How I made money with TeeSpring

[+] danielna|13 years ago|reply

Teespring does some really cool work with non-profits, launching kickstarter-esque campaigns for them (at no cost) and giving a cut of the proceeds to that organization. A few friends of mine who run an education non-profit in Philly (http://www.12plus.org/) did it a few months ago [1] and it really helped them out a lot. Coupled with this blog post, TeeSpring seems like good people.

[1] http://teespring.com/12plus

[+] wiwillia|13 years ago|reply

Thanks Daniel! The 12plus tee is still one of our favorites.

[+] blowmage|13 years ago|reply

I'm on my third campaign with Teespring (http://teespring.com/rubyguy). They've been great to work with.

I ran a store last year selling shirts (http://rubythreads.com/) and I managed inventory and shipped out of my garage. Any profit made on the shirts was spent on logistics. Its a rough business and I'm trying to appeal to a very specific audience. I was planning on building a new storefront and moving to a kickstarter-model for future designs, but Teespring has been totally turnkey for me so far.

[+] trifu|13 years ago|reply

I too had to try my crack at it, unfortunately the shelf life for my shirt is about 9 months: http://teespring.com/CautionBabyInside

[+] wiwillia|13 years ago|reply

Hi from Teespring! This is awesome - if anyone has any questions we're always happy to talk, I'll keep an eye on this thread and you can also reach us by email at walker (at) teespring (dot) com.

[+] GoldiKam|13 years ago|reply

Excellent example and use of crowd funding with no upfront costs

[+] fumar|13 years ago|reply

This is inspiring... So I was a little overzealous and created three campaigns.

One - Antifragile, on Nassim's new book. http://teespring.com/antifragile

Two and Three - Holidays, Christmas and Hanukkah http://lastshirts.tumblr.com/

The site is very easy to work with.

[+] iamchmod|13 years ago|reply

I made two just for fun: http://teespring.com/football and http://teespring.com/starwars - note my good urls, not sure that teespring has enough SEO for that to matter tho...

[+] silverbax88|13 years ago|reply

I'm inspired, and I'll give it a shot for sure. Just went to the site and added a design - will see how it goes. http://teespring.com/basketballelite_rise_and_grind

[+] peterjamescain|13 years ago|reply

Yeah I'm inspired too... nearly felt too easy to set up! (different thing to actually sell them though)

I'm a big fan of Flight of the Concords so I made this one; http://teespring.com/itsbusinesstime

Wonder what tips there are around getting a campaign right (ie guessing simplicity and fun are key factors...but what about colour of the t-shirt etc?) Also, would be nice to get some analytics about how many visit your campaign page Vs people who add to cart but don't buy etc.. (or did I miss that?)

[also this is my first post on Hacker news! followed for ages, but kind of looking forward to adding more]

[+] unsquare|13 years ago|reply

What kind of printing process does TeeSpring use ? Doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere.

[+] wiwillia|13 years ago|reply

We only use high quality screen printing, no digital printing or DTG printing here.

The great thing about using a crowdfunding model for apparel is you don't have to compromise of quality or price - you can have the best of both worlds.

[+] hornbaker|13 years ago|reply

fyi wiwillia, your account here has been hellbanned so nobody is seeing your replies.

[+] wiwillia|13 years ago|reply

Thanks for letting me know - should be all set now

[+] sbashyal|13 years ago|reply

I can see the comments just fine.

[+] unknown|13 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] davidmerrique|13 years ago|reply

It's a very quick and painless process.

Here's one I made using an illustration I did a couple years ago http://teespring.com/gigiphinaleus

25 comments