TeeSpring

[californiadreamin]

Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.

As far as layoffs, Its sad for the parties and families involved.
Without knowing ALL the facts, Speculation would be a dice roll, therefore not accurate.
As far as what I see and know......
They didnt come out of nowhere! They built a business and managed to get private equity
money to fund their ideas. No different than Ink Companies, Equipment companies, have done
and are currently doing! Time ALWAYS tells...
Why Kentucky? Bringing in the best of the best(recipe for disaster IMHO) non compatible egos!
Nice Pics! Looks like the shops set up across the border now in Mexico. They fled California, stuck
A lot of us, and now operate under new names. With All of those Nice MHMs, they should have set up in
Georgia And Let Sonny run the shop. He would have kicked some a$Z!
I can say Gavin Kidd ( Hirsch) is smiling with a sale like that! Lucky night I am sure he had, when he walked
through the door, and said " honey look what I got"! His competitors probably didnt get laid for a month, loosing
A sale like that. As Brandt said "somebody" will get it right. Maybe these same guys? I can say for sure that their
model/idea has already been copied, and seems to be doing ok, so far in So Cal. As far as a big well funded shop going
under quickly? I would bet smaller under funded shops go out 500 to 1 more often.
Any one remember Storyline in Orlando, Fl. They started with, I dont know maybe 4 million! They printed some of the
best work/art I have ever seen. I made good money taking that shop apart! I think DougB still has one of their Interchange dryers!
Printers always jump to say, the printing must of sucked, when a shop has problems. It is usually the"other" things that
sneak up and bite us most often. Printing is the least.
winston


 

[GraphicDisorder]

Printers always jump to say, the printing must of sucked, when a shop has problems. It is usually the"other" things that
sneak up and bite us most often. Printing is the least.
winston

Exactly, they posted some sample prints, looked great. The guy running the show has experience. They could be putting out crap I have no idea really. Some are quick to assume its always print quality that kills them. I bet most shops rarely die for that reason. Typical consumer wouldn't know the difference between a good or bad print let alone a above average to top tier print.  Quicker to die from piss poor customer service than print quality.

[alan802]

The print quality that I see from local competitors is usually awful and I can't believe some of them have been in business for as long as they have, so print quality doesn't matter all that much around here.  Sometimes I wonder how the customer even accepted a print like that and think that if we did that type of work our customers would reject it, but they're used to a certain print quality so it's a little different.

[GraphicDisorder]

The print quality that I see from local competitors is usually awful and I can't believe some of them have been in business for as long as they have, so print quality doesn't matter all that much around here.  Sometimes I wonder how the customer even accepted a print like that and think that if we did that type of work our customers would reject it, but they're used to a certain print quality so it's a little different.

I agree, if they don't know any different they think Joe blow is a fine printer.  The reality is most consumers have no idea the difference unless you show them. 

[mk162]

prime example.  I had a very nice couple come in and order shirts with a picture on them.  The last shop used straight up walmart tee transfers to print them and billed $10 per shirt for a front and back print on 50 pcs.  The "full back" was 11" high.  It was terrible.  I showed them what we could do and how we would be less money for a better shirt with a better print and they were thrilled.

I honestly love making money on jobs like this, but I also love it when I can give people a better product than the next guy.  It's a memorial walk for their son who had cancer, so this is a big deal for them...not you typical "we're going to the beach, let's get matching shirts" type of thing.

[ebscreen]

Bad quality not as in how we see quality, but in things like wrong colors being printed, wrong locations, wrong size,
and the super killer, late delivery. No, the average consumer could not give two chits that you can hold three percent
dots at 65 lpi.

I was speaking specifically to these folks: OOshirts. You can read what the average consumer cares about there.


I'd guess that Teespring has a lot better go of it, though who they hire to run it is going to be crucial. At least they've got
the right color equipment.

[zanegun08]

TeeSpring doesn't need good quality since they send their shirts out individually, so if there is a difference in colors, dye lots, etc between the prints, it doesn't matter since they go to individuals that probably only bought one tee.

Their business model is smart, they don't have to deal with whiny customers, picky artists, quoting people, ect.  The let the customers do the work themselves, they print, distribute, and make a hefty margin.

Why they would've wanted to bring the printing internal is beyond me, I think they just had capitol they needed to spend, but if I was in the same position, I would outsource printing, and let them deal with the headaches.  I think that their printing network just couldn't keep up with the demand.

Check here, and you can see the amount of successful campaigns and how large some of them art.  http://teeview.phatograph.com/?filter=sn

[GraphicDisorder]

Im not defending teespring btw. Just saying someone will get it right some day and its gonna be a big deal.

[3Deep]

Well fella's my take on Teespring is I don't care about them, got my own problems to worry about here, plus I wouldn't want that headache trying to feed that monster everyday.

[blue moon]

and the saga continues and the direction most of us hoped for or predicted. It does seem like the printing was not the main problem, but still . . .
http://about.crunchbase.com/news/heres-math-behind-teesprings-painful-recapitalization/

pierre

[dirkdiggler]

I hope they ROT!  They stole my art and ideas told me they would see me in court if I wanted to fight them!  They SUCK!

[tonypep]

And there you go. BTW scrolling through the early posts Sweat Equity was funded by Marc Ecko and Island Screenworks funded by an heir to the Mennen foundation. Lots of shenangins ther. They simply shut down and moved on

[Frog]

So, someone who knows all about this venture (and similar ventures) do the "brains" behind it still come out well no matter what happens?

[mk162]

They usually do frog

I had to scroll down to get past the stupid flashing shirts up top.  Whoever approved that should be punched.

[Sbrem]

Somehow, this update reminds me of the current season of Fargo...

Steve