia. I'm all for her giving it a good go in a bigger market
and either a competitor will spring up in her place in Australia or she'll
come back with better tools and support to her home country.

------
natasham25
Ok, so I went to the site expecting to get some "buttons" as part of
onboarding new users, but instead I started out with 0 buttons and no idea how
to get these buttons to actually get a dress. After digging around the FAQ
section, it says that I can purchase the buttons for $1 or upload my own
dress. I don't have a dress to upload, and buying a used dress for $40 - $110
just doesn't make sense - I can buy a brand new dress for that much. Also,
even if I were to upload a dress, I wouldn't get any "buttons" until I
actually sell the dress. Not coming back to this site again.

~~~
Dove
I agree! Those prices are nuts. The really weird thing about them is the range
-- I see everything from 4 buttons to 160! That makes me really wonder how
they're set.

Even with the variation, the bulk of them appear to be $40 or more, which
seems like a lot to me. If one is shopping used, pretty dresses can be had for
under $10 at a thrift store. It makes _no_ sense to pay so much for a dress I
can't even try on first!

------
vacri
_For example, with furniture you buy a new couch or a bed and then you have
one, you don’t need another one or a different one two weeks later. Not so
with dresses or shoes._

'need' is an interesting word to use in this context.

~~~
chc
No more weird than the use in your profile: "the moderation system on HN is in
dire need of an overhaul". In reality, nothing globally catastrophic will
happen if either does not come to pass. Both are really more like "strongly
felt personal preferences". Hopefully the usage makes more sense now.

~~~
cma
Only one of the two has a positional externality that cancels out all of the
utility.

~~~
chc
That depends entirely on what "utility" you're assigning to the things in the
first place.

------
adriand
I didn't see anyone saying this yet, so I'll say it: this is an excellent
idea. My wife literally (and I do mean literally) has a closet full (in fact,
_stuffed_ ) with clothes and she constantly complains that she can't wear any
of it, that they don't fit her any more, etc. And this is a walk-in closet.

I don't know if she would like this service or not (a lot of it would, like
many web apps, come down to how easy it was for her to use) but if she did,
man oh man, would you ever have a dedicated customer. And I bet that goes for
thousands, if not millions, of other women. Great idea!!!

------
maaku
Sizes are never standard--you really have to try something on to know if it
fits. How have you solved this problem?

~~~
kmfrk
I don't know if it's something that needs to be addressed. People who are more
lenient are the target demographic more than people who would otherwise not
rely on an online service.

EDIT: On an unrealted note, the name "Forever 21" is incredibly sad.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I've always assumed that Forever 21 appealed most to the under-21 crowd.

~~~
philwelch
Just as "Seventeen" magazine is typically read by girls under the age of
seventeen.

------
bootload
_"... Durkin decided to shut down the Australian site and give the US market a
go — So she applied to Y Combinator, and got accepted. ..."_

The idea that stands out most to me, is this is the sort of idea and company,
few male hackers could make work.

------
djb_hackernews
I started hacking on this idea a while ago but lost interest, and didn't
really think I could execute being a male with no sense for what women want
online or fashion. However, my idea was a bit different, and I hope 99dresses
can read this and ponder it.

Basically, my killer feature was piggy backing on Facebook. Women love to
upload photos, the photos are usually of them looking good in their dresses,
the social network is already there to provide viral growth. So basically all
a user would have to do is select from photos they've already uploaded, and
describe the dress. Then their friends could see who has what dress available
and see what it looked like actually being worn on a dress model they
personally know.

My model really only worked with immediate friends, and was based on
borrowing. Monetization I imagined would come from advertising shoes,
accessories, and other dresses etc. But who knows, maybe women are willing to
buy dresses from their friends?

~~~
Au_Lona
I had the same exact idea as you but unfortunately could not find the right
technical co-founder. As some of the comments mentioned, most technical males
do not get very excited when it comes to fashion :)

I think it can still be done though, so the best of luck to Nikki and all the
other sites that are trying to solve this problem. It is a big market and
someone is bound to find the right solution that will work for the masses.

