Beth Newell and Adil Abubakar hit a snag early in their attempt to start a clothing company. The manufacturer was having difficulty believing that their measurements were accurate.

“Something is wrong,” the factory technician wrote to them in an email. “The pattern shape is not good. Are you sure about the measures?”

For months, they went back and forth. One garment worker said he had been with that manufacturer for 30 years and had never seen a pattern like the one Newell and Abubakar submitted. But they pressed on.

“It was both funny and frustrating,” Abubakar said. “They were like: ‘People don’t have these measurements. What are you guys doing?’ ”