From Student Entrepreneur to a $15 Million Revenue Ultralight Business: Stephanie Madesh, CEO of Kalon Clothing (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What percentage of your business is the plus size?

Stephanie Madesh: From 2x up, we run about 30%. Men’s is higher – about 35%. We go up to 4x for men’s. For women’s, we go up to 2x on a knitted item and 4x for the rest.

Sramana Mitra: What other categories are big winners for you?

Stephanie Madesh: We really focus on everyday basics. We have a lot of colors. We like to say that we want to sell you the last bra you’ll ever wear because we’re so tuned in now to our repeat customers and making sure we have more options for them. We have five different skin tone colors in the women’s underwear line. Just trying to find the everyday staples that people used to buy, we want to make that easier and accessible to buy. 

Sramana Mitra: Now you do have repeat customers?

Stephanie Madesh: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: What percent is repeat customers?

Stephanie Madesh: About 40%. It could be more, but you don’t get a lot of information from Amazon anymore. That portion of our business is still a mystery. Most of our Amazon orders are FBA [Fulfillment by Amazon].

Sramana Mitra: But you’re still getting the order and the order has the name of the customer. If it’s one customer, you can still track the history.

Stephanie Madesh: Sort of. You don’t get the address any more. You can track it by email. Amazon gives that funky email for each customer. You can match that up.

Sramana Mitra: I would say that is one of the ways that Amazon is keeping control of their marketplace. Does that make you want to take more control back somehow?

Stephanie Madesh: We’ve become an 80% Amazon business. Our main goal for the next two years is to grow through direct customer acquisition either through social media or our own website. We’ll always be on Walmart and Amazon, but the focus for us is direct growth. 

Sramana Mitra: What revenue level are you at right now?

Stephanie Madesh: In 2020, we did $11 million. We should be at $15 million this year.

Sramana Mitra: It’s been a very good experience working with Amazon getting to this level. It gives you the power to start investing in direct customer acquisition. The risk is if Amazon changes, it could affect your business. 

Stephanie Madesh: Yes. We’ve been in the trenches of managing the warehouse. We haven’t been able to focus on marketing like we normally would have. Now we have a team in place. We’re ready to just dive in.

Sramana Mitra: How many people now?

Stephanie Madesh: Four. We went up to 28 in 2018. Now, we are just four. We went with 100% FBA and the same for Walmart. Then also we’re getting the factories to do a lot more things that we used to do. 

Sramana Mitra: You have really simplified your life tremendously. I have enjoyed your story. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 6 in the series : From Student Entrepreneur to a $15 Million Revenue Ultralight Business: Stephanie Madesh, CEO of Kalon Clothing
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