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What Happened to Threadless?

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31–40 of 112 posts

Re: What Happened to Threadless?

#34

Is there a good company to order printed t shirts?

Uniqlo.com has great t-shirts with cool themes from amazing artists and they last for years. The only downside side is they get sold out as soon as they are released and you have to wait for the next batch to come in..

Order from them all the time.

Re: What Happened to Threadless?

#35
Threadless was such an inspiration for me 15+ years ago. They found a niche and created a wonderful marketplace in which the artists got paid well (I remember each design was bought for $5K) and so the consumer would get more variety, so they would come back and the cycle goes on forever.

Or so we tought. I never bought a tee from them, since the international shipping fees were too high. And when they did, the stigma about their poor quality was very loud.

However I can't believe they're that low. Turns out quality does matter, and not just a very good design.

Re: What Happened to Threadless?

#36
post #31
post #29

On the theme of t-shirt companies: Does anyone know how Teespring is doing?

See https://www.wsj.com/articles/struggling-teespring-takes-valu...

Wow. Thanks, @brentm. Paywalled for now so I'll find a work around and read this later. That is a drastic valuation drop. From what I remember, they were already quite profitable before taking on funding.

Re: What Happened to Threadless?

#37
post #35

Threadless was such an inspiration for me 15+ years ago. They found a niche and created a wonderful marketplace in which the artists got paid well (I remember each design was bought for $5K) and so the consumer would get more variety, so they would come back and the cycle goes on forever. Or so we tought. I never bought a tee from them, since the international shipping fees were too high. And when they did, the stigm…

I thought the article said it paid artists $750 for a design with a $250 credit for shirts.

Re: What Happened to Threadless?

#39
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"premature profitability"? I think it's easy to sit on the outside of a business and judge it smugly, but considering that the estimated net worth of the founder is north of $50mil ( https://www.fundera.com/blog/successful-entrepreneurs ), I don't think he would say that there is anything wrong with their "premature profitability". Maybe there is mismanagement, or poor decisions, or just not staying ahead of trends i…

Society6 and Redbubble are still losing money but they will also crush Threadless by the time it's over. This is a winner take all marketplace business, not a t-shirt business.

You say that as if there's a guarantee that the upstarts will find a way to be profitable once they've spent several years losing money. The barriers to entry are pretty low in the t-shirt business so it's not like there's some golden goose to be captured after millions of dollars of capital are set on fire.

Re: What Happened to Threadless?

#40
post #37
post #35

Threadless was such an inspiration for me 15+ years ago. They found a niche and created a wonderful marketplace in which the artists got paid well (I remember each design was bought for $5K) and so the consumer would get more variety, so they would come back and the cycle goes on forever. Or so we tought. I never bought a tee from them, since the international shipping fees were too high. And when they did, the stigm…

I thought the article said it paid artists $750 for a design with a $250 credit for shirts.

What I'm saying is what I remember back then, the article says it was up to $2,500 but I remember it was more as I myself was considering submitting a design.

$750 cash + $250 gift card is the price in these days.

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