Customer Stories #3: Optimisize — Know your size, the importance of design, and some Scrum
Small beginnings with big endings
Pablo Sánchez is a young entrepreneur who knows how to identify viable business opportunities but also that the key to entrepreneurial success lays in finding a great team and talented people to work with you. Although you might not know how to develop an app yourself, how to do proper design or even how to run a business, it is enough to know how to find and convince people who can do it well. And to be a great leader yourself.
Pablo has identified one important, simple problem in our modern fancy online reality: the rate of devolutions in online shopping is nothing less than terrifying.
It’s interesting to realise that each returned item will cost retailer around 6$ in shipping costs, and 5$ more in credit card fees and labor costs needed to actually process the item once received. The final blow occurs when the retailer attempts to resell the returned item, most likely, they will only be able to charge about 20% of the original purchase price.
Fashion retailer ASOS Chief Executive Nick Robertson said:
1% fall in returns would immediately add $16 million to the company’s bottom line. — Fits Me (November 2016)
Apart from the fact that online fashion is a crazily growing sector, 88% of consumers report a feeling of frustration regarding sizing inconsistency. That seems like an obvious problem to solve, which might result in a great business opportunity.
Solution? Simple and convincing: to establish the optimal size for each consumer according to his own body. The technological side of the application includes: you get your body measurements using the Optimisize app (you only need the help of a friend to make a video of you), the app saves your measurements and generates your 3D size profile. Then you are ready to do online shopping in any site using the Optimisize plugin.
We see a real-world problem with an enormous financial consequence for retailers and the established solution guarantees a drastic drop of returns based on the exactly customised and perfectly precise sizing. That’s great, let’s get to work right away!
So we start, as always, at the beginning. With our expertise together with the CEO, we develop a complete brand image, new visual identity, design basics and wonderful presentations, a ground that you can start using for getting attention and presenting yourself to the world as a real professional.
At the same time Pablo meets a team of engineers based in Valladolid who are experts at an agile methodology called SCRUM and develop applications using it. It seems like we all make a great fit.
During this journey we have spent 3 months working according to SCRUM rules together with Pablo and the engineering team. It included a weekly meeting between the three parties where we discussed all the details, commented on each others work and planned the upcoming week. Each sprint takes exactly two weeks, then comes the personal interaction and feedback.
In 3 months we have sat down together 12 times. It was a completely iterative process including all the important stakeholders (management, design, development at one table), co-creating the content and being constantly updated regarding the progress of the others.
Technologically speaking, the result of the work is pretty much incredible: the technology that allows you to create your perfect 3D avatar using a video from your smartphone does not exist at the current moment in any other product on the market. Any online shop can integrate the plugin and let you buy their clothes according to your personal measurements. No matter where are you buying, you get the guarantee that the size will fit. Amazing, isn’t it?
Some time after that Pablo got to know one of the biggest players in the retail industry in the USA. The fashion industry is tough enough, that’s why Optimisize uses the opportunity not to swim alone in this deep ocean and decides to cooperate with bigger conglomerate to accelerate its own growth. In this phase, having a great-looking corporate identity and well-designed materials that give a professional look of you and your product were the key to success.
With Optimisize we really learned a lot. While participating in the SCRUM process, we realised the importance of this methodology for the success of the team work. Once again, similar as in the case of Bnext we could see how important is investing in a great design in an early stage (very-early-stage if possible).
Pablo decided to profit from the expertise of his American partner, the fusion is on the way, but he will remain the business developer of Optimisze, sharing some of his equity with the conglomerate.
Congratulations Pablo, we keep looking closely at your incredible progress and can’t wait to see where you end up in some years!
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Akimad was created by Mika and Dam, a duo of dynamic entrepreneurs with complementary skills and personalities. We believe in realistic innovation. We want to share our experience and support young founders in creating an agile process of idea validation and product development. Say hello! www.akimad.com
Written by Daria Krauzo.
