Weaveu

Weaveu was one of my first ventures - an ambitious attempt to create a new generation of fashion ecommerce that would serve as a middle ground between fast fashion and generic mass-produced clothing brands, all while maintaining an accessible budget for consumers.

The Vision

The idea was to revolutionize how custom clothing is created and delivered by building a marketplace that seamlessly integrated three key stakeholders:

• Consumers - looking for unique, custom-fit clothing
• Raw-material producers - providing quality fabrics and materials
• Small boutique tailors - offering skilled craftsmanship

How It Would Work

The concept was elegantly simple yet innovative:

1. Purchase raw materials with varying designs from producers
2. Mix and match materials to create unique design combinations
3. Community voting through the app where users could vote on designs they liked
4. Popular design selection based on community preferences
5. Tailored production - reach out to tailors with raw materials, instructions, and user measurements
6. Direct delivery once the custom clothing items were completed

The Innovation: Print-on-Demand for Tailoring

The mix-and-match approach, combined with distributed manufacturing, would allow for significantly shorter lead times if operations were managed appropriately. This system offered the ability to provide fresh, new designs without worrying about inventory management - essentially extending the print-on-demand concept to the world of custom tailoring.

The Technical Challenge

One of the most important aspects of the app was enabling users to get accurate measurements using just their smartphone camera. Apple had just released their LiDAR-based Face ID system, which could theoretically be adapted for body measurements, but we wanted to create something more universally accessible for Android users as well.

This measurement technology became one of our first major hurdles, as it required expertise outside our core skill set. We had to seek external consultation to explore feasible solutions for camera-based body measurement that would work across different devices and platforms.

My Role & Lessons Learned

As co-founder, I took care of:

• UX design - crafting the user experience and interface
• Marketing content - though we never really got to the marketing phase
• Graphics design - creating visual assets and branding
• Strategic planning - helping shape the overall vision

Unfortunately, Weaveu never progressed beyond the ideation phase due to unfeasibility at the time and lack of sufficient budget to tackle the technical challenges we faced. However, it was an invaluable learning experience that taught me about the complexities of marketplace dynamics, the importance of technical feasibility assessment, and the challenges of coordinating multiple stakeholders in a supply chain.

The venture highlighted the gap between ambitious ideas and practical execution, setting the foundation for more realistic and achievable projects in my future endeavors.