What happens when a made-to-order brand tries to sell custom shirts online and discovers that guys won't do homework before buying clothes?

Kirk Keel, Co-Founder of Stantt, joins In The Money to trace one of the more honest origin stories in menswear: a DTC-first vision that quietly died at checkout, a flea market in Chelsea that accidentally proved the model, and a decade of wholesale growth through Nordstrom, Saks, and Dillard's that nobody originally planned for.

Now they've come full circle, and Meta is finally working.

We cover:

• Why made-to-order hasn't gone mainstream (and what it would take)
• The Chelsea Market moment that changed everything
• How Stantt went from DTC-only to wholesale-first almost by accident
• Why their original pricing model was completely wrong for retail, and how they fixed it
• The double hit of de minimis removal and tariffs: how Stantt navigated 20-25% price increases
• Why bootstrapping longer is advice Kirk wishes he'd taken
• Sell-through as the only metric that actually matters in retail
• The shipping optimization that quietly drove their biggest margin gains
• Why DTC is finally working after years of struggle: Meta, AI, PDPs, and product photography
• Expanding from shirts into suits, tuxedos, and tailored clothing
• What's coming in 2026: new retailers, international tests, and a DTC push with real momentum

If you're building in apparel, menswear, or any inventory-based business thinking about the made-to-order model, this episode is worth your time.