Duped! Part 1 - Discovering A Copycat Unbelt

Welp, it happened. Unbelts has been paid the highest form of flattery: we’ve been copied. 

Theirs, not ours. Search for "stretch belt" on Amazon, and you'll find it.

Am I shocked? Nope. Stretch belts are awesome, and when I started prototyping Unbelts in 2010, I was surprised that I couldn’t find another non-plastic "invisible" belt on the market. We were lucky to have the niche to ourselves for a few years. It couldn’t last forever.

But it still hurt. Unbelts are simple to replicate, but took over a year to design, test, and launch. Just how much perfectionism-fuelled, picky-picky decision-making went into this process is a whole other blog post. For now, suffice it to say: the exact number of “waffles” per inch on the back of our Classic elastic is not an accident. 

Testing out prototypes at home in 2010.

The truth is, when I was starting Unbelts, I left a hole in the market that I didn’t want to fill: an Amazon-friendly product that would look decent in photos but cut corners everywhere else. 

This was a risky move, and by many accounts, a really dumb one: it left a gaping opportunity for someone else to cut those corners in service of a cheaper (up-front, at least - more on that later), easier-to-sell alternative.

But I wanted a company that would behave with humanity. If we could pay (and charge) the true price of fair labour, we could do our part to disrupt an extractive and exploitative apparel industry. If we could use quality materials, we could help change expectations that clothing is temporary and disposable. I wanted to keep pants up. More than that, I wanted to provide more value than the sum of our belts’ parts.

Of course, the parts themselves weren’t cheap. They still aren’t, because they’re custom-made and use recycled materials, which are usually pricier than virgin fibres. We pay our sewists and our suppliers what they ask, not what we demand. We’ve got a bangin’ warranty program, because we don’t want worn-out Unbelts in landfills when we could just repair them instead.

There are over 6,000 Amazon reviews online of the belts that look just like ours, which, at 15.99 USD a pop, means that the parent company earned almost 130,000 Canadian dollars without having to pay for product design, prototype testing, market research, or even copywriting. Most of that was done for them, accidentally and for free, by Team Unbelts.

Sad + mad = smad.

I like to focus on the positive and see the opportunity at hand, but, y'all... this feels terrible. I’ve been quiet lately because I live in fear of being whiny, and haven’t been sure how to show up for you all without bringing the heaviness in my tummy with me. 

I’m writing now so I can share what I’ve learned over the past few years about just how risky it is to operate *and* innovate as a smaller, purpose-based business. I want to show you, in real time, how Unbelts is moving forward, and hear where you think we fit into a changing marketplace. 

This is, after all, what my entrepreneurial friends and I call AFGO: Another Forking Growth Opportunity. Some questions I’ve had to ask myself, and which I’ll be answering for you, include:

• Why on earth did we stay with the same designs for so long?
• Why does the copying of our marketing bother me even more than the copying of our products?
• The company above has reviews dating back to 2019. Seriously, why didn’t I do anything earlier?
• Is anyone else offering Unbelts knock-offs?
• What’s next?
• The big one: can a purpose-based business model ever work?

Thanks for following along, everyone. If you want first alerts on next installments, make sure to follow us on Insta and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of this page. 

Heaving a big exhale and putting the computer away -

-C.

Not all heroes wear capes. Thanks, rt, you sweet angel.