Local startup KnotFriends helps guys swap neckties

Tony Bagdon likes wearing ties, something perhaps unusual for a fresh college graduate living among a popular culture that sometimes sees young men fond of donning gym shorts on a night out.
During his undergraduate years at East Carolina University, he met fellow tie lovers Kevin Gentilcore and Ben Flury. While all of them shared a similar enthusiasm for ties, the cost incurred in purchasing new neckwear was a sufficient deterrent for, well, college undergraduates.
“We thought, ‘Screw buying new ones,’ ” says Bagdon. “Let’s start swapping them.”
Enter KnotFriends, an online service for guys to swap ties.
On the website, tie-wearers select three ties in good condition from their closets, creating one outgoing box. After registering with the KnotFriends site, members post a photo of their three ties along with a short description, earning them one credit. That credit allows a KnotFriends member to select any other box of three ties listed on the site, and for $14.95, a KnotFriends member will have a box of three ties shipped to his door.
Once a box is delivered, one must either post another box of three ties to the site—and have this new box selected—or wait until another KnotFriends member has selected a box of ties in order to receive another credit. KnotFriends spots all members one free credit just for joining.
Bagdon, Gentilcore and Flury have streamlined the process.
Upon signing up with KnotFriends, 10 USPS flat-rate shipping boxes are mailed to you. If another member selects your box of ties, an e-mail notification is sent, which includes a link to print out prepaid postage and shipping labels. You only pay when you select a box of ties. And you keep the ties as long as you want, although you’re able to re-post any ties you’ve received that you don’t want anymore (as long as you make complete boxes of three).
“We have gotten concerns about posting ties that you want back,” says Flury, who is finishing up his degree in marketing at East Carolina University this fall. “Most people have 20, 30 ties, and maybe 15 favorites. Those other ones … you’re probably willing to give those away in return for something you will want to hold on to for a long time.”
The three co-founders—who work out of the Sizeable Spaces office in Federal Hill—began working on this idea in fall 2010, while they were still in college. Bagdon, who studied entrepreneurship, graduated in May, and Gentilcore, an economics major, graduated last year. All three of them are originally from Anne Arundel County.
In November 2011, Tie Society, the Washington, D.C.-based tie rental service, launched. “This is a good thing, we thought,” Bagdon says. “We weren’t the only ones trying to pursue ties.”
Unlike Tie Society and a similar service, Tie Try, KnotFriends doesn’t do tie rentals. It’s free to become a member, whereas on Tie Society and Tie Try, members choose one of several membership plans and pay a monthly fee, receiving new ties whenever already rented and worn ties are sent back.
“The only time you pay is to receive three ties,” says Bagdon. “We’re just facilitators.”
“With Tie Society, you’re getting more ties and you still have those ties you never wear,” Flury says. “[KnotFriends] allows you to get rid of those ties you never wear and actually get something you do want.”
Thus far, Bagdon, Gentilcore and Flury have bootstrapped the entire business, each of them having invested $15,000. (Of that $14.95 fee, they make about nine bucks.) Initially, because their own money had been poured into the project, the co-founders thought they needed to save money wherever possible, a “misstep,” says Bagdon, when it came to the website design process, something that cost them “a little bit of money.”
“The time that [the website] was taking wasn’t worth the money that we were saving,” Gentilcore says.
“It was a learning experience that we paid for, and at the end of the day we’re all better off,” says Flury.
Fortunes changed in October 2011 when Bagdon met Jessica Watson, the CEO and creative director of J Watson Creative, at a networking event at the Dark Horse Saloon organized by Betamore founder Mike Brenner. [Full Disclosure: Brenner is a partner of Technically Baltimore.]
By January 2012, the KnotFriends had signed a contract with Watson’s design firm, which then took over the site design duties. At about the same time Mike Calabrese, the founder of Pioneer Web Marketing, began working on a contract basis with Bagdon and his crew, assisting them with the search engine optimization of their new site. At the end of June, Calabrese officially joined the KnotFriends team.
“We’re new, and we really needed someone to take leadership,” says Bagdon of Calabrese, who will be responsible for KnotFriends’ public relations and outreach.
For now, the KnotFriends crew is just working on perfecting the swapping process. Eventually, says Bagdon, they plan on expanding the site so that guys can sell ties they no longer wear. And at some point, they’d like to partner with local charities and encourage donations.
“Our goal,” Bagdon says, “is to become the go-to place for neckties on the Internet.”
Most important? “We’re open to bow ties,” he says.