1. Vintage Futbol
Khoi Phan, Founder and Creative Director
www.surveymonkey.com
Startup Case Study
Get the feedback you need
before you launch.
If you’re a startup with a big idea, but lean budget, how
do you do the market research you need to guarantee
a successful launch? How can you make sure you’re reaching
your target audience before you invest dollars and time
developing your product or service?
Try SurveyMonkey Audience.
See how a cool new startup, Vintage Futbol, used
SurveyMonkey Audience to make sure they had the right
product, right brand, and right pricing for their customers.
All on a startup budget.
DETAILS INSIDE

2. STArTup CASe STudy: VinTAGe FuTbol
About Vintage Futbol Market research on a shoestring
Washington D.C.-based Vintage Futbol budget—is it really possible?
is an up-and-coming, soccer-inspired
Recognizing they needed more extensive feedback than just
clothing and lifestyle brand. When
their families and friends could provide, the Vintage Futbol
company founder and creative director
team acknowledged that conducting market research had
Khoi Phan first moved to New York City to
become critical to the launch of their business.
pursue a career in design, he spent his free
time playing for a soccer league in Chinatown. Motivated by “Getting feedback from our facebook friends wasn’t going to
the passion his teammates felt for the game, Phan envisioned give us the confidence we needed to commit all of our time,
a clothing line that embodied the spirit of the game and the and to convince funders to support our efforts,” said Phan.
people who love it. In a matter of months, he created the
brand, found a business partner, and acquired startup capital.
Selecting a target Audience—
Fueled by great design ideas and a staff of eight devoted
soccer fans, Vintage Futbol was officially launched in April 2010. just how specific can we get?
Working with their SurveyMonkey Audience account manager,
The question every new startup has the Vintage Futbol team selected a targeted Audience with
these specific traits:
—how do we get started?
Americans geographically dispersed across the country
“Basically, we had Before the company could
Aged 18-30
begin production, some
a lot of questions
important questions needed A mix of males and females
we needed answered to be answered. The Vintage
before we tried to Futbol team knew their ideal Since SurveyMonkey Audience knew the basic demographic
enter an incredibly customers were people like information of each Audience member who answered the
themselves—adults between Vintage Futbol survey, the collected data was supplemented
competitive market.”
the ages of 18-30 who’d grown with a variety of information about the respondents’ location,
up playing soccer. But they needed to find out more specific income levels, technology usage, and exact ages, among many
information about the purchasing habits and clothing other key details—allowing for more sophisticated analysis of
preferences of this particular market. their purchasing decisions.
Vintage Futbol had a short amount of time to get answers and Confident with SurveyMonkey Audience’s pre-established
a limited budget to conduct their initial research. The team demographic information, the Vintage Futbol team was able
was already familiar with SurveyMonkey, an inexpensive, to focus on specific questions about potential design ideas
flexible tool and had set up to figure out which logos, colors, and styles their target
“We couldn’t afford audience preferred. Additionally, they were able to get
a survey that asked specific
questions about the design to pay thousands of answers to the following market research questions about
of their product. After a few dollars to an agency this particular consumer group:
rounds of edits, they were for research, so when What makes a brand special enough to pay a premium
ready to start distributing
we discovered Survey- for branded clothing?
the survey: first, amongst
themselves, then to friends Monkey Audience, we Which of Vintage Futbol’s design concepts resonated
and family, and finally to old knew it was exactly with teenagers, young adults, males, females?
schoolmates, on facebook, what we needed.” Which “premium lifestyle brands” are most identifiable
Twitter and other sources. and how can Vintage Futbol learn from them?
Where should Vintage Futbol price its products—does
too low a price undermine the goal of being a “premium
brand”? Does too high a price give a false impression
of pretension?
to purchase or learn more, please contact: audience@surveymonkey.com | Online Form | www.surveymonkey.com
Copyright© 2011 SurveyMonkey 2

3. STArTup CASe STudy: VinTAGe FuTbol
in a matter of hours, the Vintage Futbol survey was sent out Additionally, most respondents ranked material and price
to respondents whose characteristics matched the company’s as “very important” factors while design was labeled
target market. Rather than just sending the survey to their “extremely important”.
personal contacts, SurveyMonkey Audience allowed the team
to poll a much larger group—all of whom provided honest
feedback and critical insights about the product.
Survey Results—what will the
data tell us?
Within seven days, Vintage Futbol’s survey had over
300 responses. In addition to getting demographic details
about their audience, the team also learned some important
information about their market’s purchasing habits. For
instance, the majority answered the most they had ever paid Given the importance of design for the respondents, the most
for a t-shirt was between $25-$29—a factor Vintage Futbol valuable data came in the form of direct feedback on their
took into account when establishing pricing for potential product line. The overwhelming favorite was the
their collection. grey “City of God” t-shirt which the Vintage Futbol team has
reported to be their best selling product.
The SurveyMonkey Audience
Advantage
After analyzing the data collected through SurveyMonkey
Audience, Vintage Futbol was able to make strategic
conclusions across various areas of its business—
how to merchandise and offer its products, where to price
Survey results can be easily its offerings, which designs to go to market with first and
exported into an excel file. which demographics may represent their most successful
early adopters. With original research to back up their
business decisions, the team launched their first line with
confidence and, of course, style.
to purchase or learn more, please contact: audience@surveymonkey.com | Online Form | www.surveymonkey.com
Copyright© 2011 SurveyMonkey 3

4. STArTup CASe STudy: VinTAGe FuTbol
Quick Facts: Vintage Futbol
The startup: “Vintage Futbol (VF) is an up and coming
lifestyle brand inspired by the game of Futbol (soccer) and
its classic and timeless nature.”
The problem: “We had mocked up a number of different
shirt designs and we really needed to get some feedback from
people who didn’t know us or our product. We wanted to get
a general idea of how much people were spending on t-shirts,
where they’re shopping, and get their thoughts on our designs.
Sometimes it’s tough to know if your friends will give you an
honest answer regarding design work because they don’t
want to criticize the products. Getting hundreds of unbiased
responses was critical to determining designs and pricing.”
Starting a new business is hard work.
The solution: “We got in touch with SurveyMonkey Let SurveyMonkey Audience help. We’re
VINTAGE FUTBOL
SUMMER 2011 LOOKBOOK VINTAGE-FUTBOL.COM
Audience and with the survey tool’s easy interface we had set here to make sure you gather the data
up our survey in a few hours. We loved seeing responses flow
in from hundreds anonymous respondents. The survey results
and insights you need to make important
seemed to be almost instant. We started getting feedback the decisions—quickly and affordably.
night after it was launched and had the majority of responses
within 2 to 3 days.” Contact your SurveyMonkey Audience
account manager to get started today at
The results: It was very important for us to see which audience@surveymonkey.com
shirts people liked the best and which ones weren’t viewed as
favorably. This helped us decide how many of each shirt design
Tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out
to order, saving us money on unnecessary inventory. Also,
we weren’t sure how many people have spent at least $25 or our online form:
more on a shirt (our price range), so it was encouraging to see
that 58% of the responders had spent over $25 on a shirt Get Started now
they liked.
To get Vintage Futbol gear today, visit vintage-futbol.com
“We will definitely use SurveyMonkey Audience
in the future, especially to market-test new designs.”
to purchase or learn more, please contact: audience@surveymonkey.com | Online Form | www.surveymonkey.com
Copyright© 2011 SurveyMonkey 4