Couture Brand - Idea to Launch in 6 Weeks
Here’s a get-it-started plan I rigged up for a friend who wanted to start selling her couture designs but, with two small kids, had limited time.Dear A.,Great catching up the other day. As promised, here are some of my thoughts on what you're doing and how to execute. Let me know if you have any q's or need help along the way.
♥
Tanya My 2 cents: Branding, Business Plan Model and Execution StrategyAs you are focusing on hand-made, the time and costs associated begs for “aspirational luxury” (like Kate Spade) if not “luxury” (aka Hermes) customer; I’d stay away from life-style branding (Polo). This should yield you a higher price point. To keep this branding, I’d think about what other companies do from packaging, to hand written “thank you” notes, to creating false exclusivity (most are hiding lack of supply by claiming tons of demand; “we’re so overwhelmed, we’ll reach out to you when we can accommodate you… in meantime, put in all of your details and tell us how much you can pay us so that we can use the data to raise money”).Also, I see this a profit-from-day 1 company, so playing around too much with pricing, sizing out your market is so not necessary. Just jump in.As for being startup costs, as I mentioned, you shouldn’t need to lay out much, if any money. For materials and labor, you don’t need to make an outlay until someone orders a garment. So that really just means whatever you pay for the site (some are free) and for testing seamstresses. 6 Week Plan
| Phase | Task | Time | Purpose | Resources |
| 1. Get your internet presence | Get a Pinterest, Twitter, and/or Instagram handle and select a domain. | 1 hr@ Day 1 | Get the basic tools to build a social media presence. Successful social media campaigns often possess 2 key baselines before they even begin 1) they have lots of followers, or at least followers with lots of followers and 2) the brand has a track record in which followers believe, thus increasing followers’ willingness to repost. That said, your brand cannot do either without social media handles! | NameVine.com Identify social media and domain names that are consistent across various properties.3 Ways to Create Buzz Before You Even Have a Prototype |
| Get a pre-launch and sign-up site. | 2 hrs@ Day 2 | Identify your early adopters and build upon the buzz you’re creating. As you work on your business and speak to suppliers or potential customers, you’ll inevitably be asked “do you have site?”. Also, as you start to get active on social media, a follower is bound to want to know more. Satiate – and capitalize on – their curiosity by having a teaser site complete with a sign-up sheet and a survey (include things like age, location, types of products they want, and their price points). In the end, you’ll know who to email as soon as you launch and you may even get some free market insight! | Launchrock hosts coming soon / signup pages | |
| Identify fashion “influencers” amongst your target audience. | Build a following. A key to successful social media campaigns is having tons of followers amongst your target audience, or having followers with lots of followers who will repost. A quick way to the latter is to find well-respected people in the industry who have a decent and active social media presence. | |||
| Follow and start interacting with “influencers” on social media. | 1 hr per day@ Week 1- 6 | Build a track record. Another key to successful social media campaigns is the willingness for followers to act upon your posting or even repost. Followers – especially influencers – are more likely to repost your items if you’ve properly reposted or paid insightful homage to their material. Translation: build up some reciprocity points.Additionally, followers are more likely to repost and pay attention – and associate their brand with yours – if you have a track record. When you get out there, start off sharing your finds and building some credibility before pushing your concept. Of course, make it easy for people to find out about what you’re doing – put your website(s) in your profile. | ||
| 2. Figure out your value chain | Find 3-5 potential seamstresses. | 1 hr a day@ Week 1-2 | Find folks to meet immediate demand while also cultivate pipelines for later. As you use job boards, reach out to schools, and interview folks, make sure that you’re clear about what you need (i.e. are they willing to work with your styles, timeframe, etc.)Keep in mind that while some folks may not be able to help you immediately, they may be great matches in the future. Keep those possibilities open! | Taskrabbit.comhttp://www.agentanything.comTop 20 fashion schools |
| Select 2-5 designs you want to feature for the first few months | 4 hrs @ Week 2 | A product offering with focus. Offering a lot of designs can easily get overwhelming and costly. | ||
| Administer and review seamstress test. | 2 hrs for each seamstress tested @ Week 3-5 | Make sure you have great seamstresses. Lots of startups have potential employees and vendors do test projects to confirm whether the match is appropriate. Similarly, you can confirm that your seamstresses will deliver a minimal quality level by having them execute one of your designs.Please note that, as seamstresses don’t tend to “demo” their work, you may have to pay for the sample garment.Bonus: Once your done with the tests, you’ll have items to photograph! Think about who your model(s) will be so that the clothes are the right size. | ||
| Decide and contract 2 or more seamstresses | 3 hrs @ Week 5 | Make sure you have capacity. People get busy with life and other jobs. Plus, you may get a lot of demand. Try not to rely on just 1 seamstress | ||
| Select and set aside fabric for your designs. | 4 hrs @ Week 4 | Allow yourself to do just-in-time purchases. In most businesses, it’s hard to predict demand – it’s even more difficult in haute couture. So it may not be worth buying materials before you know what clients have ordered. However, you can avoid uncertainties in fabric availability and price fluctuations by talking to your local fabric store about 1) expected availability of materials over a given time frame, 2) pricing structure (aka bargain), and 3) if they’ll call you when materials are getting low. | ||
| Photograph your designs | 5 hrs @Week 5 | You need something to promo! Avoid hiring a model or photographer. Chances are, you have more than a few friends who aspire to both! Tons of online designers wear their own clothes and have a friend take pictures of them with a smartphone. | ||
| 3. Prepare for launch | Figure out the tech you want to use | 1-2 hrs per platform @ Week 4 | Pick an ecommerce platform that you feel you can maintain. By testing 2-4 platforms, before committing, you’ll allow yourself to pick a platform that works for you. PLUS, if you can maintain it instead of paying someone else to do so, you will maintain costs and gain lots of freedom to change your site whenever you choose! | These are some of my favorite sites, listed in order of preference. As this is based on some ecommerce work I did a few projects ago, you may want to do some research beyond this.SquarespaceWordpressWixMagentoShopify |
| Make your page | 1 hr per day @Week 5 | |||
| Confirm with fabric store, seamstresses, etc | 1 hr @ Week 6 | |||
| Decide on packaging | 3 hrs @ Week 6 | |||
| Plan first month of outreach / marketing | 5 hrs @ Week 6 | Make sure you have a plan to reach your audience. Be sure to leverage the insight you’ve gained from the business contacts you made, the blogs you’ve read, etc. | ||
| 4. Launch! | Execute | @ Week 7, Day 1 | Excellent planning deserves execution! Make your site public, execute your marketing plan, and see what happens |
