In April, Stylitics, the grand prize winner of The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania’s 2011 Wharton Business Plan Competition caught the attention of our fashion analytics loving team.  Reading about the proprietary program instantly had us dreaming up the possibilities it might have for brands and consumers alike.

As we know, Web 3.0 will be about data, so Stylitics is already on board for the next big Internet transformation.  With a keen interest in fashion and the way people use the World Wide Web, we knew we had to sit down with the people behind Stylitics to learn more about what they’re up to and what plans they have for the fashionable future.

Interview With Zach Davis, Stylitics Co-Founder

FMM: Why do you believe Stylitics won the Wharton Business Plan Competition? What is different about your team and the tools you are creating?

ZD: Our founding team has spent many years in the interactive marketing space, helping brands connect better with customers by building fun and engaging consumer experiences. Our team had an interest in fashion and style, and realized that most brands in the space, and media companies and even advertisers, have only a vague idea about how and when people actually wear the clothes they buy. A lot of market research in fashion is really expensive, complicated, and most of all, boring for consumers. No one wants to fill out a long surveys or sit through focus groups. We decided to take a new approach to market research that was fun and rewarding for consumers, while providing rich real-time behavioral data to the fashion industry in a much more affordable way.

As for why we won, part of it was the experience of our team in consumer engagement, brand strategy, and product development. But the other major part was understanding the market and opportunity. We have met with many fashion and marketing executives and had validated both the opportunity and our concept, and this preparation helped us reach that next level.

FMM: What does your product do and why is it already coveted by fashion brands?

ZD: In short, we help clothing brands and retailers understand what people own, wear, and buy, in real-time. Our product measures actions as opposed to just intent. Consumers share what they wore with each other and directly with their favorite brands through our fun and engaging platform. They can create an instantly searchable catalog of their clothes, see their own style trends, and get personalized recommendations. On the back-end, we scrub out private information and then share real-time behavioral insights with brands.There are a huge number of applications of this data for brands and retailers – inventory planning, managing store layout, measuring the impact of your advertising, and more. It’s quite amazing. For example, you can see the impact of red carpet styles at the Oscars on people’s clothing choices the very next day.

Brands and retailers are really excited about Stylitics. Our clients have the ability to get an on-demand, up-to-the-minute answer to the question, “What are my target customers wearing and buying right now?” This kind of granular, real-time view into consumer behavior would typically require a huge amount of money, effort, and co-ordination. And in fact, some of these insights have never been captured before on a large-scale. We’ve had so many conversations with brands where they are the ones telling us new ways this can directly improve their bottom line through lower cost and better information.

FMM: Will your product be helpful to consumers? How?

ZD: Stylitics is not only fun for consumers, it’s actually really useful. If you like fashion, care about your personal style, or simply want to be more organized, this is for you. All you do is spend a couple minutes every few days logging what you wore from the web or your mobile device. We can then show you personalized style recommendations, your own style trends, and your outfit history. If you want a far-away friend’s opinion on what to wear for that big date, you can do it quickly and easily through Stylitics. You can even let them look through your closet and make outfit suggestions. If you want to tell your favorite brand how you feel about their new line or a specific item, you can do it in seconds from Stylitics. And because the brands really want to know your opinion, you get rewarded for interacting with them – everything from VIP event access to gift cards.

FMM: As far as short-term goals for Stylitics, what are you looking at? What about long-term goals?

ZD: We are currently continuing to build our product and going through a round of fundraising. We ran a few test programs and are making some tweaks to improve specific aspects of our site, which will launch this summer. We expect to launch a fully functional site in late summer/early fall.

FMM: What role has social media played in your company’s success thus far?

ZD: So far, we’ve been taking social media slow. We understand and appreciate the importance of it, but also know that it’s important to have a product available for people to try before pushing on it too much. We will be integrating with the major players in the near future – Facebook, Twitter, and potentially Foursquare. We have key people on our team with rich social media experience, so we’re looking forward to using that toolkit to connect with users.

FMM: Where should interested people follow you? Do you have a website, Twitter or Facebook page?

ZD: Facebook is best as that’s where we make most major announcements – www.facebook.com/stylitics. Our website is primarily a landing page at the moment, though users can check it out at www.stylitics.com. And people can follow us on Twitter @Stylitics!