Threadless

In what other industries or areas would Threadless’ community-driven product development model work well? And not so well?

T-shirts and apparel is a great place for this Threadless type of community. It is a place for artists to submit their work, community members to comment and score the work and most importantly T-shirts and apparel (onsies and hoodies) can be printed cheaply. I think the creative/artist aspect of the business model as well as the low cost product set it up for success. Other factors are of course the top management team really working for the community.

I could see this kind of product development working for actual art work too. I'd be surprised if it hadn't already been tried. The shipping for this kind of thing might be more expensive because of the shape of the art work. Tubes for posters, or if artwork was actually framed or matted it would also be more expensive than balling up a Tshirt for distribution. However, the cost of printing the work might be cheaper than printing on Tshirts. The CCO commented that a lot of different industries have tried to use this business model, but have started their sites, with revenue and profit in mind of course, which is why he thinks they have failed. Threadless started as a community-based site and then rolled into a money making venture. The founders are grounded and don't forget that their community drives their success.

As the Threadless team is contemplating rolling out into the retail sector they are still focused on thier success factor, thier community. What would the Threadless community think about Threadless going retail?