~~~
djb_hackernews
Who are the others? Got any links? Maybe we should talk.

~~~
Au_Lona
Sure send me an email lona.alia@gmail.com. Got lots of links and info on this
space.

------
Eliezer
But - if you create an infinitely large closet, it will collapse into a black
hole of infinite mass and pull the rest of the universe in on itself! Not only
that, if you start with a completely full closet with numbered hangers and
reach in for a shirt, all of the shirts will move forward one place, creating
a new empty hanger even though the closet contains the same number of shirts
and hangers! Which violates Conservation of Energy! That's not just an
arbitrary rule, it's implied by the form of the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting
it destroys unitarity and then you get FTL signaling -

What? They're trying to create a large finite closet? The universe is in no
danger? Curse you, TechCrunch! Fooled again!

------
nullflux
I am afraid of how this will actually turn out. I think the biggest problem is
going to be sorting the signal to noise ratio: women's fashion is ephemeral as
well as seasonal. Items people want will be in perennially short supply, and
items that fall "out" are going to jam up search results. How do they plan on
keeping the most relevant content in stock? If they know, tell them how to get
F21/Zara/H&M to do it as well, because they sell out of a lot of things
quickly.

The user experience for this could get bad fast when a new user signs on to
trade their month-old H&M+<insert expensive designer> collaboration and finds
nothing but a bunch last summer's Forever 21 shirts with cheeky slogans. That
doesn't look so good. It's like going to the video rental store ten years ago
and having them say "Whoops, we're all out of that new release, but we've got
a few copies of Groundhog Day!"

------
ryanwanger
I'm sure there is a market for this, but that saddens the non-consumer in me
(that someone would feel as though they can't wear the same piece of clothing
more than once).

~~~
rprospero
True, but this site will actually help on that front. The site is a used
clothing store that's trying to bypass the stigma attached to used clothes.
They're harnessing consumers into a recycling program.

------
jilebedev
Isn't half the thrill in "not wearing anything twice" that you're always
wearing something _new_? It'd be a bit drab to wear something another person
has maybe stained or worn in. A good part of the appeal is the "new clothes"
feeling, right?

~~~
prawn
Some of it, but it's offset by the cost. Women will lend each other dresses
quite often. My sisters-in-law are regularly around at our place borrowing
clothes and bags from my wife.

------
stevengg
I saw something like this on r/malefashionadvice but they would mail you a box
of stuff every month and you would just keep what you liked and mail back what
didn't fit or you didn't want. looks like a few sites are doing it now

[http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/gyg6z/i_g...](http://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/comments/gyg6z/i_got_my_first_trunk_from_trunk_club_what_are/)

<https://www.trunkclub.com/>

<http://www.frankandoak.com/>

<http://www.manpacks.com/>

------
jergason
I love this idea. I am a poor, but fashion-conscious man. Is there a similar
service for men out there?

~~~
lukev
I agree that this is a problem for men. However, I don't think a clothing
exchange/rental is the way to go.

If I find a pair of pants or a shirt that fits me well and I enjoy, I will
_keep_ it and wear it repeatedly until it is too worn or stretched out.

In a lot of ways, that's the opposite problem form what this site is trying to
solve.

~~~
jergason
I think some men consume clothing this way. I think there are some who use the
model of wearing lots of different clothes as well. I would if I could, but
for now I stick to a small number of comfortable pants and shirts.

------
zeteo
I don't understand the need for creating their own currency (the "buttons"
system). I hope it's something very smart, because these "exchange used goods"
enterprises often fall prey to the venerable Gresham's law:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greshams_law#Application>

I.e. in this case the danger would be that users have an incentive to glut the
system with low quality items (defects, uncomfortable etc.).

~~~
astrofinch
It seems like if women really do have closets full of perfectly good clothing
they don't like, there is value to be captured.

There's always stuff you can do like implementing user reputation systems,
etc.

------
trickjarrett
I was toying with a similar idea though it's more akin to the Netflix model
for clothes.

You'd basically pay an up front cost, say $XXX and then you would be able to
order a week's worth of clothes. Then you'd mail the clothes back for
laundering before being sent out again.

