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Ask HN: Why will my startup fail?
15 points by tenashas on April 23, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 24 comments
Why will my startup fail?

Hi HN,

I am creating my first online startup and would greatly appreciate your input.

ONE LINE PITCH:

Outfyts.com is the easiest way to create, share and purchase outfits from your favorite retailers and fashion bloggers

LONG WINDED SUMMARY:

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.

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.

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.

I am in the "validation" stage of my startup, therefore ALL feedback is appreciated.

-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?

--Your input is priceless, thank you!--



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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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!


>>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.


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.


> 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.


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.


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.


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.


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!


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!


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.


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.


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.


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.


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


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?


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.


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.


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!


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?




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