June 05, 2007
Threadless T-Shirts - Designer Clothing Submissions - Tees, Tshirts and T
shirts!.jpgThreadless <http://threadless.com/> is a very interesting
company because of how it has "community-sourced" its product design. If you
had told me that a company could succeed by running weekly tshirt design
contests and then selling the winning designs, I would have told you that
you're nuts. I met Jeffrey during my tour of the Threadless offices a few
weeks ago and posed these questions to him after my most enjoyable visit?
I think our oldest employee is thirty three. Regardless of recorded, legal
age - you'd never guess how old anyone in our office is. Most people tend to
guess about 5 years too young.
Does Threadless's effort in forums, podcasting, etc really increase
sales or are they just fun/cool things to do?
Both, most likely. Honestly, we've never really measured their effects
because it'd be really boring to do so. Participating in the forums,
definitely helps to people understand that the owners and employees of the
company really are part of the community and don't sit up on high looking
down onto our business. Most everyone who works for us was part of the
Threadless community before they were employed, so it's a pretty natural
thing. The podcast-who knows-but it's really fun!
What's the story with the Airstream podcasting trailer?
When we originally began doing the podcast, Charlie's "office" went through
many iterations. First, he was at a desk-deep in the warehouse where the
tees helped to drown out the sound of the work. That was short lived.
The second version or, Studio 2.0, was a converted workspace in our office
around which we built walls, a ceiling, and a door. We covered the walls in
foam and carpet to try to insulate it from the sound. During the summer,
Charlie would sit in there in his underwear because it was so hot. That
place smelled awful.
When we moved into our new space, we planned on building Charlie a proper
recording studio. I have a friend who builds them professionally, so we were
going to have him do that. It never panned out, and at some point someone
said, "We should buy an Airstream and gut it and turn it into Charlie's
studio." That was pretty much the end of that discussion and next thing you
know, we have a 1962 Airstream Bambi in our office that Charlie records out
of.
Shortened version of the following website:
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/06/ten_questions_w.html
Martin and Rachel Hughey
WBCCI #10212
VAC
1961 16' Bambi
1969 27' Overlander LY Intnl