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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
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- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
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Vishaal Melwani
Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: What about team? What size is your team? Vishaal Melwani: We’ve grown from a humble three to 22 now. The team is focused on three prongs: development and engineering, creative, and production. On the development side, we really focus on leading the cutting-edge on user interface. On our site, we focus on Fit
Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 6)
Vishal Melwani: That’s what a lot of people take for granted. You go up and you pitch your business. You focus on metrics and what you want to disrupt. Really, everyone’s a human being. Every human being that I know of, especially in business, loves stories. If you can’t tell a good story, you’re not
Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: The first $700,000 of revenue, did that come from any of these cohorts? Vishaal Melwani: Yes, all these cohorts really converted well for us. We noticed it right away. Word of mouth also became really big for us. One investment banker would get a white shirt and he would then spread that through
Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Tell me more about how you bootstrapped. What were some of the components of that bootstrap phase? Vishaal Melwani: I didn’t know too much about startups. I didn’t know anything about Silicon Valley or raising money. We just knew how to build businesses that were cash flow positive. That was our number one
Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Can we go back to the exact moment when you decided that you were going to do this business? What triggered the idea? What was going on in the industry? What are the dynamics of the founding? Vishaal Melwani: One of the biggest things that struck me was there’s a need for this.
Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 2)
Vishal Melwani: Within a year, we garnered around 180 clients that were some of the world’s top urban wear brands. We ended up selling to a large trading firm within the first year. We sold to a trading firm based in Hong Kong. I was 25 and I had an exit under my belt. I
Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 1)
I am a big believer in new, highly focused online fashion brands that can be built with a purely digital strategy. Combatant Gentlemen is a case in point. The company bootstrapped to $700K in revenue, followed it up with a $2.2 million financing round, and is on track to deliver $15 million in revenue this
