Stitch Fix Early Growth

I think Seth Godin has a marketing book where he talks about things being “remarkable” in the true sense of the word, as in, people actually make remarks about them IRL (in real life).

I think his point is basically that if you make something truly remarkable, people will talk about it with their friends, and your marketing job will be really easy, because your customers / users will do the marketing for you.

I saw a lot of that in the User Method cases, where after the founder had made her product and given it to a few people, those people would tell their friends about it, and growth would come with basically zero growth effort from the founder herself.

As I was driving to the office this morning, I listened to the How I Built This for Stitch Fix, a company which sends you boxes of personalized clothing for $20 / month.

During the interview the founder cited essentially the same growth mechanism — basically, her product / company was both unique and good enough to be remarkable.

Here’s the transcript:

RAZ: And how [were] you getting the word out?

LAKE: It was literally just people telling other people. And so it was 29. Then it was 35. Then it was 110. Then it was 235. And then it just, like…

RAZ: Over that summer of 2011?

LAKE: Yeah. Yeah. Those are the actual cohort numbers for each month. And then I think after that, it started getting the attention of what I would call, like, small- to medium-sized influencers.

It was literally just people telling other people.

That’s amazing when you think about it. That’s the dream. You make something so good that people who use it can’t help but tell their friends about it.

And it’s the dream for two reasons:

1. It indicates that you actually made something good. Ultimately I think that’s what a lot of makers want, is simply to make something other people find real value in.
2. It’s the best marketing ever. If every person you bring brings more people, growth is inevitable. And it’s easy growth!

Ok that’s it. Founders that make something truly good and unique often enjoy the amazingly simple and effective growth strategy of… people telling their friends.