Sarah Neill is the founder of startup Mys Tyler, a fashion tech company solving the $1 trillion “fit” problem, by creating a more empowering and personalised shopping experience for all women.
Tell us about Mys Tyler.
Mys Tyler is a mobile app that helps women find and buy clothes that fit. Rather than having to try on clothes to see what looks good (for buying online this means trying on at home and returning the ones that aren’t right!), we match you to women that look similar – height, size and shape – who show you what they like, and let you see clothes on a similar body.
These women have already done the hard work of trying things on and finding what fits, so you don’t have to. They show you how the clothes look, how to style them, and where to buy them.
In August we launched our teaser app that lets you find your celebrity body double, so you can shop in-app from a feed of their fashion. In January we will launch with Contributors – any woman who is comfortable with her style and willing to share outfits they like with the community can apply to become a Contributor.
What inspired you to start Mys Tyler?
I don’t love shopping, I’m not good at styling, and, as a result, most of the time I think I could look better than I do. I always wished I had a personal stylist that could show me how to best flatter my shape, height, colouring etc. When I look at my Instagram feed, the people I’m following seem to always know what will suit them, and always look fantastic. But while they are great at shopping for their body, they are less good at shopping for me (because I’m a different height, size, shape and coloring) which also means that what looks good on them doesn’t work on me.
Without the budget for a personal stylist, I thought it would be great if I could find someone that was the same physical dimensions of me, that was more fashionable and actually enjoys shopping, that I could copy.
When I spoke to people about this idea it turned out I wasn’t alone. So, I started developing Mys Tyler!
Tell us about your career and background.
I started my career in marketing, working on both agency and client sides in Australia, the UK and the US. My focus was always understanding what and whose problem the product/service was solving, so we could best communicate it. Over the years I shifted more into intrapreneurial type roles, and eventually had the opportunity to create my own business, Doodad, while I was living in New York. That was back in 2012, and, since then, it’s been hard to not execute upon all the ideas that I’ve had. I went back into corporate when I had to shut Doodad down (I needed the visa, and was a little gun-shy). But after six years working in startups in the US, I was more than ready to give up a salary, pack my bags and come back to Australia to build Mys Tyler.
Describe a typical work day for you (if there is such a thing).
I like structure amidst chaos. I like working from an office and have a shared Google sheet where we track all our to-do’s so everything is in one place and I don’t need to remember all those things that could otherwise fall through the cracks.
Lately I’ve had a lot of meetings. We’ve just come out of a period of fundraising for seed capital, so that was a lot of research, outreach and pitching! And then a bunch of legal paperwork to follow. It took a lot of time and focus, and so it’s been nice in the past few weeks to put fundraising on the backburner (now that we have enough cash in the bank to give us a runway to go back to building). Less meetings, has meant I can go back and start to tackle some of the to-do’s that had been sitting on my list for way too long (including a few personal admin items like renewing my drivers license that expired a few weeks ago, and sending some baby gifts, before the clothes are outgrown).
As a team, we have daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly metrics. The first thing I do is check the daily metrics to see if all is on track, check emails and social media just to get an idea of anything urgent that’s come through, so I can go back to my list and prioritise for the day.
Operationally, my day is a blend of product, marketing and admin. As a founder it’s also people and finances.
Has COVID-19 affected your business? How are you navigating that?
When I left New York in December last year, I thought I was going to really struggle being back and miss the US. But then COVID-19 struck. I am so glad to be home and safe in Australia and close to my family. From a business point of view, on the positive side, COVID has accelerated the adoption of online shopping (our market), and has meant there is an even greater need for a solution to “fit”, because online returns are 3x greater than those bought in store. On the negative side, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the world, investors are a little more conservative, or waiting to see how things play out, and so our advice has been – run lean and give yourself as long as possible runway.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
Starting a business is tough, but there’s a lot you can do before you’re all in. I always think it’s great to start doing the things you can do yourself before you start spending money or bringing other people into it. For starters, if it’s a product or app, then start to design it. I’m not a designer, so I use pens and paper or PowerPoint (do whatever you find easy – it’s a thinking exercise more than anything). As you design, you’ll start to realize all the little things you need to consider, and the better you do all of this, then when you do go to get a quote for someone to build it, that quote will be faster and more accurate. Also, along the way, you may find other things that need to be solved or researched, that you can do ahead of time. Another really useful thing to do is see if you can get some validation for your idea. Friends and family are a great starting point but you want to have unbiased people confirm you’re onto something. A quick and cheap way to do this is whip up a quick landing page, and run some Facebook Ads to see if you can get anyone clicking, and signing up… even if you have nothing for them to sign up for. When you’ve done this you’ll have a good idea of what it’s going to cost, or what time will be involved to develop the first iteration of something that you can really start testing. If you need to raise money, then you’ll have an idea of how much and can start looking at options like grants, accelerators, maybe family and friends…or just bootstrapping. You won’t generally get money from Angels or VC’s until you have real traction – unless you just exited a multi-million dollar company, in which case you can probably raise based on your reputation for execution and an idea.
What’s next for you, and Mys Tyler?
We have a new app release coming out mid-November, with a new look UI, and the ability for users to post pictures of outfits they like (these are all private unless the woman chooses to become a contributor in the future). It means you can create your own Lookbook of outfits you like, so that when you’re stuck with what to wear in the morning, you can quickly reference back to your favourite looks. Then our big app update (when contributors go live) will be in January.…so I’m hoping that our team can get a little downtime in December as it’s going to be a big year for us in 2021 (and beyond).
