What was the moment you knew you had to pivot?

We started as a sustainable made-to-order clothing brand. Custom pieces, small batch, everything done internally — sourcing, pattern making, grading, cutting, production. The unit economics actually worked because we controlled the whole chain. We even partnered with creators in the thrifting space to get the word out.

But we still couldn't reach enough people. Getting a small brand in front of a large audience without a huge marketing budget is a different kind of impossible. We were bootstrapping and every channel felt like shouting into the void. The product was good. The audience just couldn't find us.

That was the moment — realizing we didn't have a product problem, we had a distribution problem. And no amount of improving the clothes was going to fix it.

So we took what we actually cared about — how people discover and share style with each other — and rebuilt around that. Completely different product, completely different model. Scary but it was adapt or die.

Curious about other founders here. Was there a specific moment where it clicked that you needed to change direction? Was it a number, a conversation, a gut feeling? And how long did you resist it before you actually made the move?