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How MeUndies built a $32M company
- ramenmeal 8y agoSure it wasn't just good marketing? I can't get any content without hearing an ad from them.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoI started getting MeUndies with my partner, who’d been subscribing since they opened in LA just down the street from where she worked. They make a great product, chose to ally themselves with good causes, artistic collaborations, and the one-design-a-month made it a fun way to rotate new matching underwear with one’s partner. As someone who’s been a customer of theirs for a long time, I think they’re valuable because of the service they provide.
- mmmmmmmmm 8y ago> rotate new matching underwear with one’s partner. Please seek mental help. No sane person should be coordinating matching underwear with their business partner.
- jseliger 8y agoI subscribed for a while, but their quality control hasn't been good. Too many pairs fell apart or came apart after a couple months. It's possible I just got unlucky.
- WosIsMitDu 8y agoI'd reevaluate that statement. Their founder is a convicted felon for knowingly exposing people to asbestos.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoI hadn't heard this. Can you provide a reference for me? Edit: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/regional-director-califco-llc-property-management-company-sentenced-12-months-and-1-day https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/pr/regional-director-calif...
- nipponese 8y agoIt's in the headline: selling an "experience" IS marketing.
- supremerumham 8y agoPretty sure all their success is due to this Bill Burr ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtD0p6BIic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtD0p6BIic
- petercooper 8y agoI started singing this as soon as I saw the headline on the front page, to be fair. I wonder just how much Burr's reads have put Meundies into the public consciousness..
- supremerumham 8y agohahaha at the very least I won't be surprised if podcast ads were a good chunk of their marketing budget. I only know about them because of the several different podcasts that do MeUndies ads.
- toyg 8y agoThey targeted the podcast space pretty significantly, i’ve heard about them for years on Harmontown.
- supremerumham 8y agoThey target the podcasts with pretty big audiences too!! I've heard ads from Rogan and Ferriss too!!
- pssflops 8y agoI'm an absolute sucker for any Keith Haring artwork and they had a pair available only to subscribers of the product. I wound up enjoying the comfort of the product as much as the art and have been a satisfied customer since.
- tomcam 8y agoAutomatic upvote for that beautiful man Keith Haring but... he's dead? How could they have artwork only available to their customers?
- pssflops 8y agoIt was his artwork as a print and proceeds went to the Keith Haring Foundation, which receives royalties from its licensees and is a major funder of HIV-AIDS organizations.
- chrisseaton 8y agoWhy was that Facebook advert banned? It's literally someone just wearing the product isn't it? It isn't explicit even for an underwear advert. Or am I missing some cultural context or implication in the image?
- modernerd 8y agoFacebook's ad policies disallow “sexually suggestive content”. Their definition is pretty broad (“excessive visible skin”): https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/adult_content https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/adu... MeUndies has a page of others that Facebook banned, some of which are perhaps more suggestive than the ad featured above, but barely: https://www.meundies.com/too-hot-for-facebook https://www.meundies.com/too-hot-for-facebook
- jhull 8y agoLikely they have some anorexia/thinspo guidelines that this ad didn't adhere to. Search google for "thigh gap thinspo"
- benj111 8y agoI came here to ask the exact same thing. Maybe zuckerberg really hates spots?
- onetimemanytime 8y agoReads like a paid article. A 7-8 year old company that heavily advertises builds a $32million company. Profit anywhere?
- samstave 8y agoSure, it may seem obvious - but as someone who is looking at starting a subscription service, this is valuable information to me because even when I posted questions on HN regarding how to build out a subscription business, I got crickets. Also, as someone who abhors facebook and dont use it - I have actually never even heard of this company prior to today.
- magic_beans 8y agoDo you listen to podcasts? Because MeUndies ads are on every NPR podcast out there.
- samstave 8y agoSadly I dont listen to many... I should listen to more - but I find that I read a lot, and when I am reading I cant listen to anything and retain it... so it limits my ability to listen to podcasts. My mind wanders too much when I only listen to a podcast and am not really doing anything else so I get distracted. I find that I can listen to someone speak and retain what they are saying when I can see them speak - but just hearing them seems to go in one ear out the other. I hate it - but its just how I function.
- ryanmercer 8y agoI've had to listen to Carolla talk about them for years now. Off the top of my head they've been on: - Rogan - Stuff You Should Know - Several Adam Carolla podcasts - Art of Charm - Nerdist at some point (pretty sure) - Harmontown They're as bad as DollarShaveClub and Casper when it comes to popping up on podcasts.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
- the_cat_kittles 8y agoah yes, an excellent "tech" post about how to get rich by marketing something pedestrian. lol at everyone here who doesn't see how transparently their "tech" interest is actually just an interest in getting rich quick.
- barbecue_sauce 8y agoReminds me of when a snack company (I think it was Naturebox?) insisted in their advertising that they used sophisticated machine learning to match you with the perfect snack. Or how MIT graduates are using machine learning to disrupt the wine-a-month club industry.
