Photo: Courtesy of The Dreslyn.What does it take to be a billionaire? Is it by-your-bootstraps determination? The business acumen and cheapskate ways of Warren Buffet? An insatiable appetite for hostile takeovers?
These days, the billionaire story goes more like this: Step one, spitball app ideas over craft beer with your buddies. Step two, trick a bunch of hoodie-wearing tech investors into thinking you've reinvented the Internet. Step three, IPO your way to a private island in the Aegean Sea.
Well, it seems that a new group of entrepreneurs is making its bid for start-up glory with an app that aims to dress you like the Ultra High Net Worth Individuals of the world.
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Quartz tells the strange tale of BlackV Club, a two-week old startup that's working on an app that does one thing, and one thing only: sells you a black, V-neck T-shirt.
Operating under the catchy and informative slogan "Only Black V-Necks," BlackV Club's founders Edward Lando and Yagil Burowski state that they came to their business model while working overtime on a different app. We realized we were running out of clothes,” said Lando. This would be the point where most of us suck it up, grab our bottle of Gain, and schlep to the laundromat. But tech gurus, they're not just like us.
Instead, Lando and Burowski each bought five black V-neck tees, brought them home, stacked them neatly in their drawers, and experienced a revelation they describe as "a Zen moment." (We feel like that every time we go to Uniqlo.)
Imagining a world where they could code all day and night without heed to the whims of fashion, they set out to create their app. So, why just one type of shirt? Because, driven, focused, paradigm-disrupters don't need two shirt styles, dammit!
"The world’s most successful people don’t spend time choosing what to wear, and neither should you," BlackV Club's site states. In other words, Steve Jobs changed the world in a black, mock-turtleneck. And, BlackV Club wants to sell you your mock turtleneck so you can get on to the truly important things, like growth hacking your core competencies, and updating your business cards' job title to "Virality Ninja."
The founders are mum so far on what brand they'll offer through the app, which hopes to launch in the next few weeks. But, the site has already signed up "over 1,500" members eager to dress like billionaires who are too brilliant for (or terrified of) fashion. And, who knows, in doing so, they might make Lando and Burowski billionaires, too. We feel a TED talk coming on! (Quartz)