The fashion industry isn’t the most tech-forward industry (believe it or
not) and they asked the NYC tech community for help! Enter Decoded Fashion- the
world’s first fashion hackathon. sponsored
by the CFDA and Conde Nast.

This weekend I attended Decoded (my first official hackathon!) Everyone
that knows me professionally knows I love hacking ideas together—it’s just
something I love doing. My brilliant multi-talented friend Yaw Etse pulled me in on this last
weekend to discuss with his 2 developer & strategy buddies and sold me on
participating.

The
briefing

The initial online mass brief from the CFDA was purposely very vague, it
focused on “solving the fashions industry’s biggest tech problems” so there was minimal
thinking we could do in advance.

When we arrived we were briefed on the FourSquare, Avairy, Skinlinks, SendGrid
and Spotify APIs. Then briefed by a panel of fashion/tech experts.

We pulled
out 5 themes:

1.     Most B2C
apps are largely crowdstyled and personalized. How can we apply the designer
voice/eye/lens BACK into our own
products? The designer wants validation & wants to control their message
through their voice. (Um, good luck with that in a social environment!)

2.    
Supply
chain management/manufacturing issues (lots of money go into making samples and
lots of money is wasted in the antiquated process with service providers). How
can we make the process quicker and more streamlined?

3.    
Apply
instant commerce to social content, allow anyone a turnkey eComm/mComm purchase transaction
in any place. (Ie: twitter, Instagram)

4.     Marketing analytics & aggregated
social data: crowdsourced opinions/social sentiment is a need we have. We don’t
know how to read through it all and create insights to act upon?

5.    
How do
you sell a lifestyle and allow people to buy everything in a lifestyle? (Ie: buy the entire styled room vs. just the throw blanket on the chair)

Our ideation sessions

This was the strategic approach our team agreed on in the beginning and
stuck to:

·      Establish a useful value proposition that solves a
problem

·     
Have a use case we can navigate through in our demo

·     
DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE CODE BEING PERFECT AND
POLISHED

·     
Make our proof of concept come to life through
exceptional storytelling and it will shine

One of the greatest parts of this experience was the plethora of mentors
available to us from the tech and fashion industries & they made allllll
the difference! We got in on this offer immediately and utilized them often!
Here were some of my fav mentors that REALLY gave us useful objective feedback
at every point in the ideation process:  Kennedy (who has extensive hacking experience), Vik Venkatraman  Mike
Caprio of The Start Up Bus
and Stephanie Cain and Justin Isaf, former director of
community at HuffPo.

This is how our day rolled out:

Idea #1: WhoWoreWhatWear  (~12pm)

Using aggregated social data to highlight the most trending
designers/items etc and link to eComm. (think Pop Sugar meets The Hype Machine w/built in eComm — but
only for the top 15 NYC fashion bloggers).

Then we thought about a product called Styld, a custom stylist
decision engine using behavioral search & social data to suggest
outfits/looks & then tie to eComm right on the spot.

After much mentoring we found out everyone else wanted to do that too.
(Pitching 101—always think about what your competition is going to pitch and
try to differentiate) and we tossed the stylist idea.

So we pivoted and went the B2B route.

Idea #2 Performance Analytics Platform (~4pm)

We made the strategic decision to stay away from feature-based B2C apps
b/c we figured the whole world would take the “sexy” image-based route and
focus on that. (another photo sharing/eComm site? No thanks)

We focused in on performance analytics (think Tableau with marketing & social
analytics built into the same platform.) I had a feeling no one would tackle
analytics- harnessing big data is a difficult solve. We knew NOT many people
would be focusing on anything B2B—but it’s where we saw the most useful
solution for the CFDA while offering US the biggest opportunity in pitching a scaleable
enterprise software.

Our mentors thought the idea was crazy smart, differentiating and said “there’s a lot of B2C we are happy to see B2B, it’s a big need- no one is tackling analytics we are impressed go with it.”

But then we got tired.

And hungry.

And one of our developers hated the idea and left our group.

And we wondered if analytics was too ambitious an idea for us to hack together
a minimally viable product overnight.

And my friend Jason (social data/marketing brilliance) stopped by to consult us & we left the building… all I can say
is god bless a fresh mind and fresh air.

THEN we pivoted. Agggggain. For the last time.

