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Why I'm shutting down my sustainable fashion brand (for now)

When I started Muta in early 2023, it was driven by a simple yet ambitious question: Could we build a business where giving back wasn't just an afterthought, but the core of the business model itself?

Having spent years in corporate and entrepreneurial ventures where environmental and social impact often depended on individual champions within the organization, I wanted to try something different. What if we could create a brand where sustainability and community impact were woven into its very DNA?

A Creative Side Hustle with Purpose

Muta (check out mymuta.com while it is still online) began as what I like to call a "serious side hustle" – running parallel to my full-time job, it served as both a creative outlet and a testing ground for this purpose-driven business model. As an avid mountaineer and trail runner, the connection to mountain wildlife came naturally. So, we named the brand after the rock ptarmigan (Lagopus Muta), a resilient mountain bird that symbolizes the adaptability and sustainability we see in nature. The choice felt perfect - combining my love for the mountains with a mission of environmental stewardship.

The Reality of Sustainable Fashion Economics

One of the most eye-opening aspects of this journey was discovering just how opaque the garment industry really is. You can read all the reports you want, but until you're in it, dealing with suppliers, managing production, and handling logistics, you don't truly understand the drivers.

Let me break down the economics:

For a standard e-commerce fashion brand to be sustainable, you typically need a Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) of 2-3x. This means for every euro spent on advertising, you need to generate 2-3 euros in revenue. Now, let's look at the cost structure:

Once you add in a ROAS of 2ish there is not much (if any) margin left after a customer has paid for a shirt.

By the way, those numbers above are actually fictional in our case - they represent industry standard costs. In reality, we chose to work with local suppliers for finishing of low volume orders. This allowed us to work with a minimal, sort of on-demand stock, but pushed our base product costs 2-2.5 times higher than the €10-12 mentioned above. This meant that in practice, we were making a significant loss on every sale, operating under the assumption that we could lower our costs down the line.

Making a Choice

After a lot of market research, talks with other entrepreneurs in this space, many suppliers, and advisors in this space - and having invested 30-35k EUR along the way - it became clear that the only way to make this model work would be to significantly lower our total marginal cost (our cost per product), which means higher minimum order quantities with suppliers and consequently higher sales targets while continuously improving our ROAS rate. With all the information we had at hand, our simulations showed we needed to scale up to around 1,000 units per month to break even in the coming years.

All of this led me to the decision to stop this adventure. While I still believe that this is a model that could work, the reality of running this as a side project while maintaining a full-time job meant that the volume and ambition required for sustainability were simply incompatible with my available time and resources.

But looking back, I'm genuinely proud of what we achieved in our time:

Sometimes the hardest choices are also the most obvious ones.

Lessons Learned

The transition from B2B to B2C was enlightening and, surprisingly, easier than expected in some ways. One of the most interesting discoveries was that selling in B2C isn't as challenging as I initially thought – it really comes down to creating something you're genuinely excited about. I found that when you build something you're truly passionate about, there's a good chance others will share that excitement. The real challenge isn't convincing people to buy; it's getting your product in front of the right eyes.

We discovered that promotions were an effective way to reach potential customers, even though they resulted in a very high ROAS initially. While this wasn't sustainable long-term, it provided a starting point that could be optimized over time.

In B2B, relationships are often network-based and built over longer periods with fewer, larger transactions, where one connection leads to another through professional networks and recommendations. B2C taught me the importance of connecting with individual customers, each with their own stories and motivations for choosing sustainable fashion. Much like how relationships are the deciding factor in B2B, I found that in B2C, it's often the story behind your 'why' that becomes the deciding factor - people connect with and choose brands whose purpose resonates with their own values.

The creative aspects of building Muta were incredibly fulfilling. From collaborating with artists to developing our brand identity, it provided a creative outlet that energized other aspects of my professional life.

A Heartfelt Thank You

To everyone who supported Muta – whether you purchased our products, followed our journey, or shared our story – thank you. Your support helped prove that there is a market for truly sustainable, purpose-driven fashion. A special thanks to Alex, who joined as a part-time team member mid-year and brought invaluable perspective and energy to the project. I'm also grateful to friends who shared their expertise and insights along the way, helping us navigate the complexities of building a sustainable fashion brand.

What's Next?

While Muta as we knew it is winding down, this isn't the end of the story. We're reimagining the project in a smaller, more focused format that better aligns with our current capabilities while maintaining our commitment to creativity and sustainability.

The past year has shown me that building a purpose-driven brand is possible, but it requires careful balance of ambition, resources, and impact. It has also shown me how fulfilling it is to have a creative outlet that results in real products that people actually use and enjoy - there's something special about seeing your creativity materialize in that way. So while this chapter is closing, the lessons learned and the community built will inform whatever comes next.

Keep an eye on our social media for updates on our next creative endeavors. The spirit of Muta – sustainable, creative, and community-focused – lives on.

PS: We still have some inventory left, and we'd love to share it with you! If you'd like a free sample (including free shipping), just email us at info@mymuta.com with your size, and we'll send you something if we have it available in your size.