Product Hunt Daily Digest
December 10th, 2019

The fashion industry is outdated. As it stands, there’s a lack of software-based solutions to help new entrants start their own clothing lines — there’s no automated infrastructure and manufacturers don’t tend to accept new clients.

Cala launched yesterday to shake things up. The “fashion house technology” aims to help the next generations of creatives launch their own fashion brands, similar to how, in the founder’s words, an Uber experience lets anyone have a private driver. 👗

“Our target audience is anybody who wants to produce apparel products. At the small scale, we're leveling the playing field for new and emerging brands by granting access to a distributed network of manufacturers. At the large scale, we help established brands scale beyond their initial launch stages into retail and other untapped markets.” - Cala Head of Product Ryan Wood.

How it actually works: Designers (anyone) submit sketches for their imagined clothing collections and wait for manufacturers to submit a bid to make it (this matching system also resembles Uber). Once matched, the designer and manufacturer can exchange samples, manage garment supply chain, source materials, organize fulfillment and complete up to 40 other tasks related to production. Cala already has already partnered with manufacturers around the world, which have the capacity to product ~500,000 items per month.

What Cala really wants to do is identify the next Kylie Jenner(s) of the world. Jenner built Kylie Cosmetics with about six employees and ended up selling a majority stake in the company for $600 million. She had the industry connections to quickly outsource manufacturing, which is not something most people are born into.

“Since not everyone has Kylie's network, Cala was created to help, which is why I love them.“ - Adam

Using Cala, anyone with a creative vision (and a bit of merchandising savvy) can get an apparel line into production. As the internet has made trends rise and fall faster than ever before, Cala’s long-term vision is to streamline and automate the entire fashion industry with a particular focus on product. 👕

A public waitlist to use Cala opens today. Would you try this?

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a number of innovation fashion-focused products launch. These include things like on-demand tailoring, a site that lets you code your own t-shirt, a voting platform to eliminate clothing waste, a marketplace for custom sneakers and a clothing line made from unusable clothes.

In this week’s edition of Product Hunt Radio, we talked to Prevu co-founder and co-CEO Thomas Kutzman about starting a company as a non-technical co-founder, why they bootstrapped the company (+ how it helped them), and how he manages being a co-CEO.

We’ll be back next week with another special guest, so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. 😸