Prototyping for Rent the Runway

"We never did research in an academic sense. We did real world research. Which was that we went to Bloomingdale's , bought about 100 dresses, all in our own sizes so that if this experiment didn't work out we would have an awesome new wardrobe. We spent a lot of our savings on this. We hosted a pop-up at Harvard undergrad. And we invited different groups of Harvard undergrads to the pop-up. And the idea behind this was to learn (a) will women rent dresses; (b) what do they rent, how much will they pay, what brands do they want, and most importantly if they do rent what happens to these garments after they rent. Do they get destroyed? Can you send them through the mail? How do you dry-clean these items. And so on and so forth."

"Our first pop-up was in April 2009".

"I got the sense that it would work because I saw the emotional effect. So in this pop-up I saw girls stripping down, trying on these amazing dresses, and feeling beautiful. And you saw their facial expressions change. And they threw their shoulders back, and tossled their hair. And they walked with a new sense of confidence. And you know I really thought this could be a business that isn't just about offering her a rational or smart choice, but it can also be a business that is delivering something emotional to her. Making her feel beautiful every single day."

- co-founder Jenn Hyman, Rent the Runway

Source: How I Built This podcast, http://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=541686055:541701331