Setly Week 5: Our Biggest Change Yet
We're finally adding the feature that you've all been asking for... but first, we have some explaining to do.
We’ve decided to change the way that we use Substack (and content in general).
When we first decided to start this newsletter, our goal was to simply give our community a glimpse behind the scenes at what we’re working on and share the excitement we felt as we welcomed our first users onto the app.
But over the last month, our community has become more than just “users following along.” You’ve started shaping the app with your ideas, your pain points, and your requests. The direction of Setly is being pushed forward by all of you, and we want this newsletter to reflect that.
So starting this week, we’re using our Substack as a space to highlight the community’s voice. Each week, we’ll pick a piece of feedback or suggestion that really stood out (maybe a small friction point or maybe a huge feature idea) and walk through exactly how we took that input and turned it into something real inside the app. Think of this as our running log of things that we built with the community.
This lets us share updates in a way that’s more meaningful than a changelog. It gives credit where it’s due, and it keeps us accountable to the people we’re building for.
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Before we jump in, a quick milestone worth celebrating: in just 5 weeks, the Setly community has grown to 2,075 people who have collectively swiped on more than 1.1 million products and created over 16,000 outfits within the app. The creativity inside this community continues to blow us away every single day.
Huge shoutout to @anna, @bt7388363, @eurielzoa, @isabellaa, @emmasetly12, @just_sophia, @pearl_nickels, @julia, and @adi26 whose outfits were selected for “Editor’s Pick” and are featured in the image above!
This Week’s Feature: Upload Your Own Items
Over the past few weeks, many of you (@kitkat_3303, @eurielzoa, @iloveyaoi, @greisss111, @nony, and several others) have been asking for the ability to upload your own items so you can style outfits with pieces you actually own. So this week, we built it.
With Version 1.1.7, you will now be able to upload an item from a photo or screenshot, and Setly will automatically remove the background, clean it up, and let you resize it so it fits right into your outfits.
Why this wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch
This feature came with a challenge we want to be fully transparent about.
One of Setly’s biggest differentiators, and something many of you have told us you love, is the level of polish across the entire product catalog: consistent lighting, clean cutouts, standardized sizing, and visual cohesion that makes the whole app feel inspiring instead of chaotic. That’s not an accident.
To date, we’ve already manually added 8,370+ products into the catalog, making sure each one meets the same quality bar. It’s one of the most time-intensive parts of building Setly, but also one of the most important.
So when it came to user uploads, we had to find the right balance: How do we give you creative freedom without letting the app turn into visual chaos?
Our solution (for now) is a quick approval process. When you upload an item, it goes through a quick review to ensure it matches the visual standards that make Setly feel consistent and usable. It introduces a small delay, which we know isn’t ideal, but it keeps the experience polished and cohesive for everyone.
By sharing the reasoning behind this decision, we hope it feels less like a barrier and more like a shared commitment to keep Setly beautiful, high-quality, and fun.
What should we build next?
Looking ahead, we want this new Substack format to become an ongoing conversation, not just an update. The same way you’ve helped shape uploads, streaks, product filters, and dozens of other improvements across the app, we want each week to uncover another story where the community moved Setly forward.
So as we close out this week’s feature, we’d love to hear from you: what should we build next? What’s slowing you down, what feels confusing, or what idea would make Setly even more fun to use? No suggestion is too small, and the more specific you are, the easier it is for us to bring it to life.
Thank you for continuing to push us, support us, and build with us.
- Erin & Andrew, Founders of Setly
App: setlyapp.com - Instagram: @setly.app - Pinterest: @setlyapp
can't wait till the app comes to Google play!