Most people on HN are in the elite.

I'd suggest trying any of the wealth calculator apps, and figuring out which percentile you're in. And please post here once you've done that. Or, go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...

Median household income in the US is $51,000. That's household income, not individual income. That's what a family of four gets. Take away taxes, and you're at 37k. Assume $1000 mortgage, and you're at $25k. Car insurance, gas, etc. brings you down to perhaps $20k. Four cell phones? $19k. Internet, property tax, utilities, etc? $17k. Food? $14k. Health care? Putting kids through school? Retirement savings? Once you add in all the bare necessities, you won't find many people spending $70 on shirts, let alone $150-$200.

To run with your numbers. A $200 basic blouse, times 40 items of clothing purchased per year by your ex, is $8000. Family of 4 brings that up to $32000. Perhaps $24000, if you consider kids clothing costs less, or perhaps more, if you consider it wears out quickly, so you buy a lot of it.

Typically, the biggest expenditures are housing, health care, car, food, and similar. Clothing is waaay down on the list.

I don't think I have to. You've said enough yourself a few posts down:

> I'll be honest, I wasn't even aware dress shirts were sold at Walmart.

You're figuring for 40 items of clothing?

Someone might buy 1-3 nice shirts and take good care of them and they'd last a long time, provided they didn't buy a shirt with a trendy design that will be useless next year.

I was responding to:

> Shit, my ex-wife would pay $150-$200 for what I'd consider to be a basic blouse without even flinching.

That's a different persona than the sort of person who buys 1-3 nice shirts and takes care of them.

I would just say here people have very different expectations for what a nice dress shirt should cost.

There's everything from $13 ones at Walmart to $70 - $90 ones at J. Crew and Brooks Brothers (MTailor price point) to $300 Armani shirts (and above).

Having spent a lot of time in in-person custom shirt shops, our $69 shirts are comparable in quality to shirts you would buy there for $125 and above.

I'll be honest, I wasn't even aware dress shirts were sold at Walmart. Just my thinking on this is you're about average, and your comment seems to back that up. I don't think of J. Crew and Brooks Brothers as particularly "elite," but that might just be me.

I don't argue that there isn't a big market below the $69 price point, but as jsmthroway is saying, there's a large market at our price point, and up to now, it's almost exclusively off-the-rack. We think we can provide a high quality custom product where previously the only option at that price was off-the-rack.

And obviously we'd go even lower if we could.

There is a large market. How are you planning to reach it?

If you cannot go lower, I'd consider a partnership with an existing brand. You'll have to have an insane marketing budget to compete with existing clothing brands without viral.

If you can partner with Brooks Brothers (established in 1818, and part of American preppy folklore), J. Crew, Men's Warehouse, or similar, you'll have an easy time breaking in, although a much harder time getting most of the profit share.

Right now we have been spreading a lot through word of mouth, which has been awesome. We have also been playing a lot with advertising.

Unless you're planning to raise very substantial amounts of money, advertising might not be the most effective tactic. It's worth perhaps playing with, but not doing more until you've seen it work. You're a small business. You've got a highly unsegmented market. In unsegmented markets, advertising is mostly about brand building. That works well if you're Coca-Cola, but much less well for small start-ups.

Word-of-mouth can work well, but you've got to understand your customers, the networks, and the levers you can tweak to change rate-of-growth. I was suggesting price/quality/margin as one of those levers -- you want to be appealing to as many customers within your customers' networks -- but there may be others if that one is unappealing.