Funding, Moving, and Catchy Medium Headlines

On the evening of Need’s first anniversary, I sat with our Chief Operating Officer, Imran Sheikh, and we discussed what such an occasion meant for us.

Without conferring, we both landed upon the topics of maturity and potential.

In Need’s first year, we’d hurtled out of the gates, amassing a rapidly growing membership and selling out of our collections very quickly, indeed. We were invited to co-present New York Fashion Week’s Men’s Day, we won a host of awards, and we attracted some phenomenal investors.

At the same time, we spectacularly embarrassed ourselves from time-to-time.

Several hours prior to the aforementioned conversation, for instance, we’d attempted to launch Need 2.0 concurrently with our First Anniversary party. The latter went very well, whilst the former fell on its face repeatedly for the following few days.

So, our second year, we agreed, would almost exclusively revolve around the prospect of turning ourselves from haphazard startup into full-fledged business. We’d extend our identity from nascent, monthly purveyor of style to entrenched authority of culture, lifestyle, and refinement.

And, so, over the past few weeks, we’ve completed a multitude of iterative maneuvers to set ourselves up for the future as a lasting, growing, and strong group. All while putting out some of our finest collections so far, I might add.

(Regrettably, that was the worst paragraph I’ve ever written. Apologies.)

First, roughly one month ago, we merged Need and Foremost into Edition Collective. Although the projects were always run by the same team — both tech and day-to-day — we had two separate pools of investors, different structures, and all manner of similar degrees of complexity.

(Need and Foremost will remain autonomous and separate, but, for the sake of structuring, fundraising, and growth, we’re now one entity.)

As an aside, if there’s one piece of advice I’d give someone starting a company, it’s to focus — to the point of obnoxiousness — upon simplicity. Whether you’re fundraising or you’re developing your identity, keep everything as simple as possible.

In brief, this merger has opened the door for us to become exceptionally creative with how we conduct our day-to-day operations.

And, one day, I’m sure it’ll translate into me writing some (more) self-righteous Medium posts about the how-to’s of business, but I haven’t quite devolved to that level of person yet.

We now marshal hundreds of thousands of members across two platforms, but, unlike so many other companies, we’ve provided ourselves with a huge amount of flexibility and agility. We’re unencumbered by self-inflicted barriers, instead freed up to move and act very quickly, indeed.

Paraphrasing Imran’s oft-cited analogy, we now have a house in which two children — who share the same foundational values — might now be able to grow into their own respective identities.

To that end, for those who pay close attention to Need and Foremost, you’ll begin to witness a series of rapid changes over the coming weeks. From presentation to features to all-new ideas swirling around product, we’re entering a phase of unabated experimentation.

(And probably breaking everything, too. Seriously, I have access to Github. Everyone panic.)

Society members, too, will begin to receive a great deal of perks, including priority access to our upcoming betas across a variety of platforms. (Ahem.)

Second, coinciding with the conclusion of the merger, we recently concluded our final portion of seed funding in the form of $650,000 into Edition Collective. This came in the form of $350,000 earlier this year and a further $300,000 last week. (For those keeping count, we’ve now raised roughly $1.2 million.) We welcomed several re-investments from our pre-existing pool of investors, whilst also adding the founding team behind CIC Partners, a prominent private equity group with strong experience in retail, fashion (albeit indirectly), and growth.

We also revamped our board, welcoming people like Jason Shellen and Mark Giambrone to the fold to keep us on the right track as we grow.

We’ll have much more on the funding front to share soon.

Third, alongside our funding and streamlined structuring, we’re going to begin significantly increasing our team. And, as such, we need a new space that can accommodate such a growing team.

We’re delighted to be taking 7,000 square feet in Downtown Dallas at Alto 211 — a building fast-becoming synonymous with Dallas’ burgeoning startup ecosystem — where we’ll take residence in July.

If you’d like to join us in this space — which is currently being built out to our specifications — we’re hiring! (There’ll be a lot more going on that page over the coming days, including more embarrassing images of the team and/or former interns.)

Ahead of our move, we’re planning to kick-off the first of a series of monthly events in Dallas — and, indeed, around the country — to bring together our swelling group of members.

On June 16, we’ll be hosting our first formal Happy Hour at Parliament in Uptown, Dallas. It was recently named one of the top bars in the country and its bartenders have been awarded accordingly for the past few years.

If you “Like” us on Facebook (sigh), you’ll be sure to get the invitation over the coming days.

(And it’s co-owned by one of our long-time investors and friends, Andrew Brimecome.)

For all of this, we’ve found ourselves in a refreshing, exciting, and exhilarating position. We’ve secured spectacular backers, located perfect space in which we can grow, and we’re now well-poised to truly pursue an enormous conclusion to the year.

As always, thank you for your support over the past year and a half. We’re excited to unveil more of what we’ve been working on in the coming weeks.

And I apologize for the worst thing I’ve ever written.