I'm shutting down my clothing brand.
423 days after I started it.
Here are 6 lessons and reflections:
↓
1. I don't have product-market fit
- My ICP doesn't want to pay $50 for a tee
- Price drop experiments weren't conclusive
- I'm not willing to do it for 20-30% margins
--
2. Apparel is HARD
- There's a lot of competition
- Top product quality is NOT enough
- Design to production process is slow
- It's (very) challenging to scale
--
3. Apparel manufacturing is complex
- Top clothing manufacturers are in China
- They can produce WHATEVER you want
- But the best rarely work will low MOQs
- Shipping is more & more expensive
- You will get defective products
--
4. Why I'm stopping this
- It's a lot work, for not a lot of money
- I don't want to do it for paper-thin margins
- I might restart it (differently) at some point
--
5. Things I would have done differently
- Study mechanisms behind top brands
- Work like a maniac on perceived value
- Leverage a pre-order model only
- Offer multiple products per drop
--
6. My most critical learnings
- Don't trust what people SAY they will do
- Trust those who open their wallets & PAY
- Better assess the business opportunity
- Before jumping head first with an idea
- Big TAM (total units you can sell)
- Low marginal cost of replication
- High margin & “easy“ to scale
As the real O.G. Warren Buffet says, the business boat you get into is more important than how effectively you row.
That's all I can think of.
Ngl… I feel BOTH great and bad about my decision.
Bad, because I obviously wanted to see this succeed. Because it proves skeptics and nay-sayers right. And because I know that I didn’t push it to the limits.
And I'll need to live with that for the time being.
But on the other hand, I also feel great, because I learnt A LOT from this experience. More than what I could have ever imagined.
The dense compilation of learnings I collected would never have been possible if I hadn’t executed on my idea.
And all these valuable lessons will be of great use for any venture I decide to tackle next.
Cheers.
—
BTW: I still have a few pieces at hand for those of you who'd be willing to grab some heavyweight, 100% cotton, embroidered tees. DM me if you want one before they're gone forever.
423 days after I started it.
Here are 6 lessons and reflections:
↓
1. I don't have product-market fit
- My ICP doesn't want to pay $50 for a tee
- Price drop experiments weren't conclusive
- I'm not willing to do it for 20-30% margins
--
2. Apparel is HARD
- There's a lot of competition
- Top product quality is NOT enough
- Design to production process is slow
- It's (very) challenging to scale
--
3. Apparel manufacturing is complex
- Top clothing manufacturers are in China
- They can produce WHATEVER you want
- But the best rarely work will low MOQs
- Shipping is more & more expensive
- You will get defective products
--
4. Why I'm stopping this
- It's a lot work, for not a lot of money
- I don't want to do it for paper-thin margins
- I might restart it (differently) at some point
--
5. Things I would have done differently
- Study mechanisms behind top brands
- Work like a maniac on perceived value
- Leverage a pre-order model only
- Offer multiple products per drop
--
6. My most critical learnings
- Don't trust what people SAY they will do
- Trust those who open their wallets & PAY
- Better assess the business opportunity
- Before jumping head first with an idea
- Big TAM (total units you can sell)
- Low marginal cost of replication
- High margin & “easy“ to scale
As the real O.G. Warren Buffet says, the business boat you get into is more important than how effectively you row.
That's all I can think of.
Ngl… I feel BOTH great and bad about my decision.
Bad, because I obviously wanted to see this succeed. Because it proves skeptics and nay-sayers right. And because I know that I didn’t push it to the limits.
And I'll need to live with that for the time being.
But on the other hand, I also feel great, because I learnt A LOT from this experience. More than what I could have ever imagined.
The dense compilation of learnings I collected would never have been possible if I hadn’t executed on my idea.
And all these valuable lessons will be of great use for any venture I decide to tackle next.
Cheers.
—
BTW: I still have a few pieces at hand for those of you who'd be willing to grab some heavyweight, 100% cotton, embroidered tees. DM me if you want one before they're gone forever.
