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Growing from 0 to 4M users on our fashion app with vertical machine learning
- whoisjuan 9y agoI really love how machine learning makes something mundane but yet exhausting, into something seamless and enjoyable.
- thanatropism 9y agoThey're all women? Your fashion app has only female fashion? And we know that in 4M people there are no men that either like to look at pictures of women or, gasp, cross-dress?
- williamdclt 9y agoIs that really of any importance here?
- Helmet 9y agoNo, but it's important that we control and police language and shove PC culture into your head at absolutely any opportunity and just grind and grind and grind away at any artifact of traditional culture. Case in point - see the 900 post Tesla Falcon Heavy thread, where the majority of the discussion centered around a tangential point over gender expectations.
- quadrature 9y agoCould you elaborate on parts of traditional culture that you think are under attack and are valuable enough to protect ?
- Helmet 9y agoAbsolutely every single part of it? Have you stepped outside, or spoken to anyone in the country that isn't a part of the coastal bourgeoisie?
- warent 9y agoConsidering that traditional culture in my perspective includes racism, sexism, and homophobia, I'll have to pass on whatever point you're trying to make right now
- Helmet 9y agoNot at all - I abhor racism, sexism, and homophobia. My point has more to do with our general indulgence in materialism, offensive and gaudy cultural products (such as music that is highly denigrating and much of TV), a general contempt for anything religious or sacred, and our habit of placing relatively minor issues on the pedestal, while doing little in the way of pursuing policy that would benefit most people.
- quadrature 9y agoI dont think any of this is under attack by means of the "minor issues" that are addressed on HN sometimes. Everyone has their own cause to champion and I think that the ones you've mentioned are worthy things to address. It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.
- quadrature 9y agoFor the purpose of conversation could you actually give a few examples of what you're talking about ?.
- dang 9y agoIf you're talking about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16319505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16319505, that's so far from true that I can't even find the comments you're talking about.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tytytytytytytyt 9y agoIs this comment contributing anything?
- thisisit 9y agoWhat is interesting to me is that this comes on a day when Bloomberg says "Americans are spending less on clothing". Full discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16322720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16322720
- ryanianian 9y agoCombining the ideas of both posts: You can spend less if you buy more targeted-to-you and higher-quality items that you'll wear more often. Finding these items and customers is a data (and marketing) problem. E.g. I spend less overall than I did a few years ago but each item I buy is more expensive. I've learned the value in quality clothes. I give smaller batches of more money to well-picked retailers rather than lots of small batches of money to big-name mass-market retailers. An app that capitalizes on people coming to this realization (and knows how to market and execute it well) could make a killing.
- snoman 9y ago> E.g. I spend less overall than I did a few years ago but each item I buy is more expensive... An app that capitalizes on people coming to this realization (and knows how to market and execute it well) could make a killing. I think that nearly every person trends the same as they age and approach their adult size, even without coming to that realization, so I'd say that you're even more true than your post implies.
- aldamiz 9y agoYep. The main idea of the app is to help people decide how to wear their existing clothes. Many people feel they have nothing to wear when their wardrobe is full - truth is, sometimes the decision of combining some clothes is not an easy one and you simply stop using them. Or even deciding what to wear every single day can be a pain.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y agoBut aren't you wearing the same thing over and over? What's the point of quality clothes people see so often they think it is dirty or that you own three shirts? I just buy cheap clothes.
- danvoell 9y agoWas this the main point of the story? - "At some point, we were lucky to get noticed by the App Store team, and we’ve been featured as App of the Day throughout the world"
- ztoben 9y agoThat's kind of the impression I got too. Build a nice looking app and hope that Apple throws you a bone I guess.
- billmalarky 9y agoI read an interesting story on how to build a modern data-based product.
- hk__2 9y agoWhat’s a non-data-based product?
- hello_newman 9y agoone that doesn't leverage AI/ML as a core piece of functionality
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bigiain 9y agoMost products. Where you generate Gigs a day of logfile/analytics/crash-reporting data and never even look at then, instead you make changes and updates based on whatever blog post or LinkedIn update the boss or customer read most recently </cynical>
- zild3d 9y agopencils, almond milk, sweatpants, ...
- 9y ago
- 2_listerine_pls 9y agoThat bullshit patent
- DoreenMichele 9y agoHere is a nice detail about their process: We launched an extremely early alpha of Chicisimo with one key functionality. We launched under another name and in another country. You couldn’t even upload photos… but it allowed us to iterate with real data and get a lot of qualitative input. At some point, we launched the real Chicisimo, and removed this alpha from the App Store. Just yesterday I was wondering where to begin searching for clothing related apps to see what is available in this space. Glad to see this article.
- aldamiz 9y agoAbout clothing apps, here are some ideas. There are teams focusing on the social aspect and grow via influencers. I’d think about utilities (help me do something): - Help me decide what to wear: Chicisimo, Pinterest and (believe me) Google Images; - Help me manage my wardobre: Stylebook, Glamoutfit; - Help me be seen by others: Wear app, Lookbook and Chictopia (this last two worked really well on desktop); - Help me decide what to buy: ecommerce apps obvsly, or Liketoknowit; or the second-hang category of which several are working really well, and are more widely known. - Help me get feedback from my friends, no one really working I think, or feedback from the system (Echo Look -> Spark). And a new related category popping up: get feedback from a stylist with an in-app purchase model or even subscription; Wishi, Daam are some examples. This last category will be interesting to follow. - Polyvore - outfits ensembling; - Rent the Runway, Stitch Fix, Instagram obvsly. And I'm sure I'm missing many, but just trying to give you ideas of how to find inspiring apps. I wonder if online fashion is like online music in 2005/6/7... with lots of noise, some tech focused products, and the spotify's of the world starting to be built. Fun times.
- Toast_25 9y agoI'm assuming you're a woman, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but do you know if these apps work well for men's fasion? I think I have OK taste, but I'd like to get good.
- aldamiz 9y agoI'm a man:) Sorry I don't know about fashion apps for men. I feel teams are building the infrastructure focusing on the big opportunity (women's fashion). Then, expanding to other categories will be way easier.
- uptownfunk 9y agoVertical ML is so 2017, it’s all about diagonal ML
- amelius 9y agoSo they made a search-engine based on deep learning for a specific (but quite large) target group. How long do they think it will take Google to catch up, if they haven't already?
- Toast_25 9y agoI'm sad there's not a version of Chicisimo for guys :(
- floogtheunfound 9y agoThis comment thread illustrates how asymmetrical HN can be. Not a criticism, just an observation.
- asimpletune 9y agoThey’re growing women with their app?!
- senatorobama 9y agoWould you accept someone who has already has a FT job and wants to make more $ by doing remote on the side?
- waytogo 9y agoOT: This type of article ('how we hit the goldmine with xy') is always tempting to read but eventually a disappointment. If someone had the plan to the goldmine why should he disclose it?
- pencilcode 9y agoWhat is the current state of the art for finding similar images? Is it auto-encoders nn's, convnets and then just use some sort of distance measure?
- greenred123 9y agoI hope that the company will also focus on employing women and raising the numbers of women in tech! :-) Given that the user base is female, it would make sense and bring the company value to have a diverse workplace.