The rise and fall of RompHim, the men's romper startup that's shutting down after going viral and raising over $350,000 on Kickstarter
RompHim sold out in the first week, raising a total of $353,804 on Kickstarter — the company's original goal was $10,000.
RompHim offered one product at first: a men's one-piece outfit that came in colorful options like salmon and baby blue, as well as splatter print and American flag-themed.
The romper featured pockets and an adjustable waist, and the Kickstart campaign described it as "your new favorite summer outfit."
RompHim later expanded to a second design, called the RompSuit, which featured the same short sleeves but long pants instead of shorts.
Source: Kickstarter, RompHim
RompHim became popular in the LGBTQ community as well.
In 2018, the company launched a Pride collection, donating 5% of the sales to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ youth.
Source: Mel Magazine, RompHim
But by 2019, there were signs that the company was close to shutting down.
RompHim's social media posts started to taper off, and during the holidays, the company offered 75% off all of its merchandise.
Source: RompHim
Plus, RompHim's founders all have full-time jobs elsewhere.
Elaine Chen, RompHim's CEO, also works in business operations at retail software company Faire.
Alex Neumann, Chip Longenecker, and Daniel Webster-Clark all currently work at Bain & Company.
In February, RompHim informed its customers that it was shutting down.
"There are few things in the world quite like building something from scratch. In our case, we got to take an idea — an idea that most people told us was ridiculous — and turn it into a business," Neumann wrote in an email to customers.
Given that RompHim's founders all have full-time jobs, they no longer have time to devote to the company, which was intended to be a side project, Webster-Clark told BuzzFeed News.
Source: BuzzFeed News
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