Since this community seems to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I thought I would ask for some advice on an idea.<p>The problem that I've identified is the extreme difficulty of finding indie fashion designers online. Unless somebody directly tells me about them, there is no way I'd find them.<p>I was thinking of creating a platform where users can create a brand page giving information about the brands history, products, reviews etc. Each brand will have links to "similar brands" so that they can all be connected in one giant web of insanity :p (my biggest struggle is that once i find a cool brand, its hard to find others like it).<p>I think a cool business model would be something similar to Yammer and giving brands the ability to claim their page, they can then produce updates and notifications for users who are interested.<p>I know fashion is about as far away as you can get from hacking, but this is a super group and I'd appreciate any help you can give.<p>Thanks
You might want to check out <a href="http://www.smashingdarling.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.smashingdarling.com</a>. Not saying that there's not room for multiple competitors in this space, but thought it might be a good place to see what's working, what's not, and some areas where you might be able to make improvements.
<a href="http://etsy.com" rel="nofollow">http://etsy.com</a> has a category for clothing. I'm not sure of your definition of "indie fashion designers", but since you mentioned difficulty in finding them, that might be a good place to look for new users/contributors.
i'd like to point out that this would work for other things beyond fashion, like local/indie/small-time bands. if you're going to build it, why restrict it
i'd say it'd be a great resource for people interested in that sort of thing.<p>i'm not sure how large a market it is, so i really can't judge how successful it would be, or what you would even consider successful in that niche. it's definately a step away from your standard hacked news startup, i think you have a good idea on your hands though, that's a gut feeling hehe