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VCs Think My Boobs Need An Algorithm

162 points by sindhya 14y ago

Jun8 14y ago
They absolutely do! If you have watched even a single episode of What Not to Wear you'd have known that most women, especially ones with breast sizes a couple of sigmas away from the mean, have no easy way to buy a well-fitted bra. They either have to go to a fancy store to do personal fitting (may be expensive) or go to a place like VS and hope for the best. A suitable algorithm, based on Kinect 3D models, say, would totally take this market by surprise and make a huge splash.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  > A suitable algorithm, based on Kinect 3D models I can see poorly researched headlines now: "Nerds trick women into showing them their breasts via video games"
- BrianEatWorld 14y ago
  I had discussed a Kinect idea with some fellow employees when I worked at VS and they scoffed at the idea. I think the issue is that breasts are more complex than just external shape with internal density and natural placement being just the tip of the iceberg. All the factors involved rule out a cheap modeling method such as Kinect or webcams and in the end, make visiting a store, to be measured properly and try for fit, the more economic choice.
  - protomyth 14y ago
    I don't think you can get by the trust issue, but a redboxish booth to be placed at stores might work. I know I would really like to order jeans / pants customized to fit. Not sure if I wound stand there in a booth in my skivvies to get scanned. Imagine being topless for a girl would require a fair bit of trust.
- frossie 14y ago
  Well, maybe. The "wrong size" problem is only part of the story. Another is that many bras are generally poorly constructed, lose their shape after continued use, and sizing is not the only issue (fabric tolerance, flop etc). But more than anything else, the problem is price. A "good" workhorse bra (workwear, not lingerie fantasy stuff) will set you back on average, oh, say about $65 ($100 is not uncommon). You probably need half a dozen. I have no idea what the economics are and why they are so expensive, but I can't imagine what price a "Kinect 3D" custom bra would come in at. And the other aspect of "a good bra is hard to find" is that once you find one, there's a huge lock-in factor. Women will re-order the same model for years. So yeah, while there is certainly a non-zero market for something like this, it's probably not huge. Witness the fact that it is quite easy and even not too pricey to get custom jeans made to measure, and yet the majority of the population doesn't.
  - omegant 14y ago
    Now there is a disruption possibility in that market if someone took the time to do actual biometric and customer search and some innovation in production methods.
  - vacri 14y ago
    set you back ... about $65 It's a running joke with my housemate that her bras cost around $40 each (starting price) whereas I can buy a 7-pack of briefs for $10.
deleted 14y ago
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nedwin 14y ago
While I agree that the proliferation of subscription based consumer product services looks crazy, I think this post includes too many assumptions about how and why VC's are funding consumer startups. You also seem to have a fairly negative attitude towards the teams behind these startups but I can't seem to see why this is justified. Far from being without product innovation or branding, dollarshaveclub.com are changing the way we purchase razors and the price we pay. That video is their brand statement. The fact that dollarshaveclub.com hasn't released a new product since receiving funding, or had another big viral video, doesn't mean all that much in itself. Perhaps they're selling so many razors that they're still fulfilling that market. Or perhaps they're working on a new launch with a longer product cycle.
- adrr 14y ago
  We recently launched in Canada and Australia. Also we are hiring: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859122 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859122
jonnathanson 14y ago
I think you raise a valid point overall, which is that a lot of VC money gets invested very quickly into businesses with unproven models. That, in and of itself, is a real problem. Ralph Lauren started his multibillion-dollar clothing empire as a door to door tie salesman. He built his business one store sale at a time. Why can't today's entrepreneurs in the clothing space start small and grow organically? Is a startup in the bra market really in need of tens of millions of dollars in order to hit necessary traction? Is rapid, overnight growth really the best way to build a clothing brand? All very reasonable inquiries. That said -- and I say this as respectfully as possible -- you're applying 20/20 hindsight in many of your examples. Fact: many women in this country, perhaps even a majority, have bras that don't fit correctly. Fact: women's boobs are highly variable, and do not actually fit into the standard cup size / chest size system that we've been using for the last 50 years. (An algorithm may be an over-engineered way to approach this problem, but the current model is far from perfect). Fact: men's razors are ridiculously expensive, and the razor & blades model is ripe for disruption. Theory (perhaps more viable than you might think): curated boxes of goods may, indeed, drive lead-generation and discovery, opening up new markets for apparel and home furnishings businesses. I don't think it's remotely fair to look at the present-day struggles of companies like Dollar Shave Club or Trunk Club and declare, ipso facto, that their business models are fundamentally unsound. Perhaps their business operations are unsound. Perhaps their business strategies are unsound. Perhaps even wildly so. But the addressable markets seem reasonable in both cases. Finally, I think you're cherry picking some examples and using them to draw a larger condemnation of the whole system. If we're going to declare that the system is rotten, then we need to begin with a macro-level evaluation of the system.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- prostoalex 14y ago
  Old debate of fast vs slow growth. spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html pg: http://paulgraham.com/growth.html http://paulgraham.com/growth.html
- jacoblyles 14y ago
eof 14y ago
I think your boobs can use an algorithm. I am without them myself, but, I have heard complaints about bra sizing forever, and am aware of the (now common?) knowledge that most women are wearing non-ideal bras. It doesn't matter if "most women" don't buy bras every month, if 1% of them do, and True & Co captures 10% of that market then that 2M seed funding will be a great investment. Your boobs don't need an algorithm that doesn't work, of course. But if some smart people are able to ask you three minutes worth of questions, and then provide you with support that will make your life significantly better.. who cares? I think the idea is that they are trying to turn a product that 'needs to be felt' into something that doesn't, because "it just works". Anything "that just works" is good, and VC money will chase after it.
- mbell 14y ago
  Wanted to more or less say the same thing. For whatever reason I've run into the issue of bra sizing numerous times over the last 6 months without doing/reading anything that would promote the discussion. Personally I think part of it is that there is a general increase in the open chatter of women on the web due to sites like Pinterest. I don't know if there is a technological solution to fix it, but if there is it seems like a very real way to improve life for a large amount of the populous. Whomever can make a significant dent in it seems poised to profit in a big way.
  - mnicole 14y ago
    A more technical solution would probably do wonders for this problem - both in initial measurement and custom solutions thereafter. Even going in for a fitting won't yield you the right results, and a lot of women are just too self-conscious for one to begin with. Human fitters are trained differently at various locations, and VS in particular doesn't seem to adequately train their employees (or maybe because most locations are in malls, working in intimates isn't exactly her career choice so she's are more lenient/awkward about it). I was grossly misfitted at a VS like many others I've met, and the girl was pretty careless about the whole thing (didn't take her time, was 100% sure she'd done it right despite telling her I wasn't quite sure - ironically citing the fact that most women are wearing the wrong size to begin with). Additionally, well-made bras that last easily run into the $60-100+ range, so a lot of women pick up the cutesy bargain-bin ones that aren't shaped well to begin with. And depending, it can end up being a lot like jeans where sizing will vary with different brands and styles even though it shouldn't.
ebbv 14y ago
I love this post and it underlines a common problem I see being repeated from the early dotcom days; people investing in things they find exciting rather than things that actually make sense.
- jfb 14y ago
  Or investing in things they don't understand. Which seems like a pretty good sign of dumb money to me.
showerst 14y ago
