Customers fast-track fashions with Betabrand
Wrinkle-free travel blazers. A “boss mom” dress. The world’s smallest garment bag.
Would-be shoppers have one week to vote on which of these items they’d most like to have in their closets — and if enough people agree, Betabrand, a San Francisco company, will make sure it goes from a designer’s sketch pad to their shelves.
The conventional process from design to sale can take 18 months, says Chris Lindland, Betabrand founder. “We’ve sped that up to about five days,” he said. The company, which is trending on Crunchbase this week, does a slew of things to engage with its customers, from inviting them to submit designs (and promising them 10 percent of sales for a year if enough people like their vision), to polling them on new products and asking for favorite fabrics and colors.
Betabrand’s designers don’t make prototypes
and cross their fingers that people will buy their products. Instead, they wait to see who is interested in what, and in the meantime, provide 3-D renderings of products for people to get a taste of their offerings.
“We find out in real time what people want. We’re not making a big gamble saying, ‘Let’s make 10,000 shoes.’ We’re asking consumers,” Lindland said.
Plus, he said, knowing how many consumers are interested in a certain shoe limits waste and cost. Lindland pointed to H&M as an extreme example of a company that overproduced its product. Bloomberg reported in November that a Swedish power plant was taking H&M leftovers and burning them for fuel. (On the bright side, it got the plant off coal.)
Timberland, a New Hampshire company, recently started a collaboration with Betabrand and uses its 3-D renderings to “explore the intersection of craft and performance.” Lindland said the partnership is an example of “with the world of product design, it’s becoming something where consumers are being brought into the process far earlier.”
“This is the fastest way to connect consumers with brand-new clothing ideas, so let’s do it,” Lindland said.
Deal of the week: 42Floors
What it does: 42Floors is a search engine that helps users find commercial real estate that can be used for offices. It has 10 billion square feet of real estate on its database.
What happened: Knotel, which designs, builds, and operates custom offices, acquired 42Floors.
Why it matters: Knotel is trying to make the jargon-filled world of real estate more accessible. They want to provide spaces with flexible-term agreements, and 42Floors will give them a strong database of open-access listings to do so.
Headquarters: San
Francisco Funding: $17.4 million Employees: 11-50
Also trending: AppLovin
What it does: AppLovin helps mobile game developers market their apps. It has a new publishing lab, Lion Studios, that helps developers publish and promote their apps. What happened: AppLovin raised $400 million, including some debt, in a round led by global investment firm KKR.
Why it matters: This keeps the company on track for an IPO, according to Katie Jansen, the company’s chief marketing officer. The round will be used to pay back a loan, as well as grow the business by putting more money into its publishing studio and global offices.
Headquarters: Palo Alto
Funding: $1.4 billion
Employees: 160