Understanding a custom-menswear business

Business Context

J.Hilburn is a US-based custom menswear retailer, founded in 2007. The men’s retailer operates through a direct sales model where Stylists operate their individual businesses under the J.Hilburn umbrella, selling J.Hilburn products. Their mission: “Provide men with a custom-made wardrobe that fits - fits his body, fits his personality, and fits his lifestyle.”

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As a product consultant for Endava and with J.Hilburn as my client, my team embarked on a 3 week discovery phase. In week 1 however, I led our research efforts with a focus on understanding the business context, successes and pain points, and areas for opportunity and growth. This would help us in week 2 when we would start to align on goals and develop an early product vision and strategy for our client.

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Background and Goals

J.Hilburn Stylists are essentially independent business owners who operate under J.Hilburn and sell their product. To do this, they utilize an existing (and outdated) web app called “Green Room”. The client needed our help to gain the necessary insights to understand the problem landscape and while also determining the best technology approach before replacing Green Room.

Key goals were:
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Generative Research:

1. Understand the J.Hilburn business model and context. (internal)
2. Understand existing user pain points with the current technology. (external)

Design and Development Research Goals:

1. Understand Stylist behaviors and Green Room usage patterns.
2. Understand their pain points and limitations.

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Methodology

Time was not on our side. We had only a few days to prepare and synthesize data. For the actual research period, we had just one week. With this in mind, I decided to conduct stakeholder and user interviews. Thankfully with the help of the client sponsor (the CTO), we were able to get everyone from the CEO, relevant members of the c-suite, senior and mid managers, relevant individual contributors, and Stylists, scheduled. All interviews were 25 minutes long except for the CEO, which was a 60 minute interview.

Conducting remote qualitative interviews allowed us the flexibility to quickly pivot or tweak as needed. I led the interviews, while my colleague took notes. All interviews were recorded.

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Post-Research Outcomes

Strategic Impact:

• Developed a strong understanding of the business operations and future-facing goals.
• Developed a profile of the end-user and the many ways the new technology would (and could be used).

Product Impact:

• Our learnings from research, paired with design and technical audit findings, helped us determine a software build approach.

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Personal Takeaways:

• While it was helpful to have the CTO get the participants scheduled, it would have been better if we had scheduled them. We ran into an issue where the recordings were stuck on the client’s OneDrive and eventually they expired.
• This was a lesson in being flexible. Typically, I would limit the interview attendance to myself, my notetaker, and the interviewee. In this scenario, we had additional attendees from the client and third party side as well.

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My Role

I was the Product Strategy Consultant for Endava, a global technology firm. This case study details part of my experience with J.Hilburn. But the full scope of my work with them, a hybrid research and product management scope, spanned fall 2022 to February 2024.

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