WRT Dollar Shave Club - "What are they up to now? Sucking" Does anyone have any evidence of this? I'm curious about how they're doing, I haven't seen anything online about them delivering bad news. Just because they aren't offering new products (less than a year after launch!) doesn't mean that they're failing...
ig1 14y ago
Not only can an algorithm provide you with a better fit, but it almost certainly already does. Bra designers already use sophisticated algorithmic models on breast shape and movement when designing bras: http://discovermagazine.com/2005/nov/physics-of-bras http://discovermagazine.com/2005/nov/physics-of-bras It's not unreasonable to think that it's feasible to design an algorithm that can result in better bra fitting. Most bra fitting at the moment is done incredibly badly, many women are too embarrassed to get professionally fitted so often use adhoc methods when it comes to bra fitting. That's what an algorithm has to beat. The exact same arguments that that article makes about shape, touch, etc. were long applied to the clothing market as whole. People argued "who would want to buy shoes online ?" - then Zappos came along. People argued "who would want to buy glasses online ?" - then Warby Parker came along. The online share of the bra market ($5-$7bn/year in the US) is almost certainly going to increase. The question isn't whether people are going to buy bras online, the question is who they're going to buy them from. I think the OP is making the mistake of thinking "I wouldn't use this service so no-one will".
smacktoward 14y ago
Where are the panties in True & Co.’s business model? True & Co. launched in May yet they are still not selling any panties to go with the bras they sell. For every bra a woman buys, she probably buys at least 5 pairs of panties. Also, panties have much better margins than bras. This is basic business strategy that has evaded the founders of True & Co. as well as the VCs who backed them. I wonder if this sort of thing isn't a symptom of the way the VC sphere is playing in places outside the players' experience. By any reasonable measure True & Co. is a retail business, not a tech business. (An online questionnaire does not a tech business make.) Neither of its founders are retail people, though -- one was a Bain Capital accountant, the other a program manager at Microsoft (http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/smallbusiness/true-bra-lam.fortune/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/smallbusiness/true-bra-lam.f...). And their experience in the lingerie business appears to be limited to spending two months chatting up existing Bay Area lingerie vendors (http://mashable.com/2012/05/30/true-and-co/ http://mashable.com/2012/05/30/true-and-co/). If someone told me they were about to Revolutionize An Industry other than their own based on two months of research and a web form, I would be highly skeptical. It sounds too much like the most ridiculous dot-bombs of the 1990s. But these issues don't appear to have hurt their funding any -- probably because it's not like the VCs came out of retail either. To them it's just another Industry To Be Disrupted (insert details here).
natrius 14y ago
Dollar Shave Club got ~$10M of their ~$11M funding two months ago[1]. This makes the argument that they've done nothing with their funding a bit silly. It also indicates that there might be plans they have that we haven't seen yet, but are worth funding. Overall, this sounds like venting about how other companies in your industry are getting funding when you presumably aren't. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/dollar-shave-club-funding/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/dollar-shave-club-funding/
- orangethirty 14y ago
  Read her comment on that link: Sindhya Valloppillil Other than their video, Dollar shave club has nothing proprietary. Not a single product person on their team, not a single industry person on the core team, no real pipeline of innovation. the branding isn't globally appealing. No way you can turn it into a lifestyle brand with that brand name. The irony: Dubin said "too many other co's are primarily interested in the subscription model b/c of recurring revenue, w/out really thinking through the problem that they’re solving for users." I'm not sure what Dollar Shave has thought through other than their videos. Great metrics and a video don't make a consumer brand a success. Without question, I totally agree @tomreynolds. It's a ridiculous valuation -> Yes, we're in a bubble.
- sindhya 14y ago
  The funding was closed well before the posting of that article. Also, $1M is more than enough to launch more than a 3 "stock" razors bought from China which what Dollar Shave is doing.
runn1ng 14y ago
He he, boobs.
- mhurron 14y ago
  While your comment is going to get downvoted, appropriately I might add, I still would like to thank you for voicing my similarly juvenile humour.
greg7mdp 14y ago
You obviously don't need an algorithm to find a catchy title :-)
- sindhya 14y ago
  Or company name. :)
kaliblack 14y ago
I hear this kind of sentiment a lot and it usually comes from a position of subjective analysis, rather than actual knowledge. I'd be able to support an argument that was based on first-hand knowledge about the product and the reasons for investment. This is simply personal opinion, based on the author's own context. VCs and the founders don't think your boobs need an algorithm. They think there's a market that do want one. Are they right? I don't know and neither does the author.
jimzvz 14y ago
The worst part of this problem is again that many non-crony, first-time entrepreneurs, regardless of how compelling their business model is, how great their margins are and how great their team is, still get a hard time and struggle to get funding. Who cares? I think the real issue is that there seems to be a large number of entrepreneurs whose primary goal is to secure funding. If you can't find an investor, make a plan. Change your business so you don't need external funding (it should start out like that anyway), network, look overseas, work harder so that your business is more appealing etc. If your business is so great, you will find an investor. There is no need to play the victim and claim that "VCs" only fund their friends and fundamentally flawed businesses. Even if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, that is the case, who cares?
marquis 14y ago
Review from a girl on this business: I went to see how the site was, found it more or less friendly and designed well enough to keep me on the page. Wanted to know how much the bras cost - they won't tell you until you login. Easy, quick login not requiring email confirmation so they kept me hooked. I was provided with some well drawn pictures of women's shapes and asked to choose - I clicked through a few questions and felt they understood my exact problems and concerns when buying bras (I usually go to an expensive professional fitter so the questions were welcome and relevant). Along the way they kept telling me I was normal and gave some comforting stats about women. Made me feel like I was in the right place to keep buying. Finally got to the buy page, prices are good compared to the high-end shops though they don't have the really good hand-made items I look for, nor the higher-end makers like La Perla (surprised at that). Now did I sign up for the 5 bras they'll send me to try, and free to send back what I don't want? No, because a) I'm not in the U.S. and b) I'm spoilt with my personal fitter who has my card on file and knows my fit really well. But that's because I have access to her shop, in a huge city where they can afford this luxury. If I was living in a smaller city, definitely would sign up, no questions. It's Zappos for bras, and I don't see why they can't easily apply this model to other clothing types like shoes and shirts (also hard to fit). I wish them luck, great service in my opinion. >Where are the panties in True & Co.’s business model? You can't ship and return these items safely. Further: I went back to see what happened on checkout. They do something clever here: you choose 3 bras and they choose 2. This is another reason I go to a store: I ask the expert to choose me something from the rack that she thinks will work well on me, after learning about my tastes. I badly want to order those 5 bras now just to find out what the other 2 are, and they just take a deposit of $45. I think they have some quite brilliant ideas here that will work very well on their target market.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  >>Where are the panties in True & Co.’s business model? >You can't ship and return these items safely. Also it's not as though panties are as difficult as bras to purchase. T&C is trying to do the hard work; doing relatively unrelated easy work alongside that might be a distraction. TFA is a woman and all, but it's still tempting to consider her one of those 'old boy' industry stalwarts who are so afraid of disruption from outside that they can't imagine what it would look like. If she can find one, she should ask a travel agent what he thinks of "algorithms". [edit: formatting]
teach 14y ago
"For every bra a woman buys, she probably buys at least 5 pairs of panties." I beg to differ. I'm a man, and have never bought either bra or panties for my wife, but I have watched at least 100 hours of QVC and HSN (competitor home shopping networks). I have seen MANY presentations of various bras, and virtually none for panties. I'm quite certain that's no accident.
- cowpewter 14y ago
