Business Models Inc.

Case study from Vienna: Stitch your business model!

November 12, 2011 | Patrick van der Pijl

Last month Patrick received an email from Moriz, one of the Stitching Brothers. They could not come to our workshop at the Zagreb-Hub but would love to work on their business model. Why? The Stitching Brothers make tailor-made personalized jeans. Their concept and brand are amazing, but what is the next step? Should they go global? Should they develop concept stores? How can they take it to the next level? After reading their website and understanding their concept we were blown away. We decided to take the plane and come for a public and private workshop both at the buttlab (thats how they call their lab) and the Hub in Vienna, Austria.

Who are the Stitching Brothers?

Two marketing-fuzzies who want to do jeans. That’s what it is about. Moriz and Michael gave up their jobs and homes, attend sewing workshops and visited textile fairs and learned from producers and tailors between China and Italy. They wanted to learn all about perfect jeans. After more than 100 years, the blue uniform of everyday life leaves the factory and now comes back to the tailor shop to be custom-made. The Stitching Brothers undertakes a redefinition of both the production context, as well as the consumption of jeans. You can feel their passion and love for jeans as soon as you visit their factory or as they call it themselves “the Buttlab.”

Understanding the vision of the Stitching brothers…

On the 10th of November we arrived at the Buttlab. What an inspiring place with sewing and washing machines. We were consultant by a butt-inspector on our choice of jeans. After designing our jeans we had a discussion with Moriz and Michael about their vision. What is their ambition? What would they like to achieve? Do they want to be rich? Do they want to be f@#$! famous? We truly wanted to understand why the Stitching Brothers started to stitch! But also to understand their dreams and goals for the upcoming years. They had a great story to tell…

Business Model Innovation workshop @ Hub Vienna

The next day we gave a business model workshop @ Hub Vienna. Are we able to crack the nut of their business model challenge? Together with the Stitching Brothers and about 20 participants from the Vienna area we learned how to apply business modeling to a real-life case. We prototyped various business model options using design thinking and innovation techniques. The participants came up with some really inspiring ideas! Ranging from online personalizing your jeans to traveling ambassadors learning others how to Stitch!

Why this case study?

The Stitching Brothers case is a very essential case study that is of interest for many people because it has all nowadays challenges including personality, individualism, multi channel strategy, online, production, sourcing, scalability, branding etc. Every Business Model Designer would love this case because you can apply the various business model tools like Customer Development, Lean Start up, Story telling and Customer Engagement strategies. We will use this case as a great business model innovation example during our workshop with customers, students and other games changers. We would like to inspire them with the  story of the Stitching Brothers to innovate their own business model.

“No buts, but butts and guts!”

We have built the brand and now it is time for the next step. We can’t wait and write plans. We need to validate the business model options, learn from our customers and decide and make it work.