Thinking about product development.

While I was sad to see products I’d ideated on and enjoyed making become archived, my community didn’t respond.

Recently I pushed the “reset” button on my product development. I’ve had a great run of testing new pieces in the last 6 months, but also felt like the brand itself was working too hard if that makes sense. It started with embroidery, which was officially discontinued this past month, and touched on new jackets, new button down cuts including adding deadstock trims.

Nothing quite stuck.

While I was sad to see products I’d ideated on and enjoyed making become archived, my community didn’t respond. While that doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, it means it’s unneeded. If the customer doesn’t need it, the brand doesn’t need it. The main thing I’d learned from the Stretch Waist Button Down was the ease of a good product. While it’s not always fair to compare every product to a bestseller, it’s important to understand the healthy baseline of a responsive product for people.

Part of the reason why I love working with preloved clothing is the hugely creative aspect of it all. I can pick any item and decide how it becomes part of ST’s story. And if it sucks (as in if the one or two I make to promote it don’t gain much traction), I can abandon ship and I get a freebie added to my wardrobe.

What I’ve learned from a mix of my own career as well as the several founders I’ve come across building clothing companies is that Second Thoughts is incredibly efficient in the realm of trend forecasting and when it comes to customer demand specifically, where traditional fashion or manufactured brands have to plan wayyyy further ahead when doing the designing as there are timelines at play that are out of the brand’s hands. On one hand, these founders can spend more time focused on selling, business admin, and simply designing every idea they have. On the other hand, a lot is out of their control and it seems far more expensive than creating an item for ST is (for now). This differentiator is one of the main reasons I love producing products myself (again, for now).

If you didn’t know, ST initially launched with 3 products. I wanted three; it felt like a round number and a manageable inventory to start with. The product lineup was:

• The Stretch Waist Button Down

• The Micro Mini Skirt

• The Single Seam Zip Blazer (which you only met if you were an early follower on Instagram or Tik Tok).

The Single Seam Zip Blazer was a top/dress that was sewn up the front and had a semi-invisible zipper running down the back to make it easy to get in and out of. I love blazers a lot, specifically an oversized blazer and knew I wanted to incorporate it into the brand. I learned how to sew a zipper for this dress for crying out loud. But in this case I’d somewhat forced the creativity, and created a 100% unnecesary solution – almost worse: an ineffective solution. I was overconfident from the simplistic innovation and “fix” that was the Stretch Waist Button Down, and quickly ditched the blazer dress when I realized I couldn’t get it perfect, and I couldn’t size it effectively. By the 4th sample I was now wasting money and the product wasn’t getting better.

Recently I was inspired by the romper; I am a shorts / pants girl through and through, and I’ve shied away from making pants or shorts. I like the products that feel as easy for the customer as they are me, in terms of size, fit and honestly, labor. I decided to combine a button down and a very simple short pattern and truly had a gut-level obsession with the end product. I was positive when I hit the socials with it that the response would be overwhelming.

The crowd went mild.

I got hardly any response to it - and if that wasn’t discouraging, it polled so controversially with my friends and family so I had no direction on it. I tried to make a second version incorporating the feedback I did receive – keep the coloring the same, more waist definition – and ended up creating the randomest, tightest romper and ended up just putting it aside (I still think it could make a comeback one day; I definitely need more experienced hands).

I get at least 2 new button down ideas a day, but the thought-to-execution pipeline includes several checkpoints to help weed out the bad or overly expensive ideas: Do I need additional materials? Has my audience indicated interest in a similar concept? Do I know how to do every step? Things like that. Things I imagine a business partner would go back and forth with me on if I had one.

So, while it doesn’t take remotely as long as a manufactured-based brand, it’s certainly its own kind of trying process – even though I have the ability to produce a new product within a day. I still (to a much smaller extent) do research, and attempt to trend forecast.

Mostly though, with product development, I lean 85% on my gut. Would I wear it? Would I buy it? Is the execution equivalent or greater to what it looked/felt like in my head? Does it match the existing pieces that define ST? Is it overkill of something that doesn’t “need” upcycling or “fixing?” That question is a big one and requires me to put my own feelings about a piece aside, which is why a reset button is needed.

Post-reset button, we are going back to the basics of Second Thoughts. Get ready!