Venture Concept No. 2

Venture Concept

Opportunity         

As someone who has always been into fashion, I have noticed a serious lack of options when it comes to male clothing. Most popular male clothing brands fit in two categories; the one that over-brands themselves and puts their name and logo anywhere they can, as big as possible, or there is the brand that is so simple that where you can’t distinguish it from any other brand. To illustrate my point more, examples of the former type of company I mentioned would be like Hollister, American Eagle, and The Hundreds. Examples of the latter would be H&M, Gap, and Old Navy. The one brand I have noticed incorporate both of these methods is Ralph Lauren. You could buy a plain color polo with nothing on it but a small logo or you could buy one where the logo covers a fourth of the shirt and “Polo” is written in bold letters across your chest.  With that said, it is not very easy to find unique and tasteful clothing when you are a guy. This is market that can be greatly explored since there are men everywhere that feel this way. Currently people need to go out of their way to find clothes that are distinct. One of the few ways to do so is to find stores that don’t follow the business model these commercial brands are using, although that is not as easy as it sounds. I would say there are two brands that stand out in my mind that don’t fit the generalization stated above, Urban Outfitters and Cotton On. While these to companies may be successful, it doesn’t compare to widespread availability of the other brands I mentioned. You can almost guarantee that there will be a Hollister or a Gap in any mall you go to but you can’t say the same thing about Urban or Cotton On. Because there are such few alternatives, this remains a big opportunity for anyone with fashion sense and it will last until there is equal representation for this niche of clothing. I know this is a market in need because ever since I discovered the limited alternatives, I have never once gone back to those tacky or simplified brands as well as many of my friends.

Innovation

While I am a huge fan of Urban and Cotton On, I believe we can go a step further. What I am proposing is a brand that lets the user design the clothes. I would start with just shirts but would hope to transition this idea to all articles of clothing. The way it work is like this: you walk in to a store and see a template of all the customizations you can make. First would be the type of shirt:

·      T-shirt

·      Collar shirt

·      Henley

·      Button-up

You would then be able to design practically every aspect of that type of shirt:

·      Material

·      Pocket(s)

·      Buttons

·      Trims

·      Collar (color)

I plan on having a sort of mini factory where there are people on display making these customized shirts and when they are ready you could have it shipped to you or come and pick it up yourself. Although the price is not finalized, I think the plain shirt would be $20 and there would be a price from $5-$10 for each subsequent you added on depending on what it is.

Venture Concept

The innovation mentioned above will provide something completely different to the clothing industry. I believe many people will get hooked to this idea once they walk into the store and see how much control they have over their clothes. No clothing brand is doing anything near this idea so I don’t think it will be too hard to get customers.  I suppose my strongest competitors would be Urban Outfitters and Cotton On since we are tending to towards the same people but they lack something fundamentally different, and that is the customization of clothes. If my store is placed in a high fashion mall or a shopping center, I have no doubt it will do well.  I would need to create a store and website where the customization can be done and I would need employees to make and sell the clothing. Each store would probably need around 15 employees if I went through with the mini-factory idea. I plan on being on the designing end, choosing what can be customized and what the options are.

The Three Minor elements

1.     My most important resource is the sheer amount of control the user has in designing his clothes.

2.     I plan on carrying this idea over to more articles of clothing and eventually for women as well.

3.     In 5 years I want to have my own clothing line and pursue an individual career in design. My first venture will give me experience in clothing industry and knowledge on the best ways to go about making clothes.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do my first Venture Concept or What’s Next so I didn’t change anything and don’t have any feedback.