slin460

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Hi everyone! My name is Steven Lin and I'm currently a student at Indiana University - Kelley School of Business. I've always been interested in travel and startups so I teamed up with a few of my friends to start nomachest - a premium service that allows you to travel without packing. We are currently getting ready to launch our beta and want to get as much feedback from seasoned travelers as possible from the FlyerTalk forum about our service before we do a full launch.

Please help us out with your travel experience and expertise so we can try to make this a reality. I appreciate any feedback to help us move in the right direction and will answer any questions as fast as I can with my school/work schedule. Feel free to PM me as well if you have any questions or want to participate in our beta!

Link to survey: https://goo.gl/forms/ijaczGGgt8ejMYck1

Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing everyone's feedback and comments!

-Steven

goodeats21

Maybe I am missing something. I don't see any info or data on your service, so difficult to chime in with feedback....

slin460

Hey @goodeats21, I wasn't able to submit a link in the original post, but here you go: nomadchest.com

CO-PLAT

I have to say I wouldn't use a service like this. I have very specific tastes. I only wear Darn Tough socks. Wrangler jeans are the only brand that fit my fat ... comfortably. I only use Right Guard roll-on anti perspirant/deodarant. My slacks and dress shirts are tailor made. I wouldn't wear clothing that was previously used by others.

Maybe for someone else.

Vegas Vegan

Vegan here. No animal products at all in my clothing, personal care products, cosmetics etc. No chemically made clothing (eg polyester, rayon etc) as I break out in rashes. The detergent used to wash clothing has to be hypoallergenic, non-petroleum based for my chemically sensitive skin. Same as Co-Plat above, I have my preferences and nothing on earth could get me to switch ... unless I can vet whatever it is in advance.

I can see waaaaay younger travelers doing this, those of us "set in our ways" most likely won't (OMG, I've officially changed into my parents )

aquamarinesteph

The options for women all seemed to be 'coming soon' so I can't really comment on that aspect. (Sniffs loudly at women appearing to be an afterthought.)

Otherwise, I'd say I would not use this service as it currently is as I have very specific clothing needs (I can only comfortably wear certain fabrics), as well as the need to pack very specific shampoo, conditioner & styling products.

Now I could see using this service if I had to make a last minute trip somewhere AND I needed a very specific wardrobe when I arrived which I don't already possess.

Good luck with it!!

nar0

Well as a younger traveler, I can say there's no way this service can let me pack nothing (well espesically since it seems we still need to pack underwear) since I'm probably going to be packing a laptop/tablet and such. What this seems to be right now is just a pack less service... which just doesn't seem to attractive, I'm sure for frequent travellers we have packing down to the point where its not much of an issue, personally I have travel essentials basically prepacked at any time so I just need to go into my closet, pick up a bag in the back and I'm ready for a 3 day trip.

Now, if you are offering really nice or niche stuff (since this service basically seems like renting clothes at your destination, like a rental car in a way) then I could see myself using it.

slin460

Ahh gotcha, I know sizing is a huge concern when I bring it up to people. And definitely the personalization of the brands they are loyal to. But if we were able to provide brands you like/use, and could find a way to fit your clothes as close as possible (or even hold your personal clothes in a controlled environment and ship it out to you), would it be something you might consider using?

slin460

Haha I completely understand! I think you are right about the younger travelers part and those are definitely concerns we need to address. Since I'm 20, I'm pretty brand agnostic (for most things) as long as they are quality items, I am very open to giving them a shot. As for special chemicals etc, we try to provide organic items etc as much as possible to prevent those problems. We also have a special request section to make sure this doesn't happen.
Thanks for the feedback!
P.S. we all become our parents sometime :P

Suzzin

I think the kind of person you would be looking for would be someone who is spontaneous and perhaps a bit disorganized. I'm not sure that they would also take the time to look for/book this service in advance. Particularly for a short trip, what you're offering could easily fit in a large tote bag, so checking luggage wouldn't be a problem. It might be fun to check out fashions in another country, and do it as an add-on to what I've already packed, but I wouldn't use it instead of bringing my own trusted clothes.

slin460

We are definitely opening the service to women in the future! Since we are three college dudes, we figured we shouldn't be the ones to help style women. Especially we figured out that there are apparently three different jean rises... All kidding aside, it was just a more complex problem than we are able to handle at the moment until we grow large enough to tackle it and hire some women on the team.

It's similar to services like Trunk Club that were exclusively male until they figured all the kinks out and then expanded it to women.

To address your final point, this was initially a service for people who lost their luggage at the airport or lost it and we would be the service to save the day! But with our limited resources, we couldn't be in enough airports to service people in that situation.

Thanks for the feedback!!

Low Roller

Sorry, I just can't see who this would appeal to. Why would I want to pay to wear someone else's clothes instead of just bringing my own stuff? There are so many issues with style, fit, scent preferences and allergies from the personal products...It kind of reminds me of all the old tv shows where the guy shows up to a fancy restaurant without a jacket and has to wear the ugly, ill-fitting jacket-of-shame that they keep for such emergencies.

But, I do have one suggestion for you...include new socks and underwear in each package (they can be cheap and generic), and thrown away at the end like the leftover deodorant & shampoo. I'm pretty sure socks fall into the same category as underwear in that no one wants to wear socks that have been on someone else's feet!

LoveHateRelationship

I feel like you've got a super niche market on this one.

People are pretty personal about clothes and most people probably aren't comfortable wearing someone else's clothes. Are you offering undergarments, socks, etc as well? Accessories? What cities are you planning to serve? Have you looked at other clothing rental services (other than formal clothing), is there such a service?

slin460

No underwear, but socks yes. Accessories yes, such as deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, phone chargers etc. Obviously, we're not renting toothbrushes. We're thinking large tourist cities like LA, New York, or Chicago (in US) and then internationally such as London, Shanghai, Tokyo. Yes, there are similar clothing rental services like: The Mr./Ms. Collection, Rent the Runway (recently started offering everyday clothing), Gwynnie Bee, Le Tote... I agree it's super niche, but Rent the Runway is valued at over $600M, Trunk Club is around $200M, and Stitch Fix is publicly traded.

LoveHateRelationship

If it's already being done you're probably a bit late to the market unfortunately. It's easy to look at company valuations and go "I could do that and be like them!" but if you're just replicating a variation of something that's already available, chances are it's not a viable business.

Not trying to be salty just being pragmatic about what you're proposing. Of course if you have a proven track record of funding rounds and VCs know you, then that's a different story since they seem to be willing to find anything that's loosely based off of some other idea so long as the person starting it has a track record.