“At the end of the day, the tech pack is everything. It’s a part of the design and development process and it’s a necessity. I used to have to spend at least a few hours of my day working on tech packs. Backbone has eliminated so much wasted time, that tech packs aren’t a daily thing anymore.”
James Costa, Founder at Nifty Genius.
About Nifty Genius:
Born of a love of fashion and subsequent frustration with how it has underserved the modern man, Nifty Genius introduces the Curated Menswear Experience — an agile direct to consumer collection and purveyed retail platform that serves the informed gentleman through understated yet elegant garments, bags, footwear, headwear, accessories, vintage watches, furnishings, and even cars with a focus on quality, craftsmanship and quiet luxury.
Cultural lines across music, art, technology and fashion are blurring, dissolving the boundaries between them. Nifty Genius exists in that movement like no other brand, combining street contemporary, American sportswear and casual wear in variable measures to deliver personalized style at fair cost.
James Costa, Larry Lemons, and Jared Cook have cultivated a collection that combines menswear intelligence and pedigree with craft and technology to create affordable luxury that transcends perceived value.
The Challenge:
When Nifty Genius set out to create their business they knew the recipe for success was going to be getting to market faster and having the ability to scale quickly. From managing cash flow and keeping sales healthy, they knew any errors that developed in the channels of their product development and distribution life cycle could affect the future of their products and company overall.
“Consumers are already apprehensive as there is a lot of noise in the market”
From a product development standpoint, 95% of Nifty Genius’s fabrics are sourced from Japan meaning there is not only a language barrier, but then the items need to be manufactured there and shipped back to the US for distribution. If that line of communication isn’t clear, it will directly affect the products that get produced.
Time is of the essence and the more precise the samples are, the faster Nifty Genius can get its products to market.
“When working with factories overseas that don’t speak much english, visuals are everything. At the end of the day, tech pack is everything.”
The Solution:
With Backbone in place, Nifty Genius was able to develop new products extremely fast. “I can literally create 10 new products in less than 10 minutes on Backbone. Once my information is entered into Backbone, tech packs are created, then they are sent off to the factory, and a prototype is created.”
Having a database to work off of has allowed Nifty Genius to easily manipulate and change products. There is no more need to copy and paste from spreadsheets and existing data is easily re-usable season after season.
“Tech packs are part of the process, it’s a necessity but it has become less of our daily life and now just a part of the design process.”
The Results:
Backbone has increased Nifty Genius’s ROI on many levels. They have been able to eliminate Dropbox, FTP sites, and project manager apps.
“We’ve eliminated errors within the development process because of the platform and it’s now very easy to make corrections, quickly. Backbone has worked tremendously with our overseas factories making everything more clear for them.”
Backbone has helped Nifty Genius get to market faster, having their products ready 2 seasons early and has been able to show buyers prototypes 2 seasons ahead.
“Backbone saved me more time than I could have imagined.”
Highlighted Results:
- Products are ready to show to buyers 2 seasons early
- Factories are able to view tech packs straight from Backbone with no restrictions
- Eliminated additional 3rd party apps such as Dropbox, FTPs, & Project Management tools
Want to learn more about Backbone PLM? Check out our website here. While you’re at it, give Nifty Genius a look too.
