Platform Design

If I think of one thing that has moved or better yet proven the benevolence of platform design it’s hands down Threadless. The overnight success of this user driven t-shirt studio is border line .com without all the vapor.

If you don’t know Threadless here at quick up-to-date; A t-shirt shop that asks users to submit their designs for other users to rate, once a design see enough popularity it’s produced and sold at threadless.com. It’s one of those ideas that you just kick yourself in the head for not thinking of (after it’s proven itself in the market).

For more detailed info on Threadless and what has happened since it’s inception in 2000 you can read a brief history by Jake Nickell one of the two founders.

Threadless has single handedly show that there is a huge international market for unique short run user defined products. While threadless did not invent the t-shirt they have shown more of it’s potential as a medium that any fashion designer could. Why? Because they are 100,000 fashion designers all at once.

Once you breakdown the the process of ‘design once, make many’ you find that with a little re-education (and maybe a bit of retooling) variety can be achieved to to make 20% of the people %100 happy. Rather than the traditional idea of making 100% of the people 20% happy.

With Threadless doing about $16 million in t-shirt sales for 2006 from a staff of 26 they’re proving by doing.

We love you Threadless!