building a $10m niche fashion brand (w/ Vansh Sobti)

Summary

Vansh Sobti built Cloud 9 Clothing from a university project into a reported $10 million sensory-clothing brand. Its core product embeds fidget features into ordinary-looking clothing, making them discreet and functional.

Strategy and product development

• Start with a customer problem, not a fashion trend. After struggling with anxiety, Sobti looked for a discreet way to use fidget tools in public. A university assignment to combine two products inspired the idea of adding a fidget feature to a hoodie.
• Use a “gap” framework for product ideas:
  1. Identify a problem someone faces and the outcome they want.
  2. Find the missing link between the two—the part existing solutions don’t address well.
  3. Develop a product that makes the desired outcome easier.

Sobti compared this to Calendly replacing repeated back-and-forth emails with a booking link.

• Prototype to make a vague idea tangible. Early concepts for placing a stress ball in the sleeve proved awkward to use. After experimenting with sketches, old clothes, and sewn prototypes, Sobti’s mother suggested putting it in the cuff.
• Position the brand around product function, not just fashion. Cloud 9 initially marketed conventional apparel attributes such as appearance, softness, and durability. Once the company understood why customers bought the clothing, it emphasized how and where its sensory features helped them. Sobti described this as shifting from a fashion brand to a functional “mechanism” brand.
• Keep products discreet and functional. A bold, Gen Z-style hoodie with a large 3D back print attracted little interest because it clashed with customers’ preference for products that didn’t draw attention. The lesson was to validate designs against the audience’s needs rather than copy trends or other brands.
• New products, such as chewable shoelaces made from food-safe teething material, are developed and tested over several months—sometimes close to a year.

Customer research and marketing

Cloud 9 added a short checkout survey asking whether customers were buying for themselves or someone else. It also asked about age, needs, diagnoses, therapist recommendations, and gifting.

The surveys revealed an important customer segment: mothers buying for children. Teachers may take conventional fidget toys away because they distract classmates. A discreet tool built into clothing lets children use it without drawing attention or feeling different.

Sobti said that understanding customers and communicating in terms of their actual use cases helped the business grow from 70,000 to 700,000. The subtitles don’t specify the metric or period and call this a “100-fold” increase, although the figures themselves represent a 10× increase.

Actionable recommendation: Ask customers directly about their situations and buying motivations, then use their answers to shape product decisions, advertising, and content.

Operations and manufacturing

Finding a factory required extensive persistence. Sobti contacted more than 200 manufacturers through Alibaba; fewer than 10% were initially willing to try the unusual product.

The sampling process narrowed the field from about 20 willing manufacturers to 10, then 5, then 3, and finally 1. Sobti repeatedly requested revisions, such as changing the cuff’s width and length.

Actionable recommendation: Contact many suppliers, assess both their willingness and their ability to produce a satisfactory sample, and iterate rather than relying on one initial prototype.

The chosen manufacturer had about 20 employees when the partnership began and grew to more than 200 employees over three years. Sobti attributed the factory’s expansion in part to working with Cloud 9.

Inventory and cash management

To forecast demand, Sobti compared the coming month with:

• The previous month’s sales.
• The same month in the prior year.
• The prior year’s seasonal change relative to the preceding month.

Cloud 9 typically plans inventory about two months ahead and begins building Q4 stock in the summer.

Sobti identified inventory and cash as two major levers in scaling. Too much inventory can tie up cash needed for marketing, while too little can mean lost sales. He also emphasized setting clear customer expectations about stockouts, preorders, or when sales will pause.

Sobti said it took about three years to get better at inventory planning.

Customer service and technology

When a Christmas order was delayed, Sobti personally delivered a replacement hoodie to a grandmother who lived an hour away, along with extra items. The story illustrates a hands-on approach to resolving customer problems and protecting trust.

Sobti uses a Claude automation to review email, Slack, and WhatsApp each morning and prioritize tasks. The marketing team also experiments with AI tools—including Claude, Higgsfield, and Nano Banana—to generate hooks, concepts, and variations on approaches that have worked before.

Leadership takeaways

Sobti’s advice was to “harden the steel with friction”: treat challenges as opportunities to become more capable.

The host offered a complementary principle: “You don’t rise to the level of your goals; you descend to the level of your systems.”

Metrics and timelines mentioned

• Reported brand scale: $10 million, as stated in the video introduction.
• Growth figures: 70,000 to 700,000; the subtitles do not clarify what was measured or over what period.
• Manufacturing outreach: More than 200 suppliers contacted; fewer than 10% initially willing to try the product.
• Factory growth: About 20 employees to more than 200 over three years.
• Product development: Several months to nearly a year for new products.
• Inventory planning: Approximately two months ahead; Q4 stock planning begins in summer.
• Inventory learning curve: Sobti said it took about three years to improve.

Presenters and sources: Alex Djordjevic, host and interviewer; Vansh Sobti, Cloud 9 Clothing founder and guest.