This week sees Kostüme, the British pre-order-based apparel brand celebrate turning four. This gave the brand’s founder Ed Bartlett pause to reflect, sharing his thoughts on the challenges of growing a business using a disruptive, industry-challenging, business model.
Four years ago today I incorporated Kostüme. The first big statement of intent, moving from a collection of ideas into a public entity that might one day achieve something special.
I am not especially into celebrating milestones, however, they are a useful line in the sand and an opportunity to stop and reflect for a moment – something it can be hard to do as a founder.
In many ways, I am frustrated that we aren’t further ahead. For a fairly long time now our momentum has been artificially limited by a simple lack of resources.
Then again, if you look at the state of the industry over the last few years, arguably any new brand launching into those market conditions should be doomed to fall at the first hurdle, right? And yet, here we are. Another year older.
What does success look like (or, how are we measuring it)?
Another new product launching next week with a three-figure waitlist signed up before we’ve even announced the full details, or done a single piece of marketing beyond our mailing list.
Closing in on our 1,000th customer across 26 countries. 4.8 on Trustpilot. Zero product failures and practically no returns. And, most importantly, no waste and no discounting.
All of this is still baby steps. Nobody can deny the metrics, but it’s still early days.
Can the model scale? Can we keep making 10/10 products? Can we find the right people and partners to support us as we scale? Can we repeat the success in other categories?
There are so many unknowns.
But that’s the job, and there are ways and means of breaking down and de-risking these big moments and making them palatable.
Except Kostüme is not about being palatable. Kostüme is about pushing boundaries, doing things differently, and doing things with purpose. Doing things better.
And that means for some people, our approach won’t be palatable. And that’s totally fine.
We can already see that those who get it, really get it. And I am absolutely certain that there are more than enough people who will get it. We just need to reach them, in the right way, with the right product.
And when we do, we might – just might – achieve something special.
Thank you to anyone who has supported in any way over the last few years! It’s hard to find time to show gratitude when you’re time-poor, but I try my best.
For readers keen to find out more about Kostüme, and founder Ed Bartlett, click here to read ‘5 minutes with…’ which featured in the June print issue of BikeBiz.
