IMperfect

Clothing business is focused on volume maximisation and margin gain. There is a significantly growing trend among customers who are looking for long-lasting pieces of garment that stay with them for years to come. Fast-fashion reshaped our clothing culture.  It made customers to rely on endless consumption of the current “new”.

IMperfect is a movement and as a service. A movement to slow down fast fashion and be proud of wearing fixed or stitched clothes. As a service, to offer a personal insurance scheme to fix clothes on demand. We use our unique patterns to give a twist to the garments and also reflects the customer’s involvement in our movement. 

The most significant trends in fashion today are vastly increased production and a reduction in use, immense amounts of waste and escalating greenhouse gas emissions. Over 70% of all clothing thrown away end up at landfills and only about 1% used to make new clothing. This direction not only harms the environment but also restrains the opportunities for the industry to succeed in the long-term. The fashion industry already misses out on $100 billion in value from clothing being worn less and barely recycled.

The current zero-sum approach of the industry is untenable, and there is a growing need to shift towards sustainability.

The low-cost high-volume production forced local repair stores out of business. Cloth owners looking extend the life of their beloved garment through repair or alignment are left with no alternatives but a new purchase.

As end users are increasingly seeking environment-friendly solutions finding ways to offer new sustainable models will drive the future of the fashion industry. 

The desire for transparency and recycling is growing among conscious buyers. Fashion is no exception. Buyers are willing to pay extra for clothes that are built with sustainability in mind.

Our primary target audience is the growing number of millennials (aged 16-37) who are concerned with our ever-changing climate and are willing to make changes in their shopping behaviour. In the UK, 60% of the population aged under 24 is concerned with the source of their clothing. Due to their healthy confidence, they will also become our ambassadors wearing repaired cloth and push our movement among their local communities via word-of-mouth and through their Instagram presence. 

IMperfect is a movement for a sustainable clothing future. We are concerned with the current state of the fashion industry and changing it requires a shift in the mindset of customers.

Aligned with the movement, we are offering a clothing insurance service that aims to extend the life of items, similarly what Patagonia offers but for all garments with a twist.

We offer a mobile-first solution as our target customers are accustomed to using their phones.

The customer is presented with an AR application that streams the image to our servers that help determine the exact nature of the damage through machine learning. Once the type of ware is determined the user is presented either with the option to ship the garment to our warehouse for thorough repair work or offered to create a personalised patch, button, extension in the AR environment according to their style, shape and one of IMperfect’s unique pattern. Once the patching is finished the garment is cut out by a connected machine in our warehouse and get shipped to one of our on-demand sewing lady who also receives the garment from our customer using prepaid shipping labels. Once the fix is carried out, we take a photo of the refurbished garment. Then the customer can choose whether it is according to expectations or it is offered to be sold off on our second-hand online store.

As our service will be only used in case of “emergency” situations, we aim to support tree planting initiatives for every month the user does not need repairs. 

Today most subscription services in fashion focus on selling or renting out new clothes to customers either on a monthly or on a case-by-case basis forward fueling the consumption frenzy with a more “personalised” approach. IMperfect is set up to prolong the life of beloved garments and delay the next purchase of cloth and compete with consumerism. The goal is to replicate the concept behind lifetime warranties offered by a handful of high-end brands. As we recognize we will have no opportunity to get access to every material, we aim to offer our unique IMperfect pattern selection that offers a twist for the cloth and simplifies sourcing for us.

By building a network of sewing ladies with life long experience in the fashion industry, we offer them a new way to use their skills according to their availability and create a personal touch for the customers who have accustomed to faceless corporations.  

Our machine learning algorithm is aimed to determine the scale of damage on garments and help us determine the material of the clothing for the right patch material. We rely on smartphone’s Augmented Reality features to help customers imagine the final garment and let them make adjustments on the fly before settling with a final shape and pattern. The results then used to streamline processes in our warehouse to cut (IoT cutting machinery), and ship uniquely shaped patches to the selected sewing lady with the right colour and amount of thread. 

Fast fashion is a result of consumer demand for cheaper product as well as the low-cost labour possible due to global trade. To move towards a sustainable future in clothing, it is not enough if we make our supply chains more transparent and focus on organic materials, but it is equally important to extend the lifespan of garments. The average time a cloth is used dropped from 200 to 160 in just 15 years. Young fashion companies tend to cater to the changing attitude towards shopping, but only a few focuses on extending the life of already owned garments, and none doing it at a scale. 

To corner these tendencies, we foresee a future where clothes are being fixed and adjusted to owners. We ran a survey in our direct community and asked whether there will be at least a few items per year that they would like to get repair but have no time or knowledge of a tailor in their neighborhood. 80% of respondents stated that they would be interested in getting their clothes fixed and adjusted if it would be easy and would not require much effort.

