Community-sourced business fashion: A look at Threadless.com
Threadless.com started out as two guys having a little fun making T-shirts. It didn't take long for them to realize that they were staring at an opportunity to make something really big happen. What "American Idol" and "America's Got Talent" did for celebrity stardom, Threadless.com has done for T-shirt artists and slogan writers. Taking the idea of social networking to new heights, Threadless.com launched a Web-based T-shirt design business that encourages and invites community involvement and interaction.
Company background
Threadless.com proudly professes that this company is not about selling T-shirts at all. It's about two guys named Jake (Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart) spending lots of time and money on their unexpected hobby as website designers/T-shirt contest hosts. According to author Seth Godin, "Ever since I encountered Threadless, and then particularly after I had lunch with 'the Jakes', I've been in awe of their willingness to be wrong and their desire to be different." Threadless is a company that hires artists. Their community-based business model is sturdy and reliable, but also flexible. Godin goes on to say, "So my hat's off to the crazy (smart) people at Threadless. Here's a company that hires the unhirable, codes the uncodable and markets the unmarketable."
Community-based business
The unique thing about Threadless.com is that anyone can participate. This is an open-ended company that is interested in the opinion of community members, art teachers, students, individual artists and the public in general. Designs, slogans and critiques are submitted and voted on in a rotating schedule. Site members vote for their favorites, similar to giving the thumbs up or down on social networking sites like Facebook™, Twitter® and Yahoo! Answers®. The community also gives helpful feedback to site contributors.
Votes are tallied and decisions are made about which shirts and slogans will make it to the mainstream marketplace. This is research-based marketing at its best. Threadless.com is determining who will buy specific T-shirt designs and slogans prior to putting them out there and hoping to make a sale. Because of this, they can determine the actual target audience for each new product, thus eliminating advertising guesswork, and develop a brand that responds accurately to what the consumer wants in the first place.
Consumer interaction business model
Understanding what consumers want is more than half the battle for new entrepreneurs. If they can create a business that the public has a vested interest in, they will be on the fast track toward success. Minimizing costs associated with running a new business is also imperative, especially in today's technological age. Threadless.com has done this by letting the artists model their T-shirts for display on the site and limiting associated advertising costs through the common, but very effective, grassroots method of word-of-mouth advertising.
On every level at Threadless.com, community interaction plays a vital part in the display and production of T-shirts that make it to the marketplace. Designers submit and model their work. Consumers engage in the process of determining what becomes popular and what goes back to the drawing board or gets scrapped altogether.
Community investment
Threadless makes a point to give back to the community. They offer several different programs to artists from around the world providing resources, scholarships, mentoring and design challenges, where artists can earn decent sums of money for submitting and promoting designs. As if that isn't enough, Threadless also assists art teachers by offering Threadless 101, a curriculum designed to enhance the ordinary art class.
Threadless is a people-oriented Internet company that promotes business the old-fashioned way, by reaching out to their suppliers and consumers. Customer service is one of their most important goals, and it applies to anyone doing business with their company, including artists, Web surfers, customers, slogan writers and staff members. As such, Threadless has held its own during tough economic times and continues to satisfy the community it serves.
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