lifeoffbi

Wow, an actual scientific approach. Very cool.

this is our general landing page, there's an email collection point at the top right http://hello.blank-label.com/hi-5/

Re link in e-gift cert of designed shirt - that's actually a great suggestion; have just loaded it up to the team.

We don't currently have a gallery feature, although will be adding that very soon.

depending on which route you take, https is not forced. will be fixed on the next release. thanks for the feedback.

We have a how-to sizing guide here (http://bit.ly/e7q8La) and we do free remakes if your shirt doesn't fit as you'd like :) Free returns, remakes and even refunds on a custom product, we think that's pretty risk free.

Got it, that's great feedback. Everything is in USD, and we do international shipping for $17 including duties.

Thanks, that's something that we're fixing on the next release.

thanks for the clarification, that helps. getting the sizing right online is a concern for any e-commerce apparel company. we have an online sizing guide here (http://bit.ly/e7q8La) and if doesn't fit you great, we'll remake another one with new sizing for free.

That's great feedback; to optimize pricing, we buy fabrics in bulk, so as we grow, we'll definitely be building our fabric inventory. Look out for some really awesome choices this Summer.

agree that it is very interesting; and something we are thinking about. if anyone happens to want to help us work on it, we're definitely hiring!

thanks, that is massively helpful. so our core value proposition is providing an affordable option for the various long-tails; skinny tall guy, french cuff guy, monogram guy, etc. we have an incredibly high customer retention rate because once we get someone in, they usually don't want to order from anywhere else. and the best part, a good percentage will tell their friends because now they're proud custom dress shirt owners :)

agreed, but isn't part of the point of the web to allow you to do things at your own convenience? i agree that some definitely prefer the physical tailor visit, we're just providing a web-enabled offering

haha, thanks chris :)

thanks - for a 23 and a 19 year old, we think it's decent for our first year online. we should be able to triple that in year 2.

have thought about it, but am not sure there is a significant overlap between dress shirt owner and kinect owner?

they really specialize in two-piece suits. blanklabel.com more on dress shirts

we have a microsite for big and tall - http://www.blanklabelbigandtall.com hopefully that should help

however, once a consumer web start-up in boston does get some initial traction and raise money, it has incredible access to talent. gemvara.com and SCVNGR are two great examples. they've been able to use the dearth of consumer web investments in boston to their advantage and recruit all this great young talent, and not needing to fight with 10 hot competitors to retain them.

awesome piece and great lessons learned. a word of advice, from personal experience of having a start-up featured in NYT, Forbes, Businessweek, RWW, etc launch news to pubs is about 50X more interesting than updates or follow-up stories. as someone who has used and referred the product, i am providing a word of caution that you really need to think about opening other channels to get reach because your 3rd month referral traffic could very possibly be less than 20% of this month's.

wonder if this influx of NYC bankers will be better or worse for the consumer internet world - don't know if the ethics and values of banking translate to those of web startups.

is it possible that this is another case of lifestyle entrepreneurs who enjoyed the product but never really wanted to get caught up in the SV/ VC model? and without them there to carry on the vision, and thereby no real product strategy, creating this mismatch of four synergistic products, it was always to struggle?