- Men's romper startup RompHim announced on February 12 to customers that it's shutting down.
- The company launched in 2017 and immediately went viral, raising more than $350,000 on Kickstarter within a week of launching.
- RompHim offered two products: a short romper and a longer jumpsuit called the RompSuit.
- The company said its founders no longer have the time to devote to RompHim, which began as a side project in business school.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
RompHim, the viral men's romper startup, is shutting down for good.
The company, which launched on Kickstarter in 2017, announced in an email to customers last week that the time had come to "close the doors on RompHim."
—Tim Mulkerin (@timmulk) February 12, 2020One of RompHim's cofounders, Daniel Webster-Clark, told BuzzFeed News last Wednesday that the founders no longer had had time to run the company.
"We've got lots of other stuff going on and it kind of got to the point where it made sense to shut the door," he told BuzzFeed News. "We ran it for as long as we could, but we weren't able to come out with the new styles and be as innovative as all our customers deserve."
RompHim did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the closure.
Here's how RompHim began as a business school side project, became a viral sensation, and then shut down for good.
RompHim's four cofounders met as students at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. They got the idea in 2016 when they were trying to come up with a comfortable and versatile men's clothing option.
"Everything was either too corporate, too fratty, too 'runway,' or too basic. Something was missing," according to the company's founding story.
In 2017, the founders — Daniel Webster-Clark, Alex Neumann, Chip Longenecker, and Elaine Chen — began working with a design consultancy firm, as well as cut and sew shops in Chicago, to create the first samples of RompHims.
Source: RompHim
RompHim launched its Kickstarter campaign in May 2017, and almost immediately went viral.
It's not clear what caused the RompHim to go viral so quickly, but it was likely a combination of the clever name and the photos and videos that went along with the campaign, which seemed intentionally tongue-in-cheek.
Just one month after launching the campaign, RompHim was featured in the "Weekend Update" segment on "Saturday Night Live."
Source: RompHim, BuzzFeed News
RompHim sold out in the first week, raising a total of $353,804 on Kickstarter — the company's original goal was $10,000.
Source: Kickstarter, RompHim
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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