  (I'm a woman) Bras are usually worn multiple times before washing. Good ones are expensive ($60-100 a pop), and the less wear and tear on them the longer they last, and the longer the fit that you bought them for is preserved. Panties are changed every day, and are cheap in comparison to bras. You can get a 6-pack of cotton Hanes at Walmart for less than $10. Individual panties from a department store might cost $5-15 a pair. You can compromise on panty quality in a way you can't with bras. Cheap panties just fall apart a little faster. Cheap bras are daily torture. I'd wager the average women most definitely owns 5 if not more pairs of panties for every bra she owns. Edit to add: I would say the issue (with not seeing panties advertised as heavily on shopping networks) is more that panty quality is not so much of an issue. That 6-pack of Hanes will do you just fine and there's no constant need to find a better panty like there is to find a better bra. Bras suck, unless you've got small boobs. The balance of comfort, fit, and support is delicate. It's easy to try to market the New! Improved! bra. There's not really anything to improve about the panty.
  - icambron 14y ago
    All the more reason to build the business around bras instead of panties.
- lotharbot 14y ago
  Think of panties like socks, and bras like shoes. Socks/panties are easy to buy. You can get 6 pair, of decent but not exceptional quality, for 10 bucks. They're generally a bit stretchy and pretty tolerant of significant size variations. There's no reason to run an infomercial for these. Shoes/bras need to be the right size and shape, or you'll be uncomfortable. Decent quality is going to run you $40 at a minimum. You might have to try on a dozen or more before you find something that feels right. If you're an unusual size, you may need to get something customized.
JoshHenryKatz 14y ago
It's very often that investors get wrapped up in the hot business method rather than taking the time to think about how that might actually apply to the specific industry. They've seen how subscriptions and algorithms are going gangbusters for companies like Amazon, why not expand to an industry they know nothing about? Most of these VCs are likely not coming from the garment industry, so they might know absolutely nothing about manufacturing or consumer experience. They try to pick based on things they know, and what companies they think might be similar. Much of the time, that's a very poor model for investment and they would be better of sticking to what they understand. At the same time, how many original investors actually understood what Facebook or Google were all about?
ActVen 14y ago
Sindhya raises some very valid points that help illustrate that a large portion of the investment community simply can't tell the difference between startups that are truly innovative and those simply clothed in the accouterments of innovation. Tacking on the terms algorithm, social, mobile, patentable, etc. seems to fool quite a few people.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Ok, what did I miss? I ran that whole rant through my "What are they trying to say" filter twice and the best it could come up with was "Those poopie-heads won't fund my great idea." Paragraph by paragraph here are the thesis statements: VC's funded a bra company with an algorithm VC's didn't fund my idea/company based on things I think are important That other, funded company, really has no idea, consumers are idiots and clueless companies benefit. Companies I don't understand, think poorly of, and aren't me are getting more money thrown at them. Funding is all back channels and who you know because companies that are horrible are getting funding while mine is not. If VCs would just wake up and see what was going on I'd get funding and those crappy companies wouldn't. I've got a great idea in a really big market, if only those stupid VCs would take their blinders off and fund it we could all be happy. It is pretty clear that Sindhya doesn't agree with the way various VC's are investing their funds because she spends a lot of ink complaining about what she thinks they want to hear vs what is really important in her space (the whole boob algorithm concept), but skims right over the whole "they have money and you don't" market reality thing. It isn't easy but you have to ask yourself, what is going on here that I don't understand? And work through that, rather than call an industry that has been pretty damn successful creating companies over the last century a bunch of idiots.
- mbesto 14y ago
  > rather than call an industry that has been pretty damn successful creating companies over the last century a bunch of idiots. Is this actually true? (note - I don't know) My understanding is most VC firms aren't successful. Just a few are. I've thought about writing a post almost identical to the OP and came to your same conclusion: "At the end of the day they have the money". The other harsh reality is that VCs are no different than the enterprise companies of today's world...they are all about reducing risks at scale. One of their scariest risks is failing to instill confidence in their clients. For example, if the market dictates that the hottest thing right now is photo sharing, you better be damn sure that a VC is going to invest in a photo sharing app. The VC is going to say "Dear client, we aren't going to invest in the next big photo sharing app, even though all of the analyst say its the next big thing. Instead we're investing in 21st century pig farms!" The client will say "but what about Instagram!" No matter how risky you personally believe it is (for example - photo sharing apps have no revenues) the market still is throwing money at it (i.e. Instagram). So, conclusion - I blame media hyperbole and people's natural biases, not VCs on the amount of funding put into "good" startups.
wamatt 14y ago
"Boobs" + "Algorithm" = HN frontpage. Savvy marketing there.
- super-serial 14y ago
  Yeah but if I post a story about my flawless "Dick Algorithm" no one cares. Who says women don't have an advantage in tech?
rxl 14y ago
The problem I see with this article is that it trashes one particular company and the VC backing of that company and attempts to use that to make a larger point about vc-backed e-commerce companies in general. So OK, maybe that company isn't great. Maybe the VC's made a mistake with that particular investment. Or maybe the founders and VC's know something that you don't. Either way, one's observations about a company should be limited to that company and not be generalized to the entire space the company is in, unless of course there is sufficient compelling data.
Havoc 14y ago
Thread title mentions boobs...ranked #1 on HM. I don't really mind, but that is kinda weak for std HN purposes.
sriramk 14y ago
[disclaimer: I'm married to the original tech/product co-founder who is no longer with the company] For the first time, I see a HN thread on a startup I know very well from the inside, how can I resist jumping in.? :) First, the OP is factually incorrect about one thing - True&Co doesn't have a subscription model. You get a bunch of bras in a box when you order from the site, you keep what you like. This is the same as the Warby Parker model as well as other successful startups where you need to physically experience things. Second, I'm not sure why the OP feels such animosity towards the company or the team. There are many snide comments in there, especially around funding, which seems out of place. Having said that, the women's intimates business has a few big incumbents and a huge addressable market. In the beginning, True&Co took a very 'software eats the world' approach and tried to use machine learning to fix a problem that a lot of women have. I'm not sure whether they still use a algorithm or whether they focus on tech anymore but at the time, I liked the algorithm Aarthi and her team had built out - it had great results.
- DanBC 14y ago
  > True&Co doesn't have a subscription model. You get a bunch of bras in a box when you order from the site, you keep what you like. That's pretty important. Just from that line it seems like a great idea. If they can keep tack of the different sizing between brands (or can help with sizing in any way) they could do well. I wish them luck!
- danielpal 14y ago
  What happens to the bra's that are returned? Unlike Warby Parker, I wouldn't mind trying a used pair of glasses but I doubt woman will be OK with used underwear(bra's).
  - hesparrow 14y ago
    I'm not sure it would be very different to trying one on in a store - someone may have already tried on the same one.
    - danielpal 14y ago
DanBC 14y ago
There's a reason Rigby and Pellor can charge £100 for bras. They don't have an algorithm. They have well known name; great (apparently, I've obviously never tried it) fitting; etc. PS: If the blog owner is reading please consider better contrast (off white background and darker text) and larger font size.
- 3JPLW 14y ago
  Agreed about contrast, and perhaps even more importantly, please don't break text zoom.
jamiequint 14y ago
This post reeks of jealousy.
sagacityhappens 14y ago
P Pitch Deck for Shave of Month Club: We been open for 2 Months and have doubled our sales! We will double our sales at $1 a razor each month for 30 Months. 1: 1 2: 3 3: 7 4: 15 5: 31 6: 63 7: 127 8: 255 9: 511 10:1,023 11:2,047 12:4,095 13:8,191 14:16,383 15:32,767 16:65,535 17:131,071 18:262,143 19:524,287 20:1,048,575 21:2,097,151 22:4,194,303 23:8,388,607 24:16,777,215