- superplussed 8y agoWhat does it mean to be a $32M company? Based on whose valuation? I don't get why this number is such a prominent feature, and then is never explained. And is $32M a big number? Compared to who? This all seems strange to me.
- kylecazar 8y agoInc.com lists 2016 revenue as $32.6. Also interested in more information as to where that puts them though.
- adventured 8y agoHanes Brands does $6.4 billion in sales for example (obviously including all of their business). $32.6 million in sales is a small company in the underwear business. Men's underwear (boxers, boxer briefs, briefs) in just the US + Canada is a $5.x billion annual business at retail. There's also this amusement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_underwear_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_underwear_index
- willio58 8y agoHanes has been around since ~1900 in some form or another. Meundies is like 7-8 years old I believe.
- ksec 8y agoSometimes some of these industries, not hyped like every tech companies and don't get much media attention from Business magazine, are just mind blogging big. And that is just Man! Which I assume spend comparatively VERY little money as compared to woman underwear. P.S - From wiki "The premise is that men's underwear are a necessity in normal economic times and sales remain stable. " Am I the only one who don't think of it as necessity? Or is this a US thing?
- pathartl 8y agoMaybe it's cause they charge $24 for a pair of underwear? I don't necessarily doubt their quality, but the most I'd be willing to pay is half that.
- lalaithion 8y agoSurely charging more than their customers are willing to pay isn't a great strategy for building a $32M company.
- zachberger 8y agoIts only $16 if you're a member which is a core part of their business model.
- adrr 8y agoWonder how successful their subscription model is. Clothing doesn't have a natural fit with recurring purchases as it doesn't solve a problem for the consumer.
- filoleg 8y agoDepends what kind of clothing. Imo socks and regular underwear (had to differentiate "regular", because it doesn't include specialty/novelty stuff) are semi-disposable kind of clothing that isn't meant to last a long long time. I would never get a subscription service for normal clothing, because I take care of it and it usually lasts a while. Underwear and socks (especially) is the perfect fit for a subscription model imo.
- cco 8y agoI haven't bought new underwear in about four years and my oldest pair just ticked over a decade. Duluth boxer briefs, and before that, when they were good, Ex Officio. I highly recommend them for their long life and comfort.
- beatgammit 8y ago
- diorray 8y agoDropshipping underwears from Blackspade @ Turkey and charging customers with x5 price?
- andyourbore 8y agoHaha, ding ding ding we have a winner.
- Barberfendel 8y agoIs this actually what they do, or is it a joke that went over my head?
- bpicolo 8y agoA ton of these new D2C brands are just OEM wrappers - don't know if meundies is one of them but I would not be surprised
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y agoReminds me of dollar shave club which has flashy marketing but basically just resells another companies razers that you can buy directly from Amazon (dorco razers) Their main selling point is that you get them each month on an interval, but I’ve never understood that. I can order the same razers from amazon whenever I want and they’re here in a few days.
- WosIsMitDu 8y agoFormer employee from there, that's exactly what they do. Shipments come private labeled from turkey.
- doug1001 8y agowow, so much for disrupting the underwears space
- bytematic 8y agoI heard of them through some twitch streamers and it looked pretty good. I bought some of their lounge pants and they are really nice, easily one of the most comfortable items of clothing I own.
- ericsoderstrom 8y agoSometimes it feels like I'm the only one who prefers cotton boxers to synthetic boxer briefs. Pros of the cotton boxer: * More breathable * Less scratchy * Less "death grip on your junk"-y * A lot less expensive Cons: * I guess they dry slower, so if you need to hang dry your underwear and have them be dry by the next morning, you'd have to use synthetic? But that's about it I've tried synthetic boxer briefs from ex oficio, duluth trading trading, meundies, calvin klein, saxx... They are all categorically worse than plain cotton boxers.
- joshschreuder 8y agoI'm 100% the same, and I find it weird too. I got chatting with my friends recently who are big fans of Meundies and I mentioned cotton boxers and they looked at me funny because briefs were so much more popular.
- nailer 8y ago> prefers cotton boxers to synthetic boxer briefs. Modal is beech tree fibre and cotton. It doesn't seem super synthetic to me, although some argue chemical treatment of the tree fibres make it that way: https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-wash-modal-clothes-2145794 https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-wash-modal-clothes-2145794 I don't subscribe to MU by the way, I collected t shirts and one point and used to date a girl with a textiles degree. I had one t-shirt that felt magical, she told me it was modal and I learnt what it was. Now I buy cheap modal t shirts and underwear from Amazon.
- ndiscussion 8y agoOoo I should try this. I got modal sheets and a modal comforter a few months ago, so silky smooth.
- cco 8y agoModal is just Rayon no? I had the same misconception about "hemp fabric", turns out these exotic "natural fabrics" are just Rayon made using a novel source of cellulose.
- 8y ago