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(In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

bombfell.com

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Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#11

Post by Ennis »

It's difficult to evaluate without a description of what the service offers. I recommend that you update the teaser page to tease visitors about some of the proposed features.

Generally in a personalized fashion site I'd like to see the following:

* an up-to-date sense of fashion

* An appeal to cosmopolitan styles

* Accessibility to the fashions offered (Amazon, target, AE, Aritzia, etc... links at least) I'd say it's best if you offered a deal finder and had your reviews tell people what is hot and cheap right now.

Fashion is closely linked with afford-ability.

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#12

Post by mitali »

(from a woman who shops a LOT): mens shirt and pants sizes are fairly standard - thats a good thing for this business. As long as you collect ppl's sizes, most things should fit. I would also consider having a style-determinant upfront. Like: do you want to look like mark zuckerberg, larry ellison, or sergey brin for example if geeks are your target audience (if not, use celebs.) at least this will generally put the clothes you send in the right ballpark of what that guy dresses like. although if he dresses like larry ellison he probably has his personal shopper and a wardrobe of armani and wouldnt be using this service! :)

my biggest concern with this business is that if its successful you actually make yourself redundant. meaning if ppl really like the shirts you send them, and say they're H&M - well they just decide to shop in H&M from then on and stop paying for you. Your retention rate is inversely proportional to how good your product is - thats bad business.

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#13

Post by vitorbaptista »

bernieyoo wrote: post #5
derekdahmer wrote: post #4

Kind of hard to judge without more details on how it works. Just based on the tagline though - I hope this involves posting an image of yourself. I could find a fashionable pair of pants just by opening an issue GQ. The hard part about being fashionable is knowing what looks good on you .

Perhaps I'm more clueless than most, but I've always relied on female friends to tell me what looks good and blindly bought what they tell me to. Thinking this would be for people who don't want to read GQ or do any research. Plan is to offer some level of personalization, a somewhat crowd-funded personal stylist for many people at once.

I also had relied (a bit) on female friends to buy clothing. But they know how I look like and, to some extent, my tastes (no rainbow-unicorn-shirts, please).

Maybe if you could describe (somewhat) your tastes (like casual, modern, etc.) and send a picture. But I think your idea has potential.

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#14

Post by jjk »

bretthopper wrote: post #10

My biggest complaint is "female-approved". Since when do only females know what looks good? That's not a selling point for me at all. Would make me less likely to use this service.

That's true, but we just wanted to convey the sense that this service would offer clothing that helps you appear more attractive.

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#15

Post by zdw »

bernieyoo wrote: post #8
zdw wrote: post #3

Considering that, if I go looking for clothing that isn't a T-shirt, > 80% of things will fit in a less than ideal way (shoulders too tight, too big in chest, sleeves not long enough, pants tight around calf or to wide at waist), I wish you luck in being able to fit everyone without having them try it on.

This is definitely a big open question - we're planning to allow for users to input their measurements so that it should fit reasonably well, but we could be misjudging how picky our target demo would be regarding exactly how well it should fit.

Two things that could help:

- Zappos-esque customer friendly return policy, if it doesn't bankrupt you.

- If a return is required, make it easy to report why - for example, on a pants return, have a picture of the pants, and sliders for the waist, length, inseam, etc. that go from "too small" to "too large".

- use past fit information to tweak what kind of clothes are sent out to that person in the future.

- Another random option - for things that are too big, offer to mail in and tailor them (an inch off the leg, for example).

- Also, people might REALLY like an item, and want more of it. I know I'm attached to certain bits of clothing, and often have trouble finding another to replace them when I go looking (other than stock items like jeans/etc.).

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#16

Post by bernieyoo »

ctide wrote: post #7

Is this basically a less effective version of Trunk Club?

Interesting, thanks for sharing hadn't heard of them before. We're planning a subscription-based model where you would regularly receive a shirt or pair of pants every month, so more "passive" consumption over time to keep your wardrobe reasonably up to date going forward.

I think depends on the type of guy you are, myself and a number of guys I know aren't really into fashion and aren't super-fussy, but do want to dress reasonably well - just without effort. Trying to test now whether there's enough guys with that same attitude :)

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#18

Post by jonschwartz »

I like this idea. I agree with derekdahmer that it'll be hard to know what will look good on us without first knowing what we look like. What if you had some sort of "paper doll" type system. You upload a full body pic of yourself, and then the female approved outfits can be virtually tried on.

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#19

Post by woid »

bretthopper wrote: post #10

My biggest complaint is "female-approved". Since when do only females know what looks good? That's not a selling point for me at all. Would make me less likely to use this service.

This sentence exactly got me in. I read some czech blog about fashion written by a women about how Czech men dress terribly themselves. You should have seen the discussions under the articles.

I'm ordinary man and a hacker. I personally don't care what I wear. I prefer comfortable clothing. I don't care and I don't have problem with it. But women care and they see it as a big issue. I'm reading the blog just from curiosity to see how it looks from the other side.

Re: (In)Validate my idea: Bombfell - Dress well without the knowhow

#20

Post by woid »

woid wrote: post #19
bretthopper wrote: post #10

My biggest complaint is "female-approved". Since when do only females know what looks good? That's not a selling point for me at all. Would make me less likely to use this service.

This sentence exactly got me in. I read some czech blog about fashion written by a women about how Czech men dress terribly themselves. You should have seen the discussions under the articles. I'm ordinary man and a hacker. I personally don't care what I wear. I prefer comfortable clothing. I don't care and I don't have problem with it. But women care and they see it as a big issue. I'm reading the blog just from cur…

btw. this is her blog called "Fashion Hell": http://modnipeklo.cz/2011/02/muz-muze-taky/
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