ig1 14y ago
Off the core topic, but the author seems to misunderstand what the Series A crunch is. The Series A crunch isn't anything to do with crappy companies raising huge series As. Rather the crunch is caused by the huge growth in the number of companies successfully raising angel rounds (both through accelerators and the explosion of angels created by the IPOs of Google, Facebook, etc.). While the number of Series A rounds done by VCs is going up, it's been growing nowhere near as fast as seed funding so naturally the number of angel funded companies who fail to raise Series As is going to go up. Hence the term Series A crunch.
robotresearcher 14y ago
"VCs think my boobs need an algorithm. My boobs don’t need an algorithm." Horrible link-bait introduction. Algorithm is being used as a dirty word. Algorithms are not soft, caring, touchable, feminine, according to the imagery in the piece. In the real world though, boobs and lives are saved daily by algorithms. I want my family's boob cancer screening images reconstructed from tiny, noisy signals by the most hardcore medical imaging algorithms available, thanks. But "VCs Think My Bra Fitting Need A Questionnaire" wouldn't be getting those views.
- mikeurbach 14y ago
  Couldn't agree more. It seems like "algorithm" is starting to be used among the non-tech world to refer to the computerization of everything in a negative way. Really, an algorithm is a mathematical formulation of how to solve a problem, albeit usually ran on computers. If True & Co. want to apply a little machine learning to an old problem, fine. If people think that machines can't learn, then we're going to have these sort of issues.
Mz 14y ago
I read the piece and I don't understand how it relates to the article title. As best I can tell, it is just a rant that some other company got funded. I see no mention of what her company is, why it presumably did not get funded, what value she thinks a company should be measured by, etc. Thus, the title strikes me as pretty gratuitous, like "I think I will stick boobs in the title cuz sex sells, then bitch about whatever the heck I feel like". So my thought: Maybe she can't get VC money because she sucks at effective communication.
hayksaakian 14y ago
It appears as though she's mad. Anything intriguing or interesting was lost on me due to this.
javert 14y ago
Classic case of blaming a group of people (all VCs) for something some particular people did (those particular VCs).
DanielBMarkham 14y ago
This has to win the linkbait title of the week award. Very nicely done. (Not that it's not a good article. I'm simply commenting on word choice in the title. A less brave soul might have been more boorish or more prudish.) Building a technology business means deciding whether you're a service businesses or a product businesses. Here's a product that traditionally has a service model -- and it looks like a high-touch service -- trying to be sold as a product. Kind of has that feel of something a bunch of guy nerds would think would fly but actually not so much. So I can buy the thesis of the essay. The interesting thing is that there is a market here. What I'd love to know is how they're finding the subset of women that are comfortable using the web to buy undergarments. Are they running ads on specific sites? Leveraging social networks like Pinterest? Instead of the "works for me" versus "I hate it" conversation, I'd be much more interested in how the company actually found their MVP and proved it out -- and more critically the size of each segment. Much more informative than blanket generalizations. (I realize my comment was loaded with puns. They were not intentional)
- ig1 14y ago
  Bra sales are only high-touch at the high-end, and even then only partially. Buying undergarments with a service model is socially awkward whatever gender you are. I'm 100% certain that online bra sales have a future. Why ? - the largest lingerie retailer in the US is Victoria's Secret. I'm guessing your brain automatically inserts the word "catalog" after their name. The biggest lingerie retailer built their business around a mail order catalog (although they obviously have stores now too). The women who buy bras online are the same as women who buy other clothes online.
saumil07 14y ago
Great title, terrible post. What a giant muddle of critiquing everything from one company to a whole industry to a variety of tangential companies in the space...without data. No one except for dollar shave club and their investors knows how many subs they have. They may have very few. They may have a lot. But trashing the for running a promotion in a month and for having a lot of money? Thanks but no thanks. I love a good rant but this was not one.
MichelleLam 14y ago
[Posting on HN since comments on the original post are closed.] Hello Sindhya- I'm Michelle, CEO/Co-Founder of True&Co. I started the company to create a great personal shopping experience for women because for most women, bra shopping sucks - going to a store, spending hours in a fitting room, still not finding a bra that flatters you. Women told us a great shopping experience is about delivering your personal bra shop to your house. We give women 5 bras to try at home, risk-free. Pay for what you keep, return the rest. All returns go through a 65-point inspection to make sure the bra hasn't been worn. The algorithm determines which bras we suggest for you - the best bra for you may not be the best bra for me. So far, over 100,000 women have taken the True&Co quiz, We keep getting smarter on what works for each of our 2000 individual body types. Once you tell us which bra you’ve kept, we offer matching panties in your personal shop. A great shopping experience is NOT about contractually obligating customers to buy every month so no, we are not a subscription service. Our customers return to us over and over again because they've discovered a better way to shop for all kinds of intimate apparel. Sindya, I hope you try our service and give online bra fitting a chance! Please email me at hello@trueandco.com or visit https://trueandco.com/ https://trueandco.com/.
olleicua 14y ago
What is the point? You don't like this company's business model so don't buy from them. Either you're right and nobody will buy from them and they'll fade into obscurity or you're wrong and some customers do like this model. Are you upset that VCs are being stupid? I hate to break it to you but the world is full of stupid people and some of them are VCs. This isn't news. #downvote
phibit 14y ago
Maybe I am misunderstanding but it seems like this post is critiquing the investments of a specific set of VCs. Firstly, who cares? If VCs want to blow money on ideas that go nowhere, that's their business. In fact, it's a business that they know and do well, they cast a wide net of high-risk high-yield investments and deal with the average. And if OP is attacking the validity of the product, great. That's your opinion, but honestly who are you to say which ideas will succeed which will fail. The true test is if the company succeeds. A company's primary goal is to make money, they don't really give a damn about fitting bras. If they can make money, even if their service is factually crappy and unreliable, they've succeeded; probably in their own minds and the minds of their investors. My personal opinion is that the idea is dumb but if they succeed good for them, they were blessed with a vision that I lack.
nunbot 14y ago
cunt edit: she's the reason that word is so offensive to some.
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sindhya 14y ago
Please refer to the correction at the bottom of the article. I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong. True&Co. doesn't not have a subscription. But isn't the Warby of the bra world and they have not proven that their algorithm works. 1) True does NOT make the process of bra shopping easier. That's what Warby does best while offering a great product at a very affordable price. Warby has great branding. In fact, True takes a traditionally feminine and sexy product and makes shopping for it a BORING and painful experience. 3 minutes of questioning was boring. 2)There is no animosity towards the team. My post is no different than an article on Pando - actually it's no where as snarky some of the articles I've seen. Pando can be really, really snarky. Check out this article: http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/21/dominatefund-badly-misses-t... http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/21/dominatefund-badly-misses-t.... 3) If True's algorithm works, they should really show proof. Have they done any claims testing? That's what consumer brands do when they have $ and they are trying to prove that their tech works. Otherwise, it's flimsy, BS marketing ==> No true fit, no true fitting algorithm. 4) Where are the panties? I could not find them after 10 minutes. It's worse that True says they sell them, but I couldn't find them after 10 minutes. The founders don't understand basic business, marketing or branding. That's key for a consumer goods business like a lingerie brand. 5)It's a shame because I do know several other BETTER lingerie startups that should have gotten funding which presented at DecodedFashion Lingerie Startup Showcase. One founder is in serious debt trying to get funding. Unfortunately she isn't a former VC, so fundraising is a lot harder for her.

