The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2018
HoneyLove sold $500K of engineered shapewear by its YC S18 Demo Day launch
EDM artist Betsie Larkin built $89 shapewear with corset-style structure after stage outfits failed her; $500K in sales by August 2018.
HoneyLove
What the business is
HoneyLove designs and sells direct-to-consumer shapewear: its $89 Sculptwear line uses supportive boning inside garment seams, encased in protective fabric, plus patent-pending BoostBands, to shape without bunching or flattening curves.
Starting capital：The February 2018 Kickstarter raised $300,000 in pre-orders against a $30,000 goal before the product launched at $89.
How it started
Betsie Larkin spent her first ten professional years as an EDM artist — two solo albums, tours across five continents, and work with Armin van Buuren and Ferry Corsten — and was constantly frustrated by the shapewear she wore under stage outfits. Her research found two industry-wide problems: shapewear bunched and needed constant readjustment, and it flattened everything, including the curves wearers wanted to show. That led to HoneyLove and the Sculptwear design.
What happened
HoneyLove ran a Kickstarter in February 2018 that raised $300,000 in pre-orders against a $30,000 goal, and manufactured at a WRAP gold-certified factory dedicated to shapewear in Guangdong, China. The product sold at $89 — between cheap shapewear at about $35 and high-end garments at $150 — with patent-pending BoostBands in the back of the legs meant to accentuate the curve between the bottom and upper legs. At YC S18 Demo Day 1 on 2018-08-20, TechCrunch reported the company had already sold $500K in product.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
HoneyLove began with Betsie Larkin's ten-year career as an EDM artist: shapewear she wore under stage outfits bunched, needed constant readjustment and flattened the curves she wanted to show. Her research found those failures were industry-wide, and the answer she built was engineering — supportive boning inside garment seams, encased in protective fabric, plus patent-pending BoostBands at the back of the legs.
Larkin started with a Kickstarter in February 2018 that raised $300,000 in pre-orders against a $30,000 goal, then manufactured at a WRAP gold-certified shapewear factory in Guangdong, China. The product launched at $89, deliberately in the middle of a market where cheap shapewear ran about $35 and high-end pieces reached $150.
By YC S18 Demo Day 1 on 2018-08-20, HoneyLove told TechCrunch it had already sold $500K of product. The bet was that shapewear's failure modes were solvable product problems — structure instead of squeeze — and that a direct-to-consumer brand could win the middle of the market with a garment that actually worked.
What has to be true
- Larkin had first-hand experience of the problem: a decade of wearing shapewear under stage outfits made her an unusually credible customer for the fix.
- Her research identified two specific, industry-wide failure modes — bunching and flattening — which turned a vague dissatisfaction into a concrete engineering target.
- The Kickstarter result validated demand before retail: $300,000 in pre-orders against a $30,000 goal showed customers would pay for the promise of a better garment.
- The $89 price sat between cheap and premium shapewear, so HoneyLove did not have to win on price or luxury positioning if the product worked as claimed.
What can be applied
A founder's own frustration can expose a real product gap, but HoneyLove's proof was willingness to pay: $300K in Kickstarter pre-orders came before the brand had to win a crowded retail category.
Aftermath
As of 2018-08-20, HoneyLove was live in Y Combinator's Summer 2018 batch with $500K in product sold, a $300,000 Kickstarter behind it, and an $89 Sculptwear line sold direct through its own website. TechCrunch had profiled the company on 2018-07-23, and its Demo Day 1 listing appeared in a roundup that drew 156 points and 121 comments on Hacker News. The article and roundup record no funding round or later milestones as of that date.
Sources
- Here are the 63 startups that launched today at Y Combinator's S18 Demo Day 1
- HoneyLove looks to reinvent shapewear
- Y Combinator S18 Demo Day 1 startups — Hacker News discussion
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