Currently, we are at an early stage at the venture and had 3 successful fixes to-date. 

During the first year after launch, we aim to reach 10.000 subscribed customers who are engaging with our services 2-5 times a year accounting for 25.000 fixes. Our unit economy will highly rely on adjusting our shipping costs and time required to finish one item.

Within the next five years, we would extend our product offering from only clothing with luxury product refurbishment reaching 500.000 subscribers, an online retail shop focusing on sustainable goods and partnerships with large retailers who offer our insurance products at the point of sale. IMperfect would become a global movement that stands for clothing longevity and represent a statement for a better future. Anyone in our community will be encouraged to focus on more than just clothing and rethink their lifestyle, eating habits and overall consumption. 

Currently, we are in set up phase, and we face common early stage complications around initial funding and first customers. We reached 2 customers with 3 fixes so far that has been successfully delivered with our "fixers" 

To reach the first 500 customers, we need to on-board at least ten available sewing ladies around the are of primary cities. Scaling from 500 to a 10000 will be mostly about building out customer acquisition channels, build a profile and start the IMperfect movement on social media.

The next five years will be more complicated, focusing on partnerships with retail stores and the launch of our e-commerce platform focused on sustainability. As currently, we have a chance to be a first comer in the market of fix-as-a-service we will have the benefits and disadvantages at the same time selling to partners and educating customers about the benefits of using outfits longer than initially intended.  

Through the launch of IMperfect campaign, we aim to rely more and more on our community for education and marketing. Our customers will are ambassadors who have their powers to encourage others to change and move towards a sustainable future.

Partnering with large retailers will skyrocket our user numbers as customers will be offered our services at the time of checkout and will be offered an emotional decision whether they are purchasing a garment for a short time or longevity. 

We are currently the two founders (Balazs and Joonas) working on the project along with our adviser Salah Said who is the Head of Sustainability at Zalando AG. 

The two founders have been working together on numerous project in the blockchain space. We met three years ago at a blockchain accelerator and since then had the opportunity to collaborate and work alongside each other. Joonas first started developing mods for online games, and this lead him to become the CEO of Estonia’s largest app development agency that also worked on the first iteration of Taxify. Balazs is a Hungarian entrepreneur with a background in design and architecture. The past three years he was involved in the decentralised space and became an expert on decentralised identity solutions. Fashion has been a great interest for both founders, and while they have not worked in the industry through their professional background, both of them were interested in the topic.  

We have not finalised partnerships but as we are looking at launching a first version of the solution, we will seek initial partnership at Zalando, the largest clothing retailer in Europe with the help of our adviser, Salah, who is a Head of Sustainability at the company

We rely on a monthly subscription service that aims at customers with interest for extending the lifespan of the garments. Through the base monthly fee, we provide fix-as-a-service to our customers who can turn to us when their problems arise. The platform aims to connect local sewing agents with customers with issues and pay the verified contractors by the hour and complexity of the task at hand.

Currently, we are still evaluating whether the insurance covers a set number of repairs per year or it is open to use as many time it is needed. As we will receive the first data points after launching the service, we will evaluate the best model and change accordingly.

Sustainability can be reached over time as the number of subscribers grows to create an easy to calculate revenue stream for the company. To cover the initial funding gap, we aim to raise a seed round from investors with an understanding of the fashion industry to help us better understand the opportunities and limitations and help develop a relationship with other retailers. As revenue will start to grow due to our subscribers, we will raise a series A round to fund growth and focus on customer acquisition at the expense of the round.

As our service is partially a platform, we will be able to keep expenses relatively low and grow a sustainable business that can achieve profitability. 

As IMperfect aims to become a movement for sustainable clothing, we heavily rely on public recognition. Gaining attention via Solve would enable us to kick start our movement and enable us to on-board first customers without large marketing budgets solely based on word of mouth. The recognition would also enable us to find partners as many corporate in the fashion space will be following the results as there might be opportunities for them to find novel solutions that can enable them to grow further or receive a better customer satisfaction. 

We are interested in initiating conversations with fashion retailers, beyond Zalando, as better understanding their requirements early on would enable us to develop our service according to those steps. Furthermore, we see our service is a viable benefit for credit card owners by issuers, we are interested in seeking partnerships with such companies. 

IMperfect is being created to serve women by women. The knowledge of sewing has been passed on from mothers to daughters for centuries and it is still a skill that is possible to obtain and master over time without any special education. 

Relying on women with practice in sewing we are able to offer a new opportunity for them to participate in the economy and create joy for those paying for the service. 

Directly connecting our customer to our sewer to manage "special" request can also lead to establish relationships and not only partake in a service between a strictly understood supplier and customer.