A co-worker's wife's Professor friend sent us a link to a start-up in the men's retail space called His Catalog by Project Einstein. 

If I'm reading their background correctly, it sounds like the idea came from a few students from MIT's Sloan School who wrote up a business plan, and out of 190 submitted, was 1 of 4 chosen by Highland Capital to incubate. Highland should be a great fit given that they recently raised a huge fund to invest in "boutique retail" companies, and brought on the founder of Staples, Tom Stemberg to assist & advise.

Keeping in mind that I know nothing more than I've read from their own website, I assume the idea is to take product feeds from men's retailers like On The Fly, run the data through some algorithms, and present to each customer a personalized catalog of things he should like. Certainly sounds like a great idea, and their take on the men's market is spot-on. 

However, traditional "collaborative filtering" algorithms (like what Amazon.com popularized with their recommendations), which work really well on hard goods (books, movies, music) but not as good on soft goods (i.e. clothing). That is compounded by the fact that much of what men's retailers sell is "fashion" that may appear on the site for a few months or weeks, and then be gone forever. Being MIT grads and all, I'm sure they've taken that into account, and are building a system that will take some of those issues into account.

I applied personally for a beta account to use the system, and professionally to have our catalog included in the site, so we'll see if either request is granted (hopefully both). I will reserve judgment until I have a chance to see the actual product in use. At the very least, they've got a great idea!

Brad Johnson, Founder of Club DRIV, a luxury car club in San Francisco, pointed me to this amazing transformation of a Ford Mustang into a replica of the Aston Martin Vanquish in James Bond's Die Another Day. It's a Mustang...really!

Read the brief write up here, or watch the video to see it in action.

As of yesterday, I have suspended buying any new cars until a financial bailout plan passes, but as soon as it does -- and it sounds imminent -- I am definitely dropping $100K on one of these. 

Evidently, the global financial system is scheduled to melt down this weekend and we (On The Fly) would prefer not to take any of the blame. No, we didn't engage in any subprime loans. Nor did we bundle loans into questionable securities and sell them to investors. Actually, we haven't done anything other than provide our customers with the accoutrements they need to live the good life. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and since John McCain is suspending his Presidential campaign until a bailout plan is passed, On The Fly is suspending all suspender sales until a bailout plan is passed. 

After all, It's a Global Market, and the problems that started in subprime loans have caused a Chain Reaction that has Wall Street feeling very High Strung. While many analysts predicted the economy would Take a Dip, few expected these assets to have taken a Shave and a Haircut like they have, and I-bankers used to riding high are now on Full Tilt. It's Third and Long now and the Sands of Time are running out. The View from the Top looks scary, as leadership appears to be an Endangered Species. If we don't resolve this crisis soon, you may want to spend your next Holiday Abroad.

Country First -- if you don't believe us, just try to order a ton of suspenders. We won't ship them to you (unless we do by accident in which case, Thank you for your business!)

And to those looking to make a few extra bucks in this economy, we have a $50 gift certificate to any reader that writes the most creative yet relevant use of any pair of Limited Edition braces not mentioned in this blog entry. Now, that's change you can believe in.

There's nothing like 2 weeks of political conventions to trigger an insatiable thirst for tequila. Drinking games abound: take a shot every time Obama says the word "change" or every time McCain forces an awkward smile. Ten minutes into either speech, you'd be belligerently arguing for a "path to citizenship" for any illegal agave plants here in the ol' USofA. 

Fortunately, the folks at Tequila Don Julio recognize that the have's in this country don't want to be shooting their tequila out of a novelty lime green shot glass with a cactus on it. Rather, we sip our tequila from crystal tequila snifters designed by a renowned architect. That's how we roll in 'merica.

Ironically, the architect chosen to design the limited edition hand-cut crystal tequila snifters was...wait for it...Jeffrey Beers (rim shot). Beers is a world-renowned architect and passionate glass blower (aren't we all, though?).  His projects include The Cove at Atlantis in the Bahamas, Atlantis in Dubai, Jet in the Vegas Mirage, Porterhouse in New York, and many other high-profile projects. He is also the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Interior Design Best of Year Design Award 2007, Contract magazine’s Interior Design Award 2008, and three Gold Key Awards for Excellence. He was also inducted into Hospitality Design’s Platinum Circle in 2000. If you love architecture, his website is worth a few minutes of your time.

The glasses sell for $350 for a set of two, and a portion of each sale goes to charity. And luckily, there's less than 60 days of mud-slinging left before Election Day. We'll drink to that!   

For 2 1/2 years, On The Fly has operated under-the-radar out of a 4,000 square foot warehouse in the SOMA district of San Francisco. The space is an homage to testosterone: it's an old machinist shop with a 40-foot ceiling, two giant overhead cranes capable of moving naval ship engines, a fully-stocked bar, taxidermy that includes a giant stuffed Kodiak bear and a walrus head (both real), 6 flat screen TV's suspended from the ceiling, dark, hardwood furniture, leather chairs, a ping-pong table, thousands of luxury products for men ranging from dress slacks to razor sets to cigar lighters, and a bathroom that no woman should ever have to use.

And yet, it's time to move on to a new stage for the business, and that involves our first retail store! The fact of the matter is, we have too much nice stuff hiding out in an alley that is not easily accessible to the men & women that appreciate our assortment. Rather than make them come to us, we're moving closer to them. The details will be kept under wraps until we're ready to roll it out, but it should be open in time for the holidays.

In the meantime, from now until Sunday night at midnight (9/7/08), we're offering 25% off any order over $100 by using the promotion code GOODLUCKMOVING at checkout. Free shipping still applies as always.

Help us lighten our load, and we'll thank you for the sentiment.