[cypherpnks]

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.

[mpenn]

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.

[cpks]

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.