162 points by sindhya 14y ago

Jun8 14y ago

They absolutely do! If you have watched even a single episode of What Not to Wear you'd have known that most women, especially ones with breast sizes a couple of sigmas away from the mean, have no easy way to buy a well-fitted bra. They either have to go to a fancy store to do personal fitting (may be expensive) or go to a place like VS and hope for the best. A suitable algorithm, based on Kinect 3D models, say, would totally take this market by surprise and make a huge splash.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
> A suitable algorithm, based on Kinect 3D models I can see poorly researched headlines now: "Nerds trick women into showing them their breasts via video games"
BrianEatWorld 14y ago
I had discussed a Kinect idea with some fellow employees when I worked at VS and they scoffed at the idea. I think the issue is that breasts are more complex than just external shape with internal density and natural placement being just the tip of the iceberg. All the factors involved rule out a cheap modeling method such as Kinect or webcams and in the end, make visiting a store, to be measured properly and try for fit, the more economic choice.
- protomyth 14y ago
  I don't think you can get by the trust issue, but a redboxish booth to be placed at stores might work. I know I would really like to order jeans / pants customized to fit. Not sure if I wound stand there in a booth in my skivvies to get scanned. Imagine being topless for a girl would require a fair bit of trust.
frossie 14y ago
Well, maybe. The "wrong size" problem is only part of the story. Another is that many bras are generally poorly constructed, lose their shape after continued use, and sizing is not the only issue (fabric tolerance, flop etc). But more than anything else, the problem is price. A "good" workhorse bra (workwear, not lingerie fantasy stuff) will set you back on average, oh, say about $65 ($100 is not uncommon). You probably need half a dozen. I have no idea what the economics are and why they are so expensive, but I can't imagine what price a "Kinect 3D" custom bra would come in at. And the other aspect of "a good bra is hard to find" is that once you find one, there's a huge lock-in factor. Women will re-order the same model for years. So yeah, while there is certainly a non-zero market for something like this, it's probably not huge. Witness the fact that it is quite easy and even not too pricey to get custom jeans made to measure, and yet the majority of the population doesn't.
- omegant 14y ago
  Now there is a disruption possibility in that market if someone took the time to do actual biometric and customer search and some innovation in production methods.
- vacri 14y ago
  set you back ... about $65 It's a running joke with my housemate that her bras cost around $40 each (starting price) whereas I can buy a 7-pack of briefs for $10.

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nedwin 14y ago

While I agree that the proliferation of subscription based consumer product services looks crazy, I think this post includes too many assumptions about how and why VC's are funding consumer startups. You also seem to have a fairly negative attitude towards the teams behind these startups but I can't seem to see why this is justified. Far from being without product innovation or branding, dollarshaveclub.com are changing the way we purchase razors and the price we pay. That video is their brand statement. The fact that dollarshaveclub.com hasn't released a new product since receiving funding, or had another big viral video, doesn't mean all that much in itself. Perhaps they're selling so many razors that they're still fulfilling that market. Or perhaps they're working on a new launch with a longer product cycle.

adrr 14y ago
We recently launched in Canada and Australia. Also we are hiring: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859122 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4859122

jonnathanson 14y ago

I think you raise a valid point overall, which is that a lot of VC money gets invested very quickly into businesses with unproven models. That, in and of itself, is a real problem. Ralph Lauren started his multibillion-dollar clothing empire as a door to door tie salesman. He built his business one store sale at a time. Why can't today's entrepreneurs in the clothing space start small and grow organically? Is a startup in the bra market really in need of tens of millions of dollars in order to hit necessary traction? Is rapid, overnight growth really the best way to build a clothing brand? All very reasonable inquiries. That said -- and I say this as respectfully as possible -- you're applying 20/20 hindsight in many of your examples. Fact: many women in this country, perhaps even a majority, have bras that don't fit correctly. Fact: women's boobs are highly variable, and do not actually fit into the standard cup size / chest size system that we've been using for the last 50 years. (An algorithm may be an over-engineered way to approach this problem, but the current model is far from perfect). Fact: men's razors are ridiculously expensive, and the razor & blades model is ripe for disruption. Theory (perhaps more viable than you might think): curated boxes of goods may, indeed, drive lead-generation and discovery, opening up new markets for apparel and home furnishings businesses. I don't think it's remotely fair to look at the present-day struggles of companies like Dollar Shave Club or Trunk Club and declare, ipso facto, that their business models are fundamentally unsound. Perhaps their business operations are unsound. Perhaps their business strategies are unsound. Perhaps even wildly so. But the addressable markets seem reasonable in both cases. Finally, I think you're cherry picking some examples and using them to draw a larger condemnation of the whole system. If we're going to declare that the system is rotten, then we need to begin with a macro-level evaluation of the system.

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prostoalex 14y ago
Old debate of fast vs slow growth. spolsky: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000056.html pg: http://paulgraham.com/growth.html http://paulgraham.com/growth.html
jacoblyles 14y ago

eof 14y ago

I think your boobs can use an algorithm. I am without them myself, but, I have heard complaints about bra sizing forever, and am aware of the (now common?) knowledge that most women are wearing non-ideal bras. It doesn't matter if "most women" don't buy bras every month, if 1% of them do, and True & Co captures 10% of that market then that 2M seed funding will be a great investment. Your boobs don't need an algorithm that doesn't work, of course. But if some smart people are able to ask you three minutes worth of questions, and then provide you with support that will make your life significantly better.. who cares? I think the idea is that they are trying to turn a product that 'needs to be felt' into something that doesn't, because "it just works". Anything "that just works" is good, and VC money will chase after it.

mbell 14y ago
Wanted to more or less say the same thing. For whatever reason I've run into the issue of bra sizing numerous times over the last 6 months without doing/reading anything that would promote the discussion. Personally I think part of it is that there is a general increase in the open chatter of women on the web due to sites like Pinterest. I don't know if there is a technological solution to fix it, but if there is it seems like a very real way to improve life for a large amount of the populous. Whomever can make a significant dent in it seems poised to profit in a big way.
- mnicole 14y ago
  A more technical solution would probably do wonders for this problem - both in initial measurement and custom solutions thereafter. Even going in for a fitting won't yield you the right results, and a lot of women are just too self-conscious for one to begin with. Human fitters are trained differently at various locations, and VS in particular doesn't seem to adequately train their employees (or maybe because most locations are in malls, working in intimates isn't exactly her career choice so she's are more lenient/awkward about it). I was grossly misfitted at a VS like many others I've met, and the girl was pretty careless about the whole thing (didn't take her time, was 100% sure she'd done it right despite telling her I wasn't quite sure - ironically citing the fact that most women are wearing the wrong size to begin with). Additionally, well-made bras that last easily run into the $60-100+ range, so a lot of women pick up the cutesy bargain-bin ones that aren't shaped well to begin with. And depending, it can end up being a lot like jeans where sizing will vary with different brands and styles even though it shouldn't.

ebbv 14y ago

I love this post and it underlines a common problem I see being repeated from the early dotcom days; people investing in things they find exciting rather than things that actually make sense.

jfb 14y ago
Or investing in things they don't understand. Which seems like a pretty good sign of dumb money to me.

showerst 14y ago

WRT Dollar Shave Club - "What are they up to now? Sucking" Does anyone have any evidence of this? I'm curious about how they're doing, I haven't seen anything online about them delivering bad news. Just because they aren't offering new products (less than a year after launch!) doesn't mean that they're failing...

