Tanish Maheshwari
FICK — Fresh Fits, Fast
The premise

What if the Instagram stores around you delivered fashion as fast as groceries?

Groceries arrive in 10 minutes. A single outfit takes 20–30 minutes of scrolling, filtering, and second-guessing — but the real gap was on the other side of the transaction. Local stores in Gandhinagar, places like Pinky Fashion, had real stock and real style, but no way to sell beyond their own Instagram DMs.

Buyers wanted speed. Stores wanted reach. FICK wasn't a delivery app — it was infrastructure for a hyperlocal fashion community that didn't have one yet.

Built with Mrinmai (marketing), Teerth (systems), and Jay (photography) — four people, one question, and a decision to actually try it.

or just listen me explain it
The proof

What the numbers told us

271survey responses
72%browse Instagram for fashion before opening a shopping app
65%called existing apps “repetitive and uninspired”

People wanted to shop by vibe, not filters — and existing apps made them work for it.

Clothing led every category people wanted delivered fast.
Wanted via quick commerce · n=271
  • Clothing77%
  • Ready-to-eat food61%
  • Electronics36%
  • Medicines33%
And they were clear on what it had to get right.
Most-wanted features · n=271
  • Size guides & fit67%
  • Personalized picks46%
  • Same-day delivery43%
  • Virtual try-on28%

And they wanted it focused: 35% preferred a clothing-only platform over a mixed one (21%), and convenience (71%) and fast delivery (48%) were the top reasons to buy through quick commerce at all.

→ Full research & analysis
Making it real

Finding the stores

These weren't random suppliers — they were local, often Instagram-only stores stuck taking orders through DMs with no way to reach anyone outside their own following. So the calls started.

Cold call · verbatim
Me“Hello bhaiya, RK Fashion se bol rahe ho? Meko ek baat poochni thi… aap online kapde bechte ho?”
Them“Online? Nahi… kyun?”
Me“Achha… toh aap kis type ke kapde rakhte ho? Casual, trendy, western? Aur aapko offline bechne mein koi dikkat hoti hai kya?”
Them“Tum ho kaun?”
Me“Nahi bhaiya, actually hum…”
Them“Abe maarunga! Zyada puchtachh mat kar!”
Call cuts immediately.

Most calls went like that. A few stores finally said yes.

The stock problem

The website said an item was available. The store had already sold it. Stock moved fast, racks changed daily, and there was no system to catch the gap.

A drop laid out and tagged before listing
Supplier shelves, turning over daily
Backroom stock, moving faster than the site could track
Stock moved faster than any page could — laid out to list, shelved, and gone by the next day.

The fix

A manual tagging system. Every item on the site got a tag — F0-16, F0-22, F0-31. When something sold, the vendor texted “F0-16 sold,” and it came off the site instantly.

Printed FICK tags, F001–F034
A piece tagged F017, ready to list
Tagging every piece by hand
Every piece got a printed tag and a number — applied by hand, one at a time.

The backend was a spreadsheet. Each piece: a tag, a number, a row. Not glamorous. It worked.

The inventory spreadsheet behind the store
One sheet ran the whole store — item, brand, size, price, supplier, status. Sold → texted → off the site.

Going live

Learned Shopify from scratch in a week — store setup, infinite scroll, real-time stock — and shipped the first version after a week of trial and error.

FICK store — home page
FICK store — product collection
FICK store — product detail
FICK store — cart and checkout
FICK store — first-order promo
FICK store — Brand Collabs & same-day delivery
The live store — home, collection, product detail. Historical, no longer an active product.

Marketing & campaigns

Weekly reels, flyers, campus outreach — then brands started reaching out first.

All of it ran on one brand system — logo, hangtags, packaging, and campaign art, built to stay consistent across every reel, flyer, and collab.

→ The FICK brand guidelines
A slice of the weekly content engine — reels, drops, and behind-the-scenes.
FICK × Meh Rah Ke collab banner
Looks expensive poster
Live now — Gandhinagar
Try-n-buy poster
FICK women's drop banner
FICK website banner
Try-n-buy wide banner
Collab drops, launch posters, offer creatives and the same-day film.
What shipped

Features

Pick a screen to preview it.

Outfit randomizer — look one Outfit randomizer — look two Outfit randomizer — look three
FICK founder card — Tanish Maheshwari
Looking back

What this taught me

This taught me more about leadership than I expected. People can build your dream or break it. I learned to show up scared anyway, to slow down before I fall, and that nothing meaningful gets built without relationships, persistence, and the ability to get back up.