mpenn

As trevyn mentioned, we have both options -- shirtless or a contour fitting shirt. We've found there's no accuracy difference.

You can't wear a normal, loose t-shirt or shirt; that unfortunately destroys our accuracy.

We are making custom patterns! We use over 14 measurements for each shirt -- everything from chest to shoulder slope.

Solid black has been a big request -- we ran out but are working on getting more :-).

We have definitely found that more expensive doesn't mean a better fit. Because every person is shaped differently, what fits great for me will almost certainly not fit as well on someone else. And being more expensive doesn't solve that problem.

We use over 14 dimensions for each of our shirts, so that every person who orders from us has a great fit.

If you can find off-the-rack shirts you love at a lower cost, I think that's an awesome option. However, I can say personally I've never found anything off-the-rack I like as much as my custom stuff (both pre-MTailor and now while doing MTailor), because it fits better, especially in my shoulders, waist and the length of the shirt.

cpayne, I don't quite understand your question.

Since we don't make VERY cheap clothing, squeezing pennies by using harsh working conditions hasn't been something we've wanted to pursue.

Definitely planning on Android (but not for a few months).

You're definitely right about precision vs. accuracy. The phrase never polled as well. Maybe if we'd run our surveys in the statistics department it would have been different. :-)

The shirts are made to our stringent quality controls in China. We're definitely planning to expand into other types of clothing. And since we take all your measurements, you'll only have to get measured once!

We get what you're saying about virality. We wanted to make shirts of a quality that we were proud of and after getting many samples we decided that we could make very high-quality shirts for $69. We hope that we'll be able to bring the price down with time.

FYI - the salesman in me has to say that if you have any doubts, you can try us risk-free because of our very generous return policy. We're happy to accept a return or remake your shirt for any reason (not just fit).

I feel honored about your account creation :-).

Our shirts are made by hand by professional manufacturers in China. We work with them closely to ensure that every shirt meets our high standards and is what a customer would love.

Since we make higher end custom shirts which require skilled labor (custom vs. off-the-rack), we focus on quality rather than squeezing out every penny on the manufacturing side. I hope that helps.

The reason we can offer high end custom shirts for $69 is that we cut out the expensive measurement process -- a tailor normally spends at least 30 minutes with you for measuring, while we do it with software. We also have fewer returns (since we're more accurate) and we have fewer mistakes (software vs. writing by hand). Additionally, we sell direct to consumer, so there's no retailer markup on top of us.

No white paper or blog post explaining the behind-the-scenes stuff (kept proprietary for now, but we may write something later).

Yes, the Kinect would probably be more accurate (it was one of our original ideas), but it wouldn't have made a very good business. No one would have been able to easily use it in his home (not many people own a Kinect, 3rd party apps for xbox aren't big and when I have seen a Kinect, it doesn't capture your whole body).

We found that our accuracy is more than sufficient for shirts (we've shipped a bunch already and gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback). Accuracy is just 1 aspect of a great looking shirt though; style is also really important, and we've spent a long time refining that as well.

It takes ~2 weeks to make your shirt and another 1/2 week for delivery.

Just checked on your order, and it should be finished by the 6th and hopefully get to you by the 8th (may be the following Monday though).

Ok, some more of the statistics on the 20% number.

We had each tailor measure each person across 17 different measurements. Across those 4 tailors (on each person and each measurement), you could see a standard deviation. So then we also looked at the standard deviation of the average of those 4 tailors vs. the MTailor software's system. Our standard deviation was 20% lower.

Happy to go into even more detail if people are interested!

Realized I didn't actually explain the measurement process. You put the phone down by leaning against a wall (or chair or something else), stand ~10 feet away (so your whole body is in frame) and do 1 spin. The software takes care of the rest. The app walks you through in much more detail how to do it. You also need to be in contour fitting clothing, so it's recommended to be at home.

We have definitely thought about licensing outside the US. However, we should be able to figure out the logistics of shipping shirts internationally in the next few months, so we should be shipping worldwide soon!

When you say advice, do you mean for off-the-rack shirts, or shirts you would buy from us?

Sorry, not yet! We've had problems with VAT / taxes, so we're US only (and we'll ship some shirts to Canada as well).

My cofounder and I spent over a year developing the measurement technology -- it's a ton of math / machine learning. The process is also easy to do (you don't need to stand as still as a statue or anything).

We also really stand behind that 20% number. We brought 4 professional tailors in and 35 people, and we were 20% more accurate than the professional tailors. If anyone wants, I can go into more detail on the calculations of us vs. tailors.

Yes, the website is definitely a work in progress. Most of our efforts have been focused on improving the app, but totally understand!

Miles Penn here, cofounder of MTailor. Feel free to post any questions -- happy to answer them!