ig1 14y ago

Not only can an algorithm provide you with a better fit, but it almost certainly already does. Bra designers already use sophisticated algorithmic models on breast shape and movement when designing bras: http://discovermagazine.com/2005/nov/physics-of-bras http://discovermagazine.com/2005/nov/physics-of-bras It's not unreasonable to think that it's feasible to design an algorithm that can result in better bra fitting. Most bra fitting at the moment is done incredibly badly, many women are too embarrassed to get professionally fitted so often use adhoc methods when it comes to bra fitting. That's what an algorithm has to beat. The exact same arguments that that article makes about shape, touch, etc. were long applied to the clothing market as whole. People argued "who would want to buy shoes online ?" - then Zappos came along. People argued "who would want to buy glasses online ?" - then Warby Parker came along. The online share of the bra market ($5-$7bn/year in the US) is almost certainly going to increase. The question isn't whether people are going to buy bras online, the question is who they're going to buy them from. I think the OP is making the mistake of thinking "I wouldn't use this service so no-one will".

smacktoward 14y ago

Where are the panties in True & Co.’s business model? True & Co. launched in May yet they are still not selling any panties to go with the bras they sell. For every bra a woman buys, she probably buys at least 5 pairs of panties. Also, panties have much better margins than bras. This is basic business strategy that has evaded the founders of True & Co. as well as the VCs who backed them. I wonder if this sort of thing isn't a symptom of the way the VC sphere is playing in places outside the players' experience. By any reasonable measure True & Co. is a retail business, not a tech business. (An online questionnaire does not a tech business make.) Neither of its founders are retail people, though -- one was a Bain Capital accountant, the other a program manager at Microsoft (http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/smallbusiness/true-bra-lam.fortune/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/04/smallbusiness/true-bra-lam.f...). And their experience in the lingerie business appears to be limited to spending two months chatting up existing Bay Area lingerie vendors (http://mashable.com/2012/05/30/true-and-co/ http://mashable.com/2012/05/30/true-and-co/). If someone told me they were about to Revolutionize An Industry other than their own based on two months of research and a web form, I would be highly skeptical. It sounds too much like the most ridiculous dot-bombs of the 1990s. But these issues don't appear to have hurt their funding any -- probably because it's not like the VCs came out of retail either. To them it's just another Industry To Be Disrupted (insert details here).

natrius 14y ago

Dollar Shave Club got ~$10M of their ~$11M funding two months ago[1]. This makes the argument that they've done nothing with their funding a bit silly. It also indicates that there might be plans they have that we haven't seen yet, but are worth funding. Overall, this sounds like venting about how other companies in your industry are getting funding when you presumably aren't. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/dollar-shave-club-funding/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/dollar-shave-club-funding/

orangethirty 14y ago
Read her comment on that link: Sindhya Valloppillil Other than their video, Dollar shave club has nothing proprietary. Not a single product person on their team, not a single industry person on the core team, no real pipeline of innovation. the branding isn't globally appealing. No way you can turn it into a lifestyle brand with that brand name. The irony: Dubin said "too many other co's are primarily interested in the subscription model b/c of recurring revenue, w/out really thinking through the problem that they’re solving for users." I'm not sure what Dollar Shave has thought through other than their videos. Great metrics and a video don't make a consumer brand a success. Without question, I totally agree @tomreynolds. It's a ridiculous valuation -> Yes, we're in a bubble.
sindhya 14y ago
The funding was closed well before the posting of that article. Also, $1M is more than enough to launch more than a 3 "stock" razors bought from China which what Dollar Shave is doing.

runn1ng 14y ago

He he, boobs.

mhurron 14y ago
While your comment is going to get downvoted, appropriately I might add, I still would like to thank you for voicing my similarly juvenile humour.

greg7mdp 14y ago

You obviously don't need an algorithm to find a catchy title :-)

sindhya 14y ago
Or company name. :)

kaliblack 14y ago

I hear this kind of sentiment a lot and it usually comes from a position of subjective analysis, rather than actual knowledge. I'd be able to support an argument that was based on first-hand knowledge about the product and the reasons for investment. This is simply personal opinion, based on the author's own context. VCs and the founders don't think your boobs need an algorithm. They think there's a market that do want one. Are they right? I don't know and neither does the author.

jimzvz 14y ago

The worst part of this problem is again that many non-crony, first-time entrepreneurs, regardless of how compelling their business model is, how great their margins are and how great their team is, still get a hard time and struggle to get funding. Who cares? I think the real issue is that there seems to be a large number of entrepreneurs whose primary goal is to secure funding. If you can't find an investor, make a plan. Change your business so you don't need external funding (it should start out like that anyway), network, look overseas, work harder so that your business is more appealing etc. If your business is so great, you will find an investor. There is no need to play the victim and claim that "VCs" only fund their friends and fundamentally flawed businesses. Even if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, that is the case, who cares?

marquis 14y ago

Review from a girl on this business: I went to see how the site was, found it more or less friendly and designed well enough to keep me on the page. Wanted to know how much the bras cost - they won't tell you until you login. Easy, quick login not requiring email confirmation so they kept me hooked. I was provided with some well drawn pictures of women's shapes and asked to choose - I clicked through a few questions and felt they understood my exact problems and concerns when buying bras (I usually go to an expensive professional fitter so the questions were welcome and relevant). Along the way they kept telling me I was normal and gave some comforting stats about women. Made me feel like I was in the right place to keep buying. Finally got to the buy page, prices are good compared to the high-end shops though they don't have the really good hand-made items I look for, nor the higher-end makers like La Perla (surprised at that). Now did I sign up for the 5 bras they'll send me to try, and free to send back what I don't want? No, because a) I'm not in the U.S. and b) I'm spoilt with my personal fitter who has my card on file and knows my fit really well. But that's because I have access to her shop, in a huge city where they can afford this luxury. If I was living in a smaller city, definitely would sign up, no questions. It's Zappos for bras, and I don't see why they can't easily apply this model to other clothing types like shoes and shirts (also hard to fit). I wish them luck, great service in my opinion. >Where are the panties in True & Co.’s business model? You can't ship and return these items safely. Further: I went back to see what happened on checkout. They do something clever here: you choose 3 bras and they choose 2. This is another reason I go to a store: I ask the expert to choose me something from the rack that she thinks will work well on me, after learning about my tastes. I badly want to order those 5 bras now just to find out what the other 2 are, and they just take a deposit of $45. I think they have some quite brilliant ideas here that will work very well on their target market.

jessaustin 14y ago
>>Where are the panties in True & Co.’s business model? >You can't ship and return these items safely. Also it's not as though panties are as difficult as bras to purchase. T&C is trying to do the hard work; doing relatively unrelated easy work alongside that might be a distraction. TFA is a woman and all, but it's still tempting to consider her one of those 'old boy' industry stalwarts who are so afraid of disruption from outside that they can't imagine what it would look like. If she can find one, she should ask a travel agent what he thinks of "algorithms". [edit: formatting]

teach 14y ago

"For every bra a woman buys, she probably buys at least 5 pairs of panties." I beg to differ. I'm a man, and have never bought either bra or panties for my wife, but I have watched at least 100 hours of QVC and HSN (competitor home shopping networks). I have seen MANY presentations of various bras, and virtually none for panties. I'm quite certain that's no accident.

