Limited Resources? Here’s How ISGLOVES Bootstrapped the Smart Way

Having lived in Beijing for close to a year, I’m used to the full four seasons (as opposed to here in Singapore) and understand how annoying it is trying to pick up a call or replying to a message during winter with gloves on.

There are many specialized gloves that try to address this problem. ISGLOVES is one of the latest. It’s a touchscreen-capable snow mitten, which consists of the inner gloves and the outer mitten, where the former is made of organic bamboo yams and ecologically manufactured nanotech polyester, while the latter is made of 100 percent recycled polyester.

ISGLOVES is one of the first products from a startup named FiETT (Fun in Ecological Tech Textiles) which was started by a group of National University of Singapore Overseas Colleges NOC Stockholm alumni. The idea came about when the CEO of FiETT, Charmain Tan (who’s no relation), was on the NOC Stockholm program. Back then, according to Charmain, the idea of touchscreen gloves was completely unheard of in Stockholm. After participating in a European Business Challenge, along with co-founders Fitzkoon and Katik, Charmain decided to take this idea to a more serious level and make it into a real business.

ISGLOVES is a pretty niche business, so there were few marketing channels that could be adopted to push out their brand name. The team was very keen on participating in ISPO, an international trade fair for sporting goods and sports fashion in Munich, a good place to build their contacts and push out their brand name.

However, the cost of setting up a booth would be around S$15,000 (US$12,000). On top of which, shipping of their gloves and printing promo materials would cost them another S$5,000 (US$4,000), totaling up to S$20,000 (US$16,000) which is a hefty sum for a group of entrepreneurs who were just starting out. Charmain knew that this was one of the ideal chances and knew they had to participate. Hence they thought of alternative methods of participating, without having to pay for a booth.

Bootstrapping and Rule-Bending

Instead of being booth participants, they joined in the networking events and took advantage of the public spaces within the fair to make new contacts with purchasing managers and retailers. How was it done, you might ask? It gets pretty tricky because they needed to push things out but still operate in an appropriate manner. Charmain noticed that the fair had an area where people would give lectures and there were spaces to put up notices. They took advantage of the space to put up little posters to advertise their need for distribution managers.

In addition, Charmain and the team realized the importance of marketing materials – right down to the shape, size, and positioning, making sure that it hangs well and captures people’s attention. Theirs were shaped like gloves and were spread out in the press kit area. She stresses that little details like these make a difference to whether people would look at your marketing stuff, especially when you have a limited amount. They would then observe how people react to the materials, and approach them if they are potential clients.

It is interesting to note the methods adopted by the team, especially when the startup was entirely bootstrapped, making full use of resources available, and ensuring that every cost incurred has a meaningful return. In this case, Charmain and her team attended to the tiniest details on marketing, making sure that they achieved what they wanted to at the end of the fair.

A pair of ISGLOVES is currently retailing at US$78 via their online store and the team has received S$50,000 (US$40,000) in funding from SPRING Singapore last September. The team will also be presenting at the upcoming Demo Asia, and promises more fashionable designs for their customers soon.