Dana Todd's Journey from Marketer to Custom Fashion Marketplace to B2B Manufacturing Solutions

Dana Todd - Balodana Founder

Dana Todd's solo entrepreneurial journey began unexpectedly in 2017 while working as a fractional CMO for a telecommunications company. Through what she describes as "spiritual work" and listening to "signals from the universe," she became increasingly drawn to the idea of clothing—despite having no background in retail, e-commerce, or manufacturing.

The catalyst was deeply personal. After changing her hair color to gray, Dana needed a new wardrobe but discovered that post-menopausal bodies are severely underserved by the fashion industry. The only comfortable option was Chico's, which didn't match her desired edgy aesthetic. They're also not "power" clothes. Their soft shapes tend to be relegated to supporting or creative positions rather than the C-Suite. She found a Romanian maker on Etsy who could create custom, asymmetrical pieces with European styling, but the platform experience was frustrating and required re-entering measurements constantly.

This sparked her vision: a "Macy's for made-to-measure" clothing marketplace that would remember your measurements and let you shop across multiple brands. She received the company name "Balodana" two full years before figuring out the business model.

After being laid off in early 2018 due to a corporate takeover, Dana took it as a sign to pursue Balodana full-time. She began the work in the same way she crafted marketing strategy for clients or employers:

• Sponsored her own market research and surveys

• Connected with makers globally, starting with her Romanian Etsy contact

• Traveled to Romania and Moldova, signing up initial makers

• Found factory partners in India

• Built a customized marketplace using SaaS technology

• Launched in 2019 with 5 makers across multiple countries

• Grew to 12 makers in 10 countries post-COVID

  
  

The pandemic devastated the business model. Nobody was buying fancy clothes, everyone wore pajamas and yoga pants for two years, and when people returned to work part-time, they weren't ready to commit to waist sizes. Dana was bleeding $4,000 monthly just on tech costs while trying to keep the marketplace alive. More fundamentally, she discovered that trying to change consumer behavior wasn't sustainable. Women found it easier to buy two items and return one on Amazon than to measure their bodies. Unless someone had significant sizing challenges, the friction was too high.

As Dana dug deeper into the industry, she uncovered a massive data problem that reminded her of early internet days:

The Sizing Problem:

• 90% of clothing is designed for "hourglass" shapes (10-inch difference between bust/waist and waist/hips)

• This represents only 10% of the population

• 75% of women experience challenges getting clothes to fit

• There are no standardized measurements across the industry

The Technical Chaos:

• No agreed-upon standard labels for measurements, nor methods for how to attain them

• Machines and software systems don't usually talk to each other

• Different countries use different systems

• Dressmaking is "top-down" (gravity-based) while engineering is "bottom-up"

• Even body scanners produce wildly different measurements of the same person

The Supply Chain Reality:

• America offshored its intellectual property 40 years ago

• Most fashion brands don't own their patterns—factories do

• Fashion schools teach almost nothing about construction, body types, or technology

• Misaligned incentives throughout the system reinforce persistent issues such as waste

Fashion designers in New York were utterly useless and kind of mean when it came to finding technical solutions to the sizing problem, but Dana found her community among technical designers and pattern makers—the "fashion nerds" who understand data, bodies, and technology. She leaned into the work and crafted connections needed to advance her goals:

• Created the Open Circle Apparel Collection (OCAC) as a Friday chat group

• Turned it into a comprehensive hands-on lab

• Joined IEEE and ASTM working groups on body measurement standards

• Documented the creation of pants on 12 different women to identify gaps, and experimented with using body data for parametric data development

• Connected with academics and technical experts passionate about solving these problems

After 18 months of testing, Dana has pivoted entirely to B2B. Empowered with generative AI, people now come to us with their creative ideas and we help to make them a reality.

