Threadless.com is the coolest place to buy shirts online. Strong words I know, but we have our reasons.
Before “social” became the web’s new cool Threadless.com was one of the few ecommerce sites embracing user generated content online, offline (their actual tshirts), and even shared the profits with their users! (Threadless.com is an on-going tee shirt design competition, anyone can submit their design and selected winners receive $2,000 in cash and prizes.) Threadless doesn’t exist without their user community, and they know it.
After bootstrapping the Threadless project by running their own web agency, skinnyCorp, the Threadless project now consumes 90% of skinnyCorp resources. Even still, with 300,000+ users the Threadless team is keeping busy with other side projects: extra tasty, yayhooray, and Naked & Angry.
Threadless.com is successful for many reasons, but mainly because they became BFF with the user community from the get-go, realizing the web is the community, and the users just need a nice place to hang out, meet new people, buy cool things, be creative, and share. Their site is clean, fresh, and has been the model for many other tshirt sites that have followed. Users can share in the Threadless community by creating their own blog, submitting tshirt designs, participating in forums, joining the a street team, sharing photos, etc. Threadless is all about user participation, and they not only make it easy but they also make it fun. They even have their own designer interviews!
To find out more about what makes Threadless.com tick/tock we asked Jeffrey Kalmikoff,Creative Director of skinyCorp, a few questions.
Note: In conjunction with this Threadless interview we decided to have a contest of our own and offer up a free Threadless tshirt. Check it out.
Name, hair color, foot size, and when you sleep you dream about…?
Jeffrey Kalmikoff, very dark brown, 12, for some reason I’ve been dreaming that my girlfriend and I have a 4th cat
How many people make up the core of the threadless team? What are their roles?
Well, the original people are Jake (President), Jacob (Vice President), Craig (Threadless Manager) and Me (Creative Director), but… there’s 20 people here now and I’d say that we are ALL the core team.
Why tshirts?
Because without them your torso would get cold in a strong wind. Plus, they’re very fashionable.
Threadless is powered by some extremely creative designers. Without their contributions would there would be no Threadless?
Correct. Threadless is 100% community based. No community, no Threadless.
Any website tagged “Social” is all the rage. Threadless has been “social” since day uno - and by social I mean that you have always involved your users with the Threadless experience. Threadless is powered by your users - those designers and tshirt lovers of the world. And now it seems Threadless is adding more and more social features. Right now on your site I can even start my own blog with flickr integration, del.ico.us integration, etc. All which, although cool and unique, is pretty much unexpected from an online tshirt store. But Threadless really isn’t just an ecomm store is it?
No it’s much more than that. Threadless is a full-fledged online community. We have social aspects, commerce aspects, learning aspects, teaching aspects… we try to make it about the people and not about the company. This is why we have so many participants. It’s comfortable and not “brand overbearing”.
How long did it take, before you started thinking - we’re on to something here? Was there a specific event?
It was about 3 years ago, and it was when Threadless started to cut in to the time allotted for client work. This was back in the day when skinnyCorp was a small agency.
Why should I visit Threadless?
Well, I’m not going to tell you that you should visit Threadless. We’re not pushy like that. Though if you want to find amazing designs on tees, be able to make some cash if you’re good enough and make some friends… then yeah - stop on by.
How did threadless start? where/how was the idea conceptualized and how did the threadless team meet each other?
Threadless started while Jake and Jacob were members of a now defunct design forum called Dreamless. There was a call for designers to do tee design for an event in London (NMUF). Jake and Jacob both submitted designs, and Jake actually won the competition. The two had so much fun doing that, they decided to hold their own competition in a thread on Dreamless. Their competition was so successful, they turned it into a website. Thus, Threadless was born.
Threadless seemes to have embraced RSS. You have RSS feeds for your tshirt additions, weekly news, your tshirts in stock, etc. Do you analyze those feeds to see if they lead to sales? How succesful has the addition of RSS been for you?
Honestly, I’m probably not the best person to answer this question. We use feeds to allow people to keep up to date with our site without having to come to it all the time. I’m not sure if we analyze the feeds, but in my estimation, the answer is no - we don’t.
What was Threadless’s most difficult obstacle starting out?
Just general business stuff. We’re not MBAs, as we had to “earn while we learn”.
What’s your most difficult obstacle today?
Keeping the brand feeling small as the company grows. The bigger we get, the more obvious it is as to why brands become so corporate. It’s because it’s easier to run things that way. But it’s also boring and ends up making the brand pretty blah. All of us being very much present in the blogs and on the site takes a lot of work because we also have an amazing amount of work to do besides that. It’s a delicate balance.
What design was the first shirt that sold (if you know and have a link)?
