Community is King pt 3
// July 12th, 2006 // Articles/Features, Virtual Community
The plan for this feature was always to try and get someone with opposing views to give the feature some balance. I’ve had my say and now its the turn of Miles from the soon to launch Innertee, to counter my points with his own views. I fyou haven;t heard about Innertee its a very interesting business model sitting somewhere between Threadless and Spreadshirt. Artists submit elements such as a bird or car etc, these become part of the Innertee catalogue and users buy the rights to use that element in their design. The more elements you use the more it costs. You can also submit your final design for others to see and if they buy your design recieve credits back. We’ll talk more about this when I do a HipHipUK meets Innertee next week.
Anyway over to Miles now (I probably won’t do a pt4 and the last argument always sounds the most convincing, which is probably why you might think I’ve got my ass kicked! For a re-cap on my points you can read pt 2 here)….
I’ve enjoyed your ‘Community is King’ series but wanted to add a few things that I think you might be overlooking. More specifically the cons to mass-customization (ugly term really) that you list out in part 2.
Lets start with the basics, First, Threadless has been around since 2000. They have a 5 year head-start and a rabid core community. Three years ago they were doing under $400k in sales and now this year are projected to do over $20 million in sales. That is amazing growth and I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t love the guys behind Threadless as well as their other projects. That being said, they didn’t just show up one day and declare themselves the winner, they’ve worked at it for years and used their community to make their business stronger.
On to your list of problems with mass customization…
1. You state that most of the ‘design your own’ companies are interchangeable, possibly, but I think you are confusing their business models (which may or may no work long term) with the overall potential for the market. Threadless didn’t invent user voting, they just did it right and never wavered on their commitment to their core community. 5 years from now it will be interesting to see how many design your own sites there are and who is doing it right.
2. I totally agree with you here on people buying a brand. But there is a major change in branding. People don’t like being told what to buy – they want to feel like they are a part of the brand. I think MC gives them the opportunity to do this like never before.
3. As for t-shirts being art, I agree but that is really up to each person. I think a bigger issue here is quality. Screenprinting is the standard and digital transfers as well as CAD cut materials are still trying to catch up. Again, its early in the MC game and there is a mass market that is happy with this level of quality. Think of regular retail – WalMart sells a lot of everything at super low prices but Urban Outfitters sells ‘cool’ at a much higher price. So far there is a market for both and I don’t think that will change.
4. Looking at your comments on shared community I think there’s one thing missing – Threadless is a consumer business. The MC companies you mention are not, most of their customers are small businesses, artists, designers, etc. trying to sell to consumers. Those companies enable the small guy to use their production capabilities to create their own brand, they are not selling themselves as the brand.
Overall I agree that community is king but comparing consumer brands (Threadless) to MC merchant/ecommerce brands isn’t really apples to apples. I think the trend of ‘peer production’ (sounds better than MC to me) is just getting started and has tons of potential to build community at a new level. I’ll also throw out some stats from PIP. Their 2004 report on teen content creation notes that over 50% (roughly 12 million) teens aged 12-17 are creating content online. I think that points the way for t-shirt and apparel companies of the future using a peer production model.
Now if only I could find such a company… hmmmmm 
Thanks alot Miles, I look forward to posting alot more about Innertee when it launches!Â
