Our friends and fellow Chicagoans at Threadless finally got their Chicago media due in this long piece in the Chicago Tribune Magazine [registration may be required]. It’s about time the Chicago press noticed a few dropouts in their 20s selling nearly $20,000,000 worth of T-shirts on Ravenswood Avenue.
“It certainly doesn’t hurt our PR when we go to speak and stuff like that to say, ‘Yeah, we turned down Target. We turned down Urban,’ ” Kalmikoff says. “But honestly, a little bit of it was laziness. We were like, ‘Well, who’s gonna fill out all this paperwork? I’m not doing it. Are you gonna do it?’ It just sat for like two weeks. Then we’re like, ‘Just tell ‘em no.’ We couldn’t take the time away from our client work for our side project to be filling out the paperwork to get into Target.”
I love it. That pretty much sums up Threadless to me. They do it their way, they have fun doing it, and they do it better than anyone.
Byron McCollum
on 15 Oct 06Don’t eff with teh Jakes…
Andrew Sutherland
on 15 Oct 06Yeah, that’s a fantastic quote. Whenever I need to explain the perfect business model, I point to Threadless.
Paul
on 15 Oct 06It’s kinda of strange that the main stream media do not always notice what’s really going on in the unconventional media. Threadless is pretty huge, large community, etc… it’s really tough not to take notice.
Just search for ‘tees’ or ‘tshirts’ on Google, they are right there in the front page. Hm…
Benjy
on 15 Oct 06That was a truly amazing article about Threadless. I was absolutely amazed at how big a company they’ve become! I figured they were making a couple hundred thousand off it… but approaching $20 million? Wow!
However, I want to know why you’re just now linking to this when the article ran over a month ago. I’d read it back then, and did a double take when I saw the post just now.
Torley
on 15 Oct 06I’ve just recently been learning about Threadless, thanx to articles like this — in a lateral way, this pokes at the sluggishness of “traditional” legal processes.
Like Paul, I find it strange, but I’ve often seen “different ways of thinking” (for lack of a better phrase) which are out in the open and missed, until someone observant makes use of them.
Clearly tho, there are people who’ve gravitated quickly, and perhaps with the Chicago Tribune noticing, hopefully other big — and other assorted types of — media will too.
For me, part of the appeal is in being an active participant in what happens next.
jonezy
on 16 Oct 06just goes to show you that the little guys can make good and be succesful. instpiration for all.
jeevs sinclair
on 16 Oct 06don’t get me wrong, I love threadless and have at least half a dozen tees (half paid for by street team points). and I love their business model as so well described by the quote, but in terms of actual quality of content, I think they really can’t claim to be the best. Perhaps it’s the fault of their userbase (it’s always stupid us ruining things) but I really haven’t been digging the most of their new designs. Furthermore, their tees for guys are really crappy in terms of actual quality, I really wish they’d use americanapparel (like they do on their girls’ stuff for $2 more, or even their ‘select’ stuff for $10 more). Granted I still wear a number of their tees pretty often because I really dig some of their designs but I always know that they’re not as comfortable, soft or well-fitted as most of my band tees or as most of their competitors (such as defunker or bustedtees). And it’s really a shame.
But as far as their business model is concerned, they’re great (besides their choice to largely ignore the issue of quality)
sinker
on 16 Oct 06Ravenswood Ave! Can MORE cool stuff happen on that street? Threadless, Touch & Go, The Bird Machine, Punk Planet. A truly amazing street for creation in Chicago.
me
on 16 Oct 06just another rip-off of the cafepress idea….
eg
on 16 Oct 06I have to agree with jeevs… I see Threadless as the success of an OK model driven more by buzz than by quality. Also, as a curvy gal, it rankles that they won’t give us a 2xl option on their girlie styles, even though AA makes the size and many other sites sell their 2xl shirts, often with a small additional cost which I’m ok with paying. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if their guys style shirts didn’t suck so much, but as it is I’ve only ever bought one too-tight-in-the-chest shirt from Threadless, no matter how nice some of their designs can occasionally be, or how neat their business model looks.
mr tee
on 16 Oct 06I really dig threadless and their success is due to a lot of hard work and sweat. What I don’t dig is the contest model; it’s like spec work—blaaaaaaah! Paying a designer $1000 bucks for a design that you sell 10,000 to 30,000 of is total crap. How about spreading the wealth a little more… when you gross 900k a month I think you can afford to pay winning designers a little more than 1/900th of that.
Also the voting system needs more work. After votes are cast and submissions are closed you have no idea if you’ve won or lost. You just wait for someone to email you from threadless (which they say could take 6 or more weeks in some cases.) Seems like they could handle that better.
The fact that they use a local printer is great. Here’s to some room for improvement, but still a well done idea.
Michael James
on 16 Oct 06When I followed the link to the article in the Chicago Tribune, I got an access denied response.
After finding another article I wanted to read on the Chicago Tribune site, I did a little URL hacking and found a good link:
long piece in the Chicago Tribune Magazine
Keep the good posts coming.
This discussion is closed.