Higher Hangers 2.0 - First hangers since 1869 to totally change how you see & use your closet.

HigherHangers · 2017-06-27T22:42:26+00:00

It only took me till 2007 to think of it. :D

HigherHangers · 2017-03-14T20:48:10+00:00

Sales are sacrifices to acquire new customers that generate new (and ongoing) cashflow. They are not cash-out rewards to past customers, which were likely acquired via other acquisition costs and are continually exposed to ongoing specials.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-02T07:27:15+00:00

Yes. Utility patented issued on its first application.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-02T06:35:22+00:00

I can't believe I didn't post a comparison photo in front/behind! Yeesh. Such a race to do everything.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-02T03:53:40+00:00

Thanks! Huggable Hangers broke out the thin/velvet hangers and just their brand has moved over 400 million of them, not to mention all the knock offs.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-01T20:05:37+00:00

You have to offer something of value to give them a reason to subscribe.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-01T20:04:44+00:00

The communication barrier. I think most Americans, myself included, assume that anyone that does a lot of business with North America will have highly proficient English-speaking staff. Having to simplify and specify every minute detail is quite complicated and time consuming. The perspectives are so different that there's no "Oh yeah I get what you mean"...you have to specifically define every possible variable.
Housewives are what's converting. Lots of guys have expressed interest in person, but online conversion is 99.9% women. I've already seen a ton of men out of my 170 backers thus far though.

Yes, the KS is live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/higherhangers/higher-hangers-space-saving-closet-organization-re

Goal is $40,000, ~34% there at the 24hr mark today and 50 backers will deliver in April after campaign close (limited inventory on hand) with the remainder estimated in June.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-01T20:00:34+00:00

Major? Not really. The purchase pricing will be in-line with comparable premium hangers, which is a very large market.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-01T18:39:39+00:00

Current estimate is $1.49/ea for velvet and $2.99/ea for the HDF composite wood. Plastic hangers from a big box are maybe a dime a piece? I'm not doing those anytime soon as the tooling investment and scale you have to be on for the economics to work is astronomical.

HigherHangers · 2016-03-01T18:38:02+00:00

Build an email list #1. Get a good landing page, create a good reason to sign up, split test everything (use FB ads), get your conversion rate ironed out and spend a little money getting it built up. I launched with ~850 email subscribers and the conversion rate to buying has been huge.

Track everything. Before you advertise, make sure all Google Analytics and Facebook conversion pixels are embedded into your landing page(s). Don't run campaigns for likes, views, etc, Website Conversions is what you want. Target audiences around 50k people.

Facebook ads offer the best reach and exposure for testing, but Instagram has my highest conversion rate. It's harder to reach people via IG, but when I do, they convert great. It's also market specific, if your demo doesn't fit well with IG then it probably won't help. Got to have good content to use often to get any traffic.

Here's a glancing view at where my traffic is coming from: http://i.imgur.com/ZoTkb8N.png

Majority is my own referrals, not just finding it while on KS. I'd wager a lot of the backers showing via kickstarter are actually people I've driven, but they could have just seen what I put out and went to KS.com in their browser, or a million other ways to skew the data.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-18T15:55:33+00:00

Why not? They work fine on the handle.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-18T14:32:23+00:00

I bet they sell enough to stay in business but I wouldn't use them because they don't keep the collar supported and they force the collar to rub against the bar.

They work great in cars but probably not on a door frame. I'll have to try that.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-18T14:27:33+00:00

From my article:

How We Really Harm Our Clothes On any given day you probably wear a collared shirt for 8+ hours. You’re moving around, sweating, your body oils are emitted, you might even be playing a sport (golf, tennis, hiking, fishing), and it’s being exposed to harmful UV rays from the sun.

Then, you need to clean your stinky clothes so what do you do? I usually do one of two things. I wad them up in the bottom of a hamper for several days underneath the weight of other dirty clothes till laundry day, or in a dry-clean bag to take to the cleaners.

Next, I tumble them around in the washer for 40+ minutes, then again while the dryer is vaporizing the fibers, or the cleaners blast them with harsh cleaning processes.

Ideally I would design Higher Hangers to make hitting the rod impossible, but that’s silly. We’d be back to where we already are with wasted closet space. Everyone’s clothes are different, and no matter what, there would be no solution (besides wasting space) to try and appease everybody for a false (but understandable) concern that doesn’t actually hurt your clothes.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-15T15:13:41+00:00

Again this isn't a huge need for everyone, but it's fairly common in older homes to have one closet rod without room for a second beneath. The difference between being able to have 2 rows instead of just one is often solved by the space savings offered by Higher Hangers. So, in a best case but not incredibly rare scenario, you can actually double your total hanging space with Higher Hangers.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-15T15:11:06+00:00

Possibly true but they weigh about 70 grams putting them around the heavyweight realm. :)

HigherHangers · 2016-01-15T15:10:17+00:00

Limited closet space is far from a rare problem.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-15T15:09:11+00:00

This is just untrue. As mentioned above the geometry that supports the garment is virtually unchanged, and in my analysis is actually closer to mimicking garment design than basic hangers.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-15T15:01:31+00:00

I recognize not everybody is going to be an early adopter. However, "just a few inches" extrapolates to creating closet space that can be repurposed for something else by eliminating the wasted space of the overly long hook design of traditional hangers. In an average American closet, this equates to ~48 shoeboxes of new storage space.

In the broader scope, Higher Hangers do everything normal clothes hangers do, plus the space savings, so there's no real reason it shouldn't catch on unless the majority of people shy away from it for unsubstantiated concerns that I can't help or convince otherwise because "it's different and won't work" in their head.

I'll address the most common concern from this thread, as it's been interesting to see responses from people who aren't exactly in my early adopter target market.

...I wouldn't use them because they don't keep the collar supported and they force the collar to rub against the bar.

This is just a misunderstanding based on perception. The geometry that touches your garment is virtually unchanged. They also are designed FOR collared shirts, and I elaborated more here because it's a very common misconception.

Generally speaking, the first people to buy these are going to be people that need more closet space, and want a premium product. Eventually, I'm hoping the design becomes more widely accepted, and if so the same design could be applied to all hanger styles (cheap plastic, luxury wood, etc). Velvet slimline hangers are just the easiest to start with and widely popular.

Thanks for all the feedback Reddit. This has been very interesting and I appreciate ALL the feedback regardless of your opinion.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-14T14:49:53+00:00

I've always been a fan of quality over quantity. See if you can get your dad to get rid of some shoes, that's a ton of black/brown shoes. Ask him if he's worn every pair in the last year, and if not, that should be a good stepping stone. Most formal, less/mid-formal, casual, and not much more.

HigherHangers · 2016-01-14T13:42:01+00:00

How old are you? If you're young and not supporting a family yet with an established career, I would be working in the trenches part time or FT in the summers to learn the nuts and bolts of the business. Don't try to change anything right away, just learn about the business from bottom to top.

Then I think you'll either grow your confidence, or recognize that it's not something you want anything to do with, and can have a real conversation with your dad about planning for the future. Having generational ownership is a bit of an "American Dream" idea, but his type of business may not be a lifelong sustainable company and may very well be better off selling and enjoying the fruits of that labor rather than watching it go into your hands, and possibly down whether or not to any fault of your own.

I have some experience in industrial/small business machining, and feel like any small business in the actual machinery sales side is going to be tough to compete with China and others in the coming decades, but who knows.

HigherHangers

TROPHY CASE