cowpewter 14y ago
(I'm a woman) Bras are usually worn multiple times before washing. Good ones are expensive ($60-100 a pop), and the less wear and tear on them the longer they last, and the longer the fit that you bought them for is preserved. Panties are changed every day, and are cheap in comparison to bras. You can get a 6-pack of cotton Hanes at Walmart for less than $10. Individual panties from a department store might cost $5-15 a pair. You can compromise on panty quality in a way you can't with bras. Cheap panties just fall apart a little faster. Cheap bras are daily torture. I'd wager the average women most definitely owns 5 if not more pairs of panties for every bra she owns. Edit to add: I would say the issue (with not seeing panties advertised as heavily on shopping networks) is more that panty quality is not so much of an issue. That 6-pack of Hanes will do you just fine and there's no constant need to find a better panty like there is to find a better bra. Bras suck, unless you've got small boobs. The balance of comfort, fit, and support is delicate. It's easy to try to market the New! Improved! bra. There's not really anything to improve about the panty.
- icambron 14y ago
  All the more reason to build the business around bras instead of panties.
lotharbot 14y ago
Think of panties like socks, and bras like shoes. Socks/panties are easy to buy. You can get 6 pair, of decent but not exceptional quality, for 10 bucks. They're generally a bit stretchy and pretty tolerant of significant size variations. There's no reason to run an infomercial for these. Shoes/bras need to be the right size and shape, or you'll be uncomfortable. Decent quality is going to run you $40 at a minimum. You might have to try on a dozen or more before you find something that feels right. If you're an unusual size, you may need to get something customized.

JoshHenryKatz 14y ago

It's very often that investors get wrapped up in the hot business method rather than taking the time to think about how that might actually apply to the specific industry. They've seen how subscriptions and algorithms are going gangbusters for companies like Amazon, why not expand to an industry they know nothing about? Most of these VCs are likely not coming from the garment industry, so they might know absolutely nothing about manufacturing or consumer experience. They try to pick based on things they know, and what companies they think might be similar. Much of the time, that's a very poor model for investment and they would be better of sticking to what they understand. At the same time, how many original investors actually understood what Facebook or Google were all about?

ActVen 14y ago

Sindhya raises some very valid points that help illustrate that a large portion of the investment community simply can't tell the difference between startups that are truly innovative and those simply clothed in the accouterments of innovation. Tacking on the terms algorithm, social, mobile, patentable, etc. seems to fool quite a few people.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Ok, what did I miss? I ran that whole rant through my "What are they trying to say" filter twice and the best it could come up with was "Those poopie-heads won't fund my great idea." Paragraph by paragraph here are the thesis statements: VC's funded a bra company with an algorithm VC's didn't fund my idea/company based on things I think are important That other, funded company, really has no idea, consumers are idiots and clueless companies benefit. Companies I don't understand, think poorly of, and aren't me are getting more money thrown at them. Funding is all back channels and who you know because companies that are horrible are getting funding while mine is not. If VCs would just wake up and see what was going on I'd get funding and those crappy companies wouldn't. I've got a great idea in a really big market, if only those stupid VCs would take their blinders off and fund it we could all be happy. It is pretty clear that Sindhya doesn't agree with the way various VC's are investing their funds because she spends a lot of ink complaining about what she thinks they want to hear vs what is really important in her space (the whole boob algorithm concept), but skims right over the whole "they have money and you don't" market reality thing. It isn't easy but you have to ask yourself, what is going on here that I don't understand? And work through that, rather than call an industry that has been pretty damn successful creating companies over the last century a bunch of idiots.

mbesto 14y ago
> rather than call an industry that has been pretty damn successful creating companies over the last century a bunch of idiots. Is this actually true? (note - I don't know) My understanding is most VC firms aren't successful. Just a few are. I've thought about writing a post almost identical to the OP and came to your same conclusion: "At the end of the day they have the money". The other harsh reality is that VCs are no different than the enterprise companies of today's world...they are all about reducing risks at scale. One of their scariest risks is failing to instill confidence in their clients. For example, if the market dictates that the hottest thing right now is photo sharing, you better be damn sure that a VC is going to invest in a photo sharing app. The VC is going to say "Dear client, we aren't going to invest in the next big photo sharing app, even though all of the analyst say its the next big thing. Instead we're investing in 21st century pig farms!" The client will say "but what about Instagram!" No matter how risky you personally believe it is (for example - photo sharing apps have no revenues) the market still is throwing money at it (i.e. Instagram). So, conclusion - I blame media hyperbole and people's natural biases, not VCs on the amount of funding put into "good" startups.

wamatt 14y ago

"Boobs" + "Algorithm" = HN frontpage. Savvy marketing there.

super-serial 14y ago
Yeah but if I post a story about my flawless "Dick Algorithm" no one cares. Who says women don't have an advantage in tech?

rxl 14y ago

The problem I see with this article is that it trashes one particular company and the VC backing of that company and attempts to use that to make a larger point about vc-backed e-commerce companies in general. So OK, maybe that company isn't great. Maybe the VC's made a mistake with that particular investment. Or maybe the founders and VC's know something that you don't. Either way, one's observations about a company should be limited to that company and not be generalized to the entire space the company is in, unless of course there is sufficient compelling data.

Havoc 14y ago

Thread title mentions boobs...ranked #1 on HM. I don't really mind, but that is kinda weak for std HN purposes.

sriramk 14y ago

[disclaimer: I'm married to the original tech/product co-founder who is no longer with the company] For the first time, I see a HN thread on a startup I know very well from the inside, how can I resist jumping in.? :) First, the OP is factually incorrect about one thing - True&Co doesn't have a subscription model. You get a bunch of bras in a box when you order from the site, you keep what you like. This is the same as the Warby Parker model as well as other successful startups where you need to physically experience things. Second, I'm not sure why the OP feels such animosity towards the company or the team. There are many snide comments in there, especially around funding, which seems out of place. Having said that, the women's intimates business has a few big incumbents and a huge addressable market. In the beginning, True&Co took a very 'software eats the world' approach and tried to use machine learning to fix a problem that a lot of women have. I'm not sure whether they still use a algorithm or whether they focus on tech anymore but at the time, I liked the algorithm Aarthi and her team had built out - it had great results.

DanBC 14y ago
> True&Co doesn't have a subscription model. You get a bunch of bras in a box when you order from the site, you keep what you like. That's pretty important. Just from that line it seems like a great idea. If they can keep tack of the different sizing between brands (or can help with sizing in any way) they could do well. I wish them luck!
danielpal 14y ago
What happens to the bra's that are returned? Unlike Warby Parker, I wouldn't mind trying a used pair of glasses but I doubt woman will be OK with used underwear(bra's).
- hesparrow 14y ago
  I'm not sure it would be very different to trying one on in a store - someone may have already tried on the same one.
  - danielpal 14y ago

DanBC 14y ago

There's a reason Rigby and Pellor can charge £100 for bras. They don't have an algorithm. They have well known name; great (apparently, I've obviously never tried it) fitting; etc. PS: If the blog owner is reading please consider better contrast (off white background and darker text) and larger font size.

