From Student Entrepreneur to a $15 Million Revenue Ultralight Business: Stephanie Madesh, CEO of Kalon Clothing (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Were you selling this under private label, or was it still retail?

Stephanie Madesh: We were selling it as the Kalon brand. It was our own design. We were still a boutique. But if you can imagine Forever21 when they started, they had their own label and all the labels that they carried.

Sramana Mitra: It’s very common in the fashion business. They start with selling other people’s brands and then pick up categories in which they offer their own brands. Your strategy is exactly in line with what retail companies do.

Stephanie Madesh: Yes, definitely. 

Sramana Mitra: By 2011, you’ve been in business for six years. Did you have a lot of loyal customers? Were people coming back?

Stephanie Madesh: I didn’t find that we had a lot of repeat customers from 2010 and before. It was very much a shot-in-the-dark. I don’t think we did really well in terms of marketing. We definitely carried over repeat customers, but it was such a small number. 

Sramana Mitra: Still your customer acquisition is SEO?

Stephanie Madesh: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What happens next?

Stephanie Madesh: In 2012, we start to grow. We grew a lot on the Amazon Marketplace. We didn’t have a way to grow and fulfill ourselves. We were crossing a million that year. It was not possible at that time to hire enough staff.

Sramana Mitra: Can you describe a bit more about the Amazon marketplace business at that time? What did you learn about, what worked?

Stephanie Madesh: Amazon was still youngish. By 2012, they were reaching the clothing customer. We were high on organic search on Amazon as well. We had cracked the code on organic reach there at that time. What sold the most were the yoga pants and socks. The comfortable stuff – comfy and stretchy. If it was more rigid like a bra, those items didn’t do well for us.

Sramana Mitra: How did you crack the code on SEO on Amazon?

Stephanie Madesh: In the beginning, Amazon was a lot easier. 

Sramana Mitra: Competition was a lot less.

Stephanie Madesh: There wasn’t a lot of competition. You could go in the subcategories and find holes in their catalogs. We would start to carry items that filled those holes. Beyond that, having better pictures than everyone else helped. Then sizing and measurement and using good descriptive words worked.

Sramana Mitra: What was the revenue split between Google organic search versus Amazon?

Stephanie Madesh: 30% Amazon and 70% SEO. 

Sramana Mitra: What happens next?

Stephanie Madesh: In 2013, we moved into a second space. Amazon was our primary growth at that point. The SEO had started to dive and was flipping more to Google Ads. In 2013, Amazon had become 60% of our revenue. We were on eBay, but it was very low. 

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like it aligns with the time when Amazon started becoming serious about selling clothes on their site. You rode that wave to some extent.

Stephanie Madesh: Yes, definitely. I had an Amazon account since college, but it was always 1% of sales. eBay was way better in 2005. Then Amazon started to ramp up. By 2014, Amazon just dumped money into the clothing category. 

This segment is part 4 in the series : From Student Entrepreneur to a $15 Million Revenue Ultralight Business: Stephanie Madesh, CEO of Kalon Clothing
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