In this conversational interview, Kathleen asks how to start and scale a fashion brand. Stephen Kelly advises first defining the target audience and market segment, then crafting a unique product that differentiates the brand. He stresses the importance of prototyping, testing the idea with friends or a small group, and iterating based on feedback before committing to large production. Distribution decisions—whether partnering with retailers, building a website, or leveraging digital channels—should align with the brand’s positioning. Once a product-market fit is proven, focus shifts to scaling through partnerships, marketing, and distribution, avoiding premature spending on marketing. Stephen also shares the top five reasons startups fail, beginning with a lack of market need, and hints at the remaining four (cash flow, hiring mistakes, competition, pricing/cost issues). Throughout, Evan reinforces the need for a clear differentiator and cautions against scaling too early with a mediocre product.
Chapters
Kathleen is asking, how can I upscale my fashion brand? I'm just starting out. So advice for someone who wants to start out a fashion brand and scale it up.
Right, so I think, again, Kathleen, you know, you probably know the market in terms of fashion brands. Think about who is it your audience is gonna be? Who's gonna be your market? You know, are you gonna go for, is it gonna be a generational play? Or is it going to be a segment of the marketplace? And then I kind of think, what is your big idea about how you get to both the product and why you're different? And then also, what's the best distribution channel? Who can you either partner with, or do you want to do it on a website and kind of through basically a digital presence? Once you determine that, then I'd always actually honestly kind of test drive stuff. So, you know, I believe you, Kathleen, should have huge dreams. You should be the next kind of massive fashion icon walking down, you know, all the platforms picking up the awards. But in the meantime, you've got to take the first baby step. So if you've kind of got a product, an idea, and you're going to say market to, I don't know, 16 to 25-year-old females, then wouldn't it be good to go and test drive it with 6 or 7 of your friends? Or again, if you're going to market it into guys, high-fashion brands, then that would be great. So get people around, test their ideas, and then actually prototype it, then test drive it. And I actually, I know quite a lot of our customers who have built businesses like this, and one of them in maternity wear, actually different business, but in maternity wear, and she did it through her friends first of all, and then she did it through building a very small website, and then she scaled up, and I think she now employs about 40 people. Has been hugely successful and a really kind of high-end brand. So I think with all these things, again, kind of have a big idea, which it sounds like you have, and then understand the marketplace you're trying to sell it, why you're different, what's your kind of unique differentiator, and then get loads and loads of feedback. So when you kind of go to market, you're constantly iterating and learning as you scale up your business.
Yeah, I think you've got to find the product that's going to work. Got to find the unique thing, whether it's a special dress or a new hoodie or whatever it is. You know, you're creating amazing new colorful ties for Stephen Kelly to rock with matching cufflinks. You got to show the cufflinks.
Here you go. Look, you see it? Can you see that? Yeah, yeah, we love it. We love colors. You see, see, I love it. Evan, you're looking cool in that hoodie, man. I love that.
So you've got to find the thing that is different about your, your brand. Why is your fashion brand different than everybody else's? And test drive it. I think a lot of people make a mediocre product. They make, you know, a t-shirt like everybody else is making a t-shirt, and then they buy 5,000 t-shirts and sit in your mom's garage. Uh, you need to find the thing that's unique about you. This is the— this is like the startup. Before you scale up, you got to start up to find What is the angle that's going to work for you? And when you have a product that you know works and people love it, then you focus on the scaling up. You work on the partnerships and the distributorships and the marketing. But if you focus on that too soon, you're just burning dollars. You're burning marketing dollars without something that's going to work. So you got to figure out what that key product is first.
Hey, Evan, just on that, I've got, um, the sort of top 5 reasons why companies fail to go through, you know, from startup to scale up. The number one reason, the number one reason is 42% of businesses fail because they fail to understand the market need. All about your point about the wrong product and making sure that it's a great fit with the market.
I love it. Now I want to know what the other four are.
Do you want to know?
I want to know.
The obvious one, about a third of them, third of them, obviously, I guess This is sad because I think people over-engineer. You obviously got to understand your cash requirements. A third of them run out of cash through a lack of funding or poor investment or getting ahead of themselves. So tracking your finances is really critical. Obviously, that's where people like Sage can come in and help. Next one is a quarter of them go back and say they actually hired the wrong people, which is interesting. We talked about that. Less than 20% of them fail because of competition. And then actually the last one is about 1/6 of them say they had cost or pricing issues with their products. So they're the top 5 reasons, but number 1 standing out is kind of the product related to the market need.
