Stitch Fix: Harvard MBA Hurdles Silicon Valley Gender Barrier

The sales and merchandising section at Stitch Fix in San Francisco - Ethan Baron photo

The buying and merchandising department at Stitch Fix in San Francisco – Ethan Baron photo

Of course, VC investment means more cooks in the kitchen. “All the sudden there’s multiple stakeholders with multiple interests,” she says. “An angel investor versus a top-tier institutional investor are going to have different views around outcomes. Over time there’s going to be a little bit of differences that are going to be formed.”

Key to promoting harmony among the stakeholders is examining them closely before bringing them on, to make sure all players have similar alignment and goals, she says.

Also, once the VCs come in, options for exit become more limited, Lake points out. “Especially when you decide to take on an institutional big-time VC, a lot of times they’re going to want you to be a multi-billion-dollar company and they’re not going to want you to sell for $25 million.”

Lake built Stitch Fix upon two major market realities and a market gap resulting from their convergence. Reality No. 1: women love to buy clothes. Reality No. 2: people love to shop online. New market gap: women who buy clothes over the Internet miss the personalized service that comes with in-store shopping for stylish clothing.

WOMEN WITH LITTLE TIME FOR SHOPS AND MALLS

The models and styles in the company’s marketing imagery – and the hundreds of thousands of followers the company has on Pinterest and Instagram – suggest a receptive target market focused fairly closely on the e-commerce-loving millennial generation, however Lake notes that one customer was 65. “Our customer range is pretty diverse,” she says.

“What ties all of our clients together is kind of this notion of being a busy, time-starved woman. That’s what we see over and over. They still absolutely want to look good, but they don’t have the time and effort to devote a ton of time to shopping or going to malls,” she says.

To use Stitch Fix, women fill out an online “style profile” form. The 33 questions are intended to provide as complete a picture as possible of the customer’s body shape and clothing needs and preferences. Women input sizes for types of garment, can note the preferred rise in their jeans, and whether they like their clothing loose, tight, or in between, among other specifications. Stitch Fix pays attention to maximizing attributes, asking, “What do you like to flaunt?” and also asks what body parts a customer would prefer to play down. The booty issue is addressed delicately, with a yes-or-no question: “Are you curvy on your bottom half?”

The customer also rates seven collections of clothing in different styles shown in photos; the four choices range from “Love it” to “Hate it.”

The last step for profile submission is payment of $20 to Stitch Fix, money that is applied toward anything purchased, and there’s always a 25% discount for buying all five items. Customers can also subscribe to periodic deliveries of five-item “Fixes,” with a $20 charge for each shipment, which can be applied to any goods not sent back.

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.