The Solution:

• Custom size charts for individual geographic locations (bodies vary significantly by region)

• Using body scanners to create location-specific sizing

• Made-to-measure options for anomalous bodies

• Example: Michigan casino employees (often African American women with "bold curves") need completely different sizing than Atlantic City employees

The Technology Path:

• Building a network of competent on-demand manufacturing factories

• Working on sizing technology in parallel

• Leveraging Europe's new Digital Product Passport (DPP) requirements

• DPPs create opportunities to embed standardized data (like meta tags for clothing)

• This could enable accurate size recommendations through platforms like Google Shopping

Meaningful change would require significant investment. She sees parallels to 1998 internet days, with AI and regulatory pressures (like DPPs) creating forcing functions for change. Global instability contributed to barriers to change including wars, tariffs, supply chain disruptions. COVID and conflicts in Eastern Europe had already decimated parts of her supply chain. However, tariffs on China could open opportunities in India, Vietnam, and other English-speaking nations. Dana recognized that all of these disrupters and the fact that consumers (particularly women) won't change shopping behavior, meant change would have to come elsewhere:

• Retailers feeling pain from returns

• Legislation around waste responsibility (California requiring producers to handle excess inventory)

• Body scanning becoming normalized

• Economic pressure forcing innovation

At its core, Dana's work isn't just about clothing—it's about dignity, confidence, and making one less thing for people to worry about in their day. Dana's work is mission-driven. She has seen the resistance to change from entrenched interests, data standardization challenges, and the difficulty of moving large, complex systems that operate in silos. She has tackled fixing a broken system where the majority of people can't find clothes that fit because the entire industry is built on outdated averages and fragmented data. And like the early internet, it requires smart people, capital, organization, and new business models to solve these big problems. As Dana put it, "It's 1998 all over again."

Key Themes

Consumer Behavior vs. Innovation

The fundamental tension in Dana's journey: consumers won't change their behavior to adopt better solutions if friction exists. Even superior technology (custom-fit clothing) loses to convenience (Amazon's buy-and-return model). This reveals a critical principle: innovation must reduce friction, not add it, regardless of how much better the outcome might be.

Data Standardization as Infrastructure

The fashion industry lacks basic data infrastructure that other industries take for granted. Without standardized measurements, definitions, or interoperable systems, the entire supply chain operates inefficiently. This mirrors the early internet's need for protocols and standards—progress requires agreement on fundamentals before innovation can scale.

The Mismatch Between Design and Reality

90% of clothing designed for 10% of body types represents a spectacular market failure. This gap persists because:

• Industry averages are treated as universal truths

• Fashion education ignores technical construction and body diversity

• Brands don't own their own intellectual property (patterns and garment data live with factories)

• Incentives favor volume over fit

Hidden Technical Complexity

What appears simple (making clothes that fit) involves layers of complexity:

• Geographic body variation requiring location-specific sizing

• Conflicting measurement methodologies across disciplines

• Legacy offshore manufacturing relationships

• Fragmented ownership of technical knowledge

• Equipment that produces inconsistent data

B2B as the Path to B2C Change

Dana's pivot to uniforms reflects strategic thinking: solving for repeat business with measurable impact (human confidence, creative expression, and professionalism) creates sustainable revenue while developing the technology infrastructure. B2B customers will pay to solve the problem; individual consumers won't change habits until the solution is invisible.

Regulatory Forcing Functions

Europe's Digital Product Passport requirements may accomplish what market forces couldn't—creating mandatory data standards. Like accessibility requirements or safety regulations, sometimes systemic change requires external pressure rather than waiting for voluntary adoption.

The Dignity Economy

Beyond business metrics, Dana's work addresses human dignity. Ill-fitting clothes affect how people feel about themselves. The inability to find appropriate clothing after life changes (menopause, weight shifts, disability) creates daily frustration. Solving these problems has emotional and psychological value that traditional fashion metrics miss. AI is speeding this up.

Mission-Driven Work in Resistant Systems

Dana's fashion journey experience reveals common patterns in trying to transform established industries:

• Entrenched interests resist change

• Silos prevent coordination

• Short-term thinking dominates

• Mission-driven individuals face institutional barriers

• Real change requires capital, technical expertise, and patience

The Parallel to Internet Infrastructure

Dana's "it's 1998 all over again" insight is precise. Like the early internet needed protocols, standards, investment, and new business models before consumer applications could flourish, fashion needs infrastructure before technology can deliver on its promise. The companies building this infrastructure may not be the ones consumers eventually know, but their work is essential.

Finding Your People

Success came not from fashion designers but from "fashion nerds"—technical designers, pattern makers, standards committee members, and academics. The work required finding people who understood both the human problem and the technical solution. Community and collaboration matters, especially when doing difficult work that others dismiss or don't understand.