DALLAS — Matt Alexander sat inside a London pub three years ago and started jotting down ideas on a piece of paper. He had calculated that the men’s fashion industry was worth $130 billion, but he also knew that many men still did not like to shop. This felt like a discrepancy.
At the same time, men seemed to use magazines like GQ and Esquire as a benchmark for buying new, trendy clothes. But actually figuring out how to purchase the featured products online — in the right size, color, etc. — wasn’t easy.
“I had this hypothesis,” Alexander said on Monday afternoon. “If you had a confident side of a personal styling service mixed with the curation and editorial side of a magazine, you could have something really potent that might change the way guys shop.”
That was the genesis of Need, a Dallas-based fashion magazine-retailer hybrid startup that’s using a unique e-commerce model and seeing impressive growth. The company compiles a monthly online publication, complete with professional photos and editorial content, that includes a curated set of 8-to-12 clothing and accessory items localized for specific markets which are available to purchase in limited quantities.
When scrolling through one of Need’s magazines, it’s easy to forget that the site also offers a way to buy clothes.
“We were named one of the top-10 menswear blogs a little while ago, but we aren’t a blog at all,” Alexander said. “But then a fashion publication named us the best online menswear service. We are kind of that, but in some respects we aren’t. That’s the interesting thing about it.”
The six-person company has racked up nearly 300,000 members since officially launching in November 2013 and has been profitable since day one. Alexander, the 27-year-old founder and CEO, is confident that the user count will surpass one million by the end of 2015.
Need’s secret sauce, Alexander explained, is the ability to connect with a younger generation that’s looking for both trusted fashion advice and and a purchasing experience that they can appreciate.
“The goal I’ve always had is that you don’t remember the time you spent $50 on a jacket at H&M — it’s such a dull and poorly-differentiated experience,” he said from inside Need’s office on the outskirts of downtown Dallas. “With Need, we wanted to make even the smallest of purchases really memorable. I think you get there by building a really amazing experience.”
With the rapid growth, which has come without much marketing, Need has been forced to think about how to expand its business. But Alexander knew that what made Need successful — it consistently sells out of inventory each month — was the feeling of exclusivity and reaching customers on a much more personal level than its competitors.
Sending thousands of units and more emails out each day would maybe immediately increase sales for Need, but that isn’t the path the company wants to take.
“It’s the smallness we are trying to preserve,” Alexander said. “When I buy something from Amazon, I don’t feel like I need to support Amazon. But when I buy from a local startup or store, I feel pretty good about it because I’m supporting something. It’s about perpetuating that feeling and a lot of people buy into that.”
Given this philosophy, Need’s newest offering is particularly interesting. Rather than quickly ramp up the quantity and selection of products that Need offers, the startup just last month launched a separate brand called Foremost, which has a similar retailer-magazine feel to Need but offers more affordable items that average $50 each.
However, instead of partnering with other brands to provide product as is the case with Need, Foremost will design and manufacture its own clothing line in the U.S. The brand will also offer products for women.
“The key to scale isn’t trying to get Need to move really deep vertically, but rather move laterally and have multiple offerings that can extend to different groups,” Alexander said. “Foremost was that idea.”
The ultimate goal is to have a network of interconnected brands that do one thing exceptionally well, but don’t necessarily need to over-scale and betray against the virtues that make them interesting, Alexander noted.
Imran Sheikh, Need’s COO and another London native who invested in the company after coming on board last year, said that Need doesn’t “aspire to be a monster.”
“We instead nurture this in a way that people still respect us, and maintain longer-standing relationships with our customers,” he said.
Alexander, who was born in the U.K. but moved to Dallas to attend Southern Methodist University, originally planned to launch Need in London. But he was convinced by advisors and investors to build the company in North Texas.
Alexander said the low cost of living and a supportive community in Dallas have helped Need grow faster than if it was based in another startup hub like San Francisco or New York City.
The other appealing aspect of Dallas was the fact that it’s somewhat of a fashion hub in the U.S. The city is home to companies like Neiman Marcus and host of other e-commerce apparel startups. Chanel even hosted its own fashion show at Dallas’ Fair Park in December 2013.
There are also a bevy of fashion-focused entrepreneurs — at this week’s Dallas Startup Week, for example, there are nearly a dozen sessions geared toward fashion.
Need, which has raised $650,000 to date, is certainly on to something with this limited batch, personalized e-commerce/editorial apparel model. But Alexander is quick to note that Need isn’t a new idea.
“In the first half of the last century, people would go into a local shop to buy clothes and ask a trusted guy that was curating what was modern and buzzy for advice,” he said. “Today, though the Internet continues to expand, it’s also becoming more manageable and discoverability is becoming much more normal. It’s this whole idea that people will find good things if there are good things out there. What we do is not a new idea, but it’s what people are clamoring for as a result of the expanding Internet. People are gravitating toward this.”
Editor’s Note: GeekWire has partnered with UP Global and Chase to cover four Startup Week events around the country, starting with Tampa Bay earlier this month, Phoenix from Feb. 23 to 27, and Dallas this week. Tune in to GeekWire for more stories about the activities, and to learn more about these emerging startup hubs.
