Founders: Walker Williams, Evan Stites-Clayton
Launched: 2012
Funding: $58.1 million
Valuation: N/A
Disrupting: Retail, apparel, manufacturing
Rival: Etsy
If you've ever seen someone wearing a T-shirt with a really clever and unique slogan, chances are, Teespring made it. The San Francisco-based start-up allows anyone with a design idea to create and sell custom T-shirts. Its staff of about 300 employees manufactures the custom-designed shirts, manages online sales for these fledgling designers, collects payments, ship the clothes and handles customer service. Teespring charges designers about $9 a shirt, depending on the fabric and complexity of the design. The designer decides on the retail price they want to charge and keeps the difference.
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Walker Williams and Evan Stites-Clayton came up with the idea for the company in 2011 when they were seniors at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The pair wanted to make a T-shirt to mark the closing of a favorite nearby bar but were shocked at the price and the need to guess in advance how many shirts they should order. Instead, Williams built a website to take orders and advertised it on Facebook. When he got a great response, he felt certain there was a business there.
"We are in the golden age of the entrepreneur, and Teespring is dedicated to helping anyone around the world maximize this opportunity."
So far, he's right. Teespring claims to have shipped 15 million T-shirts around the globe, more than double the number from just two years ago. It says about 20 of the designers that use its service make more than $1 million a year in sales from their T-shirts. Venture capital heavyweights, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures, have already invested $58 million in the company.
Source: Teespring
Teespring co-founders Evan Stites-Clayton and Walker Williams