It is really a half-baked idea and requires a sizable amount of logistics,
etc. But it was an interesting concept to toss around.

~~~
rprospero
I think that you're onto something there. I need to wear a suit three times a
year. Most of my friends are the same way. We all have a suit in our
respective closets, but it's just taking up space for most of the year. Now,
we're different enough sizes that we couldn't all just share one suit, but, if
you had a few thousand clients, you could certainly send a fitting suit to the
fellow who needs it, when he needs it.

There's also a huge boon to be found in having branches in both hemispheres.
Instead of spending December paying the land tax on a warehouse full of
shorts, just rent them out in Australia. Then, come July, send out the shorts
in the US and the sweaters down under.

I'm not sure about the environmental impact. On the one hand, you have quite a
bit of carbon footprint from shipping the clothes all around. On the other
hand, the company would have a strong economic incentive to maintain the
clothes. I'm betting a lot of clothes that are currently thrown away could be
saved with proper cleaning and sewing skills. I'm now imagining reading the
company's blog having less posts on Redis integration and far more on their
new way to remove grass stains.

Honestly, given the sizing issues, this probably makes more sense for men's
clothes, but that avoids competition with 99dresses.

Dammit. I'm going to be thinking about this all night.

~~~
astrofinch
If I'm a guy who occasionally has to wear a suit, it seems like it would be a
lot cheaper for me to pay the fixed cost of acquiring it than the ongoing cost
of having it shipped to me every so often when I want to wear it. And it's
another thing to remember and worry about.

------
xinliang
I am thinking what if someone buys branded clothes from this website and sell
it in other second-hand market, the cost of one button is only one dollar
which I think is too cheap?

How about using the library system, having a certain amount of deposit on the
account, if the user lost the clothes then the presumed value of the clothes
will be deducted from her account?

------
hendzen
New startup naming trend: two digit number followed by a noun.

~~~
joezydeco
Well, they _are_ the only .com domains that are pretty much left.

~~~
femto
Yeah. I'm thinking of starting a social cloud computing service called
"127.0.0.1". It will use a sophisticated virtual currency and economic model
to guarantee that users only get out what they contribute.

------
gosub
I would like to suggest an algorithmic alternative to the "buttons" virtual
currency for the assignment of the dresses. It may not be monetizable in the
same way, but it could be interesting none the less.

Let's say every user of the system has karma points. Karma points cannot be
bought with real money. They are gained mostly putting unused dresses in the
system, but also reddit-style, via comments, reviews, helping people and
generally being a good citizen of the community.

1) Let every user list the dresses they would like in order of preference.

2) Suppose that every dress has a list of favourite users, based on karma.

3) Assign a dress via Gale-Shapley algorithm[1] or a variation, generally
solving the stable marriage problem.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem>

------
smanek
<http://www.renttherunway.com/> has been doing something similar (high-fashion
dress rentals) for a few years now. Of course, Rent The Runway is more
centralized - it's more analogous to a hotel, while 99 Dresses is more AirBnB.

~~~
sriramk
Rent the Runway stocks the clothes themselves while this and My Dress Affair
(another competitor) are a peer-to-peer marketplace.

~~~
joezydeco
RTR will also ship a second identical dress of a different size in case you
find out you don't fit the original size chosen. RTR also sends the dresses
using a premium shipping service with tracking (i.e UPS or FedEx).

------
zszugyi
How do I make sure my wife never finds out about this?

~~~
paylesworth
Would you rather her buy new dresses? I definitely think this is a much better
proposition

~~~
zszugyi
Not sure, I'd analyze the benefits of both options. I'd think that this
service would eliminate the constraint of not having enough room for new
clothes in the dresser at least.

------
twelvechairs
I'm not sure what the appeal of the virtual currency model is ('buttons').

There must be a scare for potential users in not receiving real money for
sales, but something which can collapse or fluctuate in value at any time
(also, it is potentially almost valueless if for instance you move somewhere
the website doesnt operate).

Maybe not all people are as skeptical as me, but I'd imagine that this model
will prevent users from 'leaping in' by selling large amounts of clothes, (and
thus ending up with a huge store of 'buttons' that they may or may not ever
find a use for).