Idea #3 Optimizing the manufacturing process (~8pm)

This was
our final idea and we stuck with it! I started wiring the UX/UI,
Yaw & Alan started on the tech stack, I wrote the site copy, we played with
names for our product and netted on: MANUFACTURE
ME. I drafted the deck Sunday at 8am b/c we had to submit our idea by 11am. 

Sunday Hack submissions—the
countdown begins!

11am

We uploaded our product to Hackerleague.org (great platform that
handled all the hackathon logistics.) This was the initial vetting round for
the judges.

We refined our demo & deck throughout the day. (For a 2 minute pitch
there’s really wasn’t much to “write”) it’s all about persuasive storytelling
and demoing proof of concept. Speaking of the demo—huge shout out to one of our
team members Alan Garcia—top notch
software engineer who killed it for 24 hours and also has a brain for strategy!
Hard to find!

1pm

After team submissions (76 of them!), the judges reviewed & picked 30
semi-finalists and we made the list! Woot! 

We left the aesthetic polish for last and didn’t have a graphic designer sour
proof of concept was entirely bootstrapped or sourced through Getty/Google Web Fonts and
literally hacked together. Our demo came down to the wire! Talk about ‘hacking”
3 skills sets together with 30 minutes left till our pitch! Arhghhh!

We rehearsed and
timed ourselves. We were suggested to have 1 person present and our team
decided I should do that. We got a pitch consultation from Adam at The Design Gym (great guys!)

Here was the kicker—the
person pitching had no control over the computer—you had to have a team member
advance your slides/navigate through your demo as you present it. For those
that know me, I am meticulous about slide transitions/ lead-ins etc so the
storytelling flows effortlessly— not having control over a clicker or product
to demo was a little daunting. So our rockstar dev Alan rehearsed with me, learned
my cadence and he was seamless in helping advance through the product demo as I
spoke.

Our Team!

Our Pitch

Project Name: Manufacture Me
Optimize your
fashion manufacturing process.

Problem: The
fashion manufacturing process is antiquated

·      there are logistical gaps throughout the
entire supply chain management process

·      cost inefficiencies

·      burden on designers to manage the projects
from inception to delivery

Customer Insight:

“Give me a
technology that can streamline communication/process between me & my supply chain
partners”

Solution: (B2B)
SAAS platform to optimize your fashion manufacturing experience. 
(think Odesk with a side of Basecamp)

Cloud-based platform:

1.     Resourcing service providers that utilizes real
time bidding process

2.     Social project management

3.    
Centralized logistics

DEMO

Business model:

·     
Enterprise licensing (B2B) Cloud-based product for
designers (design house/designers)

·     
Free for service providers

After the pitch

We went 26th out of 30- so we tried to keep high energy for a tired audience. Our pitch went great, we ended right on the
buzzer (almost!) and we got tons of unsolicited positive feedback from lots of
people, including many people we hadn’t spoken to before. This was a GREAT
feeling & the only metric we really wanted to hit this weekend. Being in
the top 35% is great validation for our first hackathon!

We didn’t make it into the top 5 and that was ok.

BUT our hack neighbors Carrie Mantha and Ajay Mantha made it in the top 5 with their great product Avant-Garde….it was REALLY good and you should totally read about their pitch here.  

I can’t wait
to see them pitch the final round at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at the “Decoded Fashion and Tech in the Tents”
event on 2/14! We really loved sharing space with Carrie & Ajay—they
are seasoned entrepreneurs
(they didn’t sleep at all this weekend and it clearly paid off!)

My hackathon
experience

DecodedFashion did such a phenomenal job, I was really
beyond impressed with the logistical organization, the co-working space had
great energy (even the healthy food & snacks were great) partners they
signed on, experienced mentors, diversity of people and level of talent in the
building.

I felt like I was in my element the entire time—never once
felt out of place. My only regret was I wish I had watched more pitches but we
were down to the wire with our own demo and rehearsals. 

Our team really loved all the people we met and this
experience was unparalleled to anything I’ve experienced in years. I pitch new
business in my profession all the time, and there’s definitely an adrenaline
rush….but nothing like this. I call this accelerated biz dev—and if you’re
looking to fast forward your ideation skills, learn about turning an idea into
a business solution all while making a REAL viable concept in 24 hours, you
should join a hackathon…it’s absolutely exhilarating.

I’m hooked. True speak from a fashion-loving geek.