3JPLW 14y ago
Agreed about contrast, and perhaps even more importantly, please don't break text zoom.

jamiequint 14y ago

This post reeks of jealousy.

sagacityhappens 14y ago

P Pitch Deck for Shave of Month Club: We been open for 2 Months and have doubled our sales! We will double our sales at $1 a razor each month for 30 Months. 1: 1 2: 3 3: 7 4: 15 5: 31 6: 63 7: 127 8: 255 9: 511 10:1,023 11:2,047 12:4,095 13:8,191 14:16,383 15:32,767 16:65,535 17:131,071 18:262,143 19:524,287 20:1,048,575 21:2,097,151 22:4,194,303 23:8,388,607 24:16,777,215

ig1 14y ago

Off the core topic, but the author seems to misunderstand what the Series A crunch is. The Series A crunch isn't anything to do with crappy companies raising huge series As. Rather the crunch is caused by the huge growth in the number of companies successfully raising angel rounds (both through accelerators and the explosion of angels created by the IPOs of Google, Facebook, etc.). While the number of Series A rounds done by VCs is going up, it's been growing nowhere near as fast as seed funding so naturally the number of angel funded companies who fail to raise Series As is going to go up. Hence the term Series A crunch.

robotresearcher 14y ago

"VCs think my boobs need an algorithm. My boobs don’t need an algorithm." Horrible link-bait introduction. Algorithm is being used as a dirty word. Algorithms are not soft, caring, touchable, feminine, according to the imagery in the piece. In the real world though, boobs and lives are saved daily by algorithms. I want my family's boob cancer screening images reconstructed from tiny, noisy signals by the most hardcore medical imaging algorithms available, thanks. But "VCs Think My Bra Fitting Need A Questionnaire" wouldn't be getting those views.

mikeurbach 14y ago
Couldn't agree more. It seems like "algorithm" is starting to be used among the non-tech world to refer to the computerization of everything in a negative way. Really, an algorithm is a mathematical formulation of how to solve a problem, albeit usually ran on computers. If True & Co. want to apply a little machine learning to an old problem, fine. If people think that machines can't learn, then we're going to have these sort of issues.

Mz 14y ago

I read the piece and I don't understand how it relates to the article title. As best I can tell, it is just a rant that some other company got funded. I see no mention of what her company is, why it presumably did not get funded, what value she thinks a company should be measured by, etc. Thus, the title strikes me as pretty gratuitous, like "I think I will stick boobs in the title cuz sex sells, then bitch about whatever the heck I feel like". So my thought: Maybe she can't get VC money because she sucks at effective communication.

hayksaakian 14y ago

It appears as though she's mad. Anything intriguing or interesting was lost on me due to this.

javert 14y ago

Classic case of blaming a group of people (all VCs) for something some particular people did (those particular VCs).

DanielBMarkham 14y ago

This has to win the linkbait title of the week award. Very nicely done. (Not that it's not a good article. I'm simply commenting on word choice in the title. A less brave soul might have been more boorish or more prudish.) Building a technology business means deciding whether you're a service businesses or a product businesses. Here's a product that traditionally has a service model -- and it looks like a high-touch service -- trying to be sold as a product. Kind of has that feel of something a bunch of guy nerds would think would fly but actually not so much. So I can buy the thesis of the essay. The interesting thing is that there is a market here. What I'd love to know is how they're finding the subset of women that are comfortable using the web to buy undergarments. Are they running ads on specific sites? Leveraging social networks like Pinterest? Instead of the "works for me" versus "I hate it" conversation, I'd be much more interested in how the company actually found their MVP and proved it out -- and more critically the size of each segment. Much more informative than blanket generalizations. (I realize my comment was loaded with puns. They were not intentional)

ig1 14y ago
Bra sales are only high-touch at the high-end, and even then only partially. Buying undergarments with a service model is socially awkward whatever gender you are. I'm 100% certain that online bra sales have a future. Why ? - the largest lingerie retailer in the US is Victoria's Secret. I'm guessing your brain automatically inserts the word "catalog" after their name. The biggest lingerie retailer built their business around a mail order catalog (although they obviously have stores now too). The women who buy bras online are the same as women who buy other clothes online.

saumil07 14y ago

Great title, terrible post. What a giant muddle of critiquing everything from one company to a whole industry to a variety of tangential companies in the space...without data. No one except for dollar shave club and their investors knows how many subs they have. They may have very few. They may have a lot. But trashing the for running a promotion in a month and for having a lot of money? Thanks but no thanks. I love a good rant but this was not one.

MichelleLam 14y ago

[Posting on HN since comments on the original post are closed.] Hello Sindhya- I'm Michelle, CEO/Co-Founder of True&Co. I started the company to create a great personal shopping experience for women because for most women, bra shopping sucks - going to a store, spending hours in a fitting room, still not finding a bra that flatters you. Women told us a great shopping experience is about delivering your personal bra shop to your house. We give women 5 bras to try at home, risk-free. Pay for what you keep, return the rest. All returns go through a 65-point inspection to make sure the bra hasn't been worn. The algorithm determines which bras we suggest for you - the best bra for you may not be the best bra for me. So far, over 100,000 women have taken the True&Co quiz, We keep getting smarter on what works for each of our 2000 individual body types. Once you tell us which bra you’ve kept, we offer matching panties in your personal shop. A great shopping experience is NOT about contractually obligating customers to buy every month so no, we are not a subscription service. Our customers return to us over and over again because they've discovered a better way to shop for all kinds of intimate apparel. Sindya, I hope you try our service and give online bra fitting a chance! Please email me at hello@trueandco.com or visit https://trueandco.com/ https://trueandco.com/.

olleicua 14y ago

What is the point? You don't like this company's business model so don't buy from them. Either you're right and nobody will buy from them and they'll fade into obscurity or you're wrong and some customers do like this model. Are you upset that VCs are being stupid? I hate to break it to you but the world is full of stupid people and some of them are VCs. This isn't news. #downvote

phibit 14y ago

Maybe I am misunderstanding but it seems like this post is critiquing the investments of a specific set of VCs. Firstly, who cares? If VCs want to blow money on ideas that go nowhere, that's their business. In fact, it's a business that they know and do well, they cast a wide net of high-risk high-yield investments and deal with the average. And if OP is attacking the validity of the product, great. That's your opinion, but honestly who are you to say which ideas will succeed which will fail. The true test is if the company succeeds. A company's primary goal is to make money, they don't really give a damn about fitting bras. If they can make money, even if their service is factually crappy and unreliable, they've succeeded; probably in their own minds and the minds of their investors. My personal opinion is that the idea is dumb but if they succeed good for them, they were blessed with a vision that I lack.

nunbot 14y ago

cunt edit: she's the reason that word is so offensive to some.

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sindhya 14y ago

Please refer to the correction at the bottom of the article. I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong. True&Co. doesn't not have a subscription. But isn't the Warby of the bra world and they have not proven that their algorithm works. 1) True does NOT make the process of bra shopping easier. That's what Warby does best while offering a great product at a very affordable price. Warby has great branding. In fact, True takes a traditionally feminine and sexy product and makes shopping for it a BORING and painful experience. 3 minutes of questioning was boring. 2)There is no animosity towards the team. My post is no different than an article on Pando - actually it's no where as snarky some of the articles I've seen. Pando can be really, really snarky. Check out this article: http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/21/dominatefund-badly-misses-t... http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/21/dominatefund-badly-misses-t.... 3) If True's algorithm works, they should really show proof. Have they done any claims testing? That's what consumer brands do when they have $ and they are trying to prove that their tech works. Otherwise, it's flimsy, BS marketing ==> No true fit, no true fitting algorithm. 4) Where are the panties? I could not find them after 10 minutes. It's worse that True says they sell them, but I couldn't find them after 10 minutes. The founders don't understand basic business, marketing or branding. That's key for a consumer goods business like a lingerie brand. 5)It's a shame because I do know several other BETTER lingerie startups that should have gotten funding which presented at DecodedFashion Lingerie Startup Showcase. One founder is in serious debt trying to get funding. Unfortunately she isn't a former VC, so fundraising is a lot harder for her.