I am very curious as to what the founders see as the upsides to this model
which overcome said downsides.

~~~
dagw
The clothes people will be selling is probably stuff that has pretty close to
zero value to the owner to begin with. Stuff they would have gotten rid of a
while back if they'd just had the incentive to do so. For example I just
packed up and donated two large bags of clothes charity, had this service been
available to me I might very well have sent them some those items just to try
it out. If it worked out well enough I think of a few more items I'd happily
send off as well.

------
onan_barbarian
It's hard to see how the linked TechCrunch article and this article:

[http://www.startupsmart.com.au/cash-flow/99dresses-shuts-
dow...](http://www.startupsmart.com.au/cash-flow/99dresses-shuts-down-amid-
financial-woes/201201235162.html)

... can both possibly refer to the same company. At the very least, the prior
shut-down of 99dresses has been given a quite a thick layer of spin.

------
egypturnash
My initial reaction is "I already have an infinite closet, it's called the
thrift store four blocks away whose buyer's tastes match mine". On the other
hand if I lived in the burbs, this might be more appealing.

It also reminds me that I've been meaning to clean out my closet, maybe I'll
try putting whatever the thrift store won't take up here.

------
astrofinch
The brick-and-mortar version of this business, clothing exchange stores, have
lower transaction costs because they don't have to deal with shipping and also
let customers try clothing on before buying it.

It's still a good business though, because an online store can have a bigger
selection and serve people in areas without exchange stores.

------
benmathes
There's also threadflip.com

This market is probably all about getting the critical mass of users so you
have supply.

------
amilanez
I prefer eBay for two reasons: (1) Selling. eBay gives me cash (minus fee).
Buttons only have value if there's a dress I want. (2) Buying. Lots more
inventory to choose from, both high end and low.

------
jlindenbaum
Sharing this with the girlfriend. Go go brownie points. She loves new clothes
and has tonnes. What a fantastic idea!

------
nazgulnarsil
Immediately compelling and fills an obvious need. Really liking this one and
hope it succeeds.

------
lien
I really love this, but I think paying for shipping is the one problem you
will have to solve. Shipping costs at minimum $15. Maybe could focus on
listing designer clothes, hard-to-get items first, and then once you get a
sizable user base you could negotiate a shipping rate for your users

------
tlrobinson
My favorite line from this demo day: "I've created crack for women"

------
angryasian
I don't understand why someone would use this system over ebay.

------
Melyan
Aren't most amateur hackers retirees in nursing homes with a lot of time on
their hands? Nice to see an application aimed at a different audience (young
women).

------
jcampbell1
I checked out the site. Look interesting, but I noticed one major issue:
pagination is a mistake in e-commerce. "View all" or infinite scroll is a
must.

~~~
patio11
There are infinitely many things that would improve the sales of an e-commerce
site. First among all things is making sure the site is not on localhost.

Many sites do not implement view all or infinite scroll and, empirically,
still manage to make quite a lot of money. One prominent example is Amazon.

More broadly, I would sincerely love it if HN did not try to play "Let's one-
up the founders" on day 1 for every startup, with special attention paid to YC
startups. All startups will have great big honking problems on day one.
(They're more of the flavor "Nobody knows we exist" than "Our 100 products are
paginated rather than on a single page.") The ones that succeed in solving
those problems will, in the process, revisit almost every stupidly
inconsequential implementation detail, in the same sort of painful, considered
depth that all of us who have shipped software before know will eventually
happen.

Wouldn't we be a happier, more productive community if the tone was less "I
have found your flaw!" and more "That's a good start. You might consider
adding X, Y, and Z to the roadmap. Those have previously had outcomes like X1,
Y1, and Z1 when tried in circumstances X2, Y2, and Z2. X and Y can probably
wait, but Z should be a fairly high priority because
$EXPLANATION_OF_HOW_Z_PREVENTS_YOU_FROM_DYING."

~~~
jcampbell1
I think you are reading something into my tone that I didn't intend.

More importantly, I think you are wrong to think "Nobody knows we exist" and
getting the details right are somehow separate. I built a business by a
thousand small fixes. I worked on getting the SEO, copy writing, UX, ads, etc.
better every day. Then one day the conversion rate was high enough that buying
ads became nicely profitable and word of mouth started to take effect. Details
matter.

If a fashion site has an UX issue that makes it not fun to use, it is a real
problem. There is no next button at the bottom of the list of items. It feels
like the site is broken, but this such a trivial problem to fix.

------
mildweed
BuyMyCloset.com

------
polynomial
"99 ties"?

------
sneak
How can you possibly be so sexist to alienate the men who wish to have
infinite closets? It's not just women who wear dresses, you know. It's sexist
bullshit like this that keeps men from getting started in the fashion
industry.

~~~
ceol
Is this sarcasm?

~~~
sneak
No.

~~~
ceol
You know there are probably more men in positions of power in the fashion
industry than women, correct? Prada, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Kenneth Cole were
all started by men, and there are quite a few male fashion designers.[0]

[0]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fashion_designers#Unite...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fashion_designers#United_States)

------
wtvanhest
I'm so glad they invented this website! It is so infuriating when women think
it is OK to just wear the same thing twice!

all kidding aside, I bet women are going to love this.