We’ve never had a tee not sell out, but here’s the link to our first shirt ever: Prate
Threadless seems to constantly bang out new functionality, and very often updates the design on the site. How many developers and designers do you have?
We have 4 developers and 2 designers.
What has been your most succesful wesbite feature addition to Threadless recently?
While it’s not that recent, bringing the blogs back was pretty successful. People who were with us from the beginning know that we killed the blogs and commenting for a while.
Right now you have the Threadless Street Team, Threadless Kids, Tee-riffic Photos, Blog Forum, etc - what new features can we expect from the Threadless team?
We’re working on some new community features. That’s about all i can say about that!
What technologies does threadless.com run on? (Database Servers, Programming Language, Web Servers)
Again, I’m not the best person to ask about this, but the site was written in PHP and we use MySQL. Past that I have no idea haha, I work in Photoshop.
How and who decides what designs get printed, when, and how many?
Well then when and how many is pretty set. When is about 2-3 weeks after they get sent to the printer, and how many is about 1,500 per run. Who, is decided upon by the scoring the community gives. We have a few tricks up our sleeves to filter the scores a bit - checking scoring trends, weighing the scores in different ways, etc. Ultimately though, it’s up to the scores that are given.
What makes a good, printable tshirt design? What makes a bad one?
Anything makes a good printable tee design. For us, there’s no real formula - just a good concept wins the prize. A bad tee design is one that isn’t your own idea.
Have you ever had to censor a submiited tshirt design?
We do approvals on all submissions before they’re entered into the running. Most the reasons for a decline are just simple rules not being followed. We very rarely censor a design unless it’s grossly offensive like racist messages, anti-semetic images, etc. I think we have a pretty good sense of humor though, so not much gets pulled. We certainly don’t get offended easily.
Has there ever been a round of submissions where there just wasn’t anything worthy of printing? And vice versa (where’s the too many)?
We’ve never had a problem finding subs to print. We get roughly 150 design submitted to us per day, so it’s not hard finding 10 or so out of over 1300 designs per week.
On average, how many designs are submitted per submission round?
Well, there’s no set submission round. You can submit anytime, any day, whenever you like. But yeah, about 150 per day.
What’s the percentage of submissions compared to what actually gets printed?
We’ve recieved over 120,000 sumissions and only printed about 550 design.
What are the threadless user demographics?
Average age is 22, 55% male, 45% female
Threadless is a very well designed site. But I find the main navigational element (with its use of flash ) on Threadless the one confusing design element on your site. What are some of the issues you face when redesigning your site - that is both a community based site AND a online store?
Well, the nav doesn’t use flash anymore. We changed that in the last version of the site. Whenever I retackle the site design I make sure to keep two words in mind the whole time: fun and easy.
What types of marketing and PR strategies does Threadless employ? What gets the Threadless name out there, beyond word of mouth?
We do “Loves Threadless” contests and promotions, which are co-branded campaigns that serve to promote both Threadless and the company we’re working with. We never advertise however. Never have, never will.
Does threadless consume all skinny corp’s time and resources now or is skinny corp still producing new products in parallell with threadless?
Threadless is about 90% of our time consumption. The rest is split between Naked & Angry, ExtraTasty, and a few other smaller projects.
Do you want to briefly discuss skinny corp, and any other skinny corp ventures (extra tasty, yayhooray, etc)?
ExtraTasty is for drinking, and YayHooray is for drunks.
Best designed site we don’t know about?
I wish I had the answer to this! I’ll change the question to “what’s the most consistently awesome site?” the answer is www.coudal.com. No one has had the double-threat combo of great design AND great content for as long as he has.
Tip for anyone starting out their own online store?
Don’t copy what other people are doing. Make your own way and go very, very slow: your electric company doesn’t care if your products are selling.
Is it “tshirt” or “t-shirt”?
I prefer tee shirt. I couldn’t tell you why.
What websites must you visit every day?
Threadless, Perez Hilton, Signal Vs. Noise, Flickr, YayHooray, Hedonistica, I Watch Stuff, and many others
Will there ever be a Threadless store in some city somewhere? And if so,what city?
Maybe, and you’ll just have to wait and see!
The last great book you read?
I’ve been on a autobiography kick lately. “Scar Tissue” by Anthony Kiedis was so great, so was “The Dirt” by Motley Crue. The last one I read was “How To Make Love Like A Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale” by Jenna Jameson. I know, profound reading!
Your favorite threadless tshirt is… (we know you have one)
My favorite Threadless tee… hmmm. I have a lot. UPSO’s new and old ones are amazing. Death or Glory 2 by Niko Stumpo, there’s some new ones coming out by Nessim Higson that will blow everyone’s minds. Man, this question is hard. I like em all!
Thanks for your time Jeffrey!