TSB
General => General Discussion and ??? => Topic started by: tonypep on June 25, 2015, 07:08:21 AM
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Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.
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Dude has been posting a ton of images on a facebook group over the last few months with the build out and such. Did something new happen?
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I bought a shirt from them, yeah I do still BUY shirts I like. HORRIBLE printing. The screen printer in me will HATE wearing it but I like what it says so I will probably still wear it. I'm not sure how/if they are skirting licensing issues with A LOT of the stuff they print.
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Not an insider but do subscribe to the newsletter (hint)
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Some pics he's shared.
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Venture capital.
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That big room is screen room.
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anybody care to provide said 'link' to newsletter?
curiousity is peaked now.
and yes, that image of the screen room is CRAZY huge.
It'll be interesting to see what happens there... as the word on the street that I've heard is that it's all being run by people who haven't worked in the screen printing industry, and VC / "Business" people who own shops like that only care about the raw profit #'s and nothing else.
- the equipment manufacturers while happy to be selling that much equipment are probably being negotiated to the floor or lower.
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Already had a fight with them over one of OUR designs and slogan that lets say they (borrowed) without my permission. they refused to stop selling it and said I could talk with their legal team.
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anybody care to provide said 'link' to newsletter?
I couldn't find it on their site, found a blog though. But nothing juicy there.
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Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.
I will. Notice there is NOTHING from M&R in the shop. Seems like they really know the industry.
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Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.
I will. Notice there is NOTHING from M&R in the shop. Seems like they really know the industry.
I noticed all the machines are sitting idle...
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Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.
I will. Notice there is NOTHING from M&R in the shop. Seems like they really know the industry.
I noticed all the machines are sitting idle...
Those pics were posted during build out. He's posted more but I didn't have time to find them.
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Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.
I will. Notice there is NOTHING from M&R in the shop. Seems like they really know the industry.
LOL now that's why I like Rich more and more each day! Straight to the point.
These HUGE shops/businesses seem to run on the, "that's good enough" motto.
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everyone seems to be getting scared of this teespring thing, and here we just got notification that our new M&R 14/16 GT3 is ready to ship, our new M&R flashes, and new M&R Sprint 2000. Should I just cancel and shut the doors since so many folks think these guys are going to put us all under. I mean really, am I just dreaming at growing our business at this point :o
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http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/teespring-eliminates-70-jobs-in-providence-as-company-restructures/ (http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/teespring-eliminates-70-jobs-in-providence-as-company-restructures/)
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Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.
I will. Notice there is NOTHING from M&R in the shop. Seems like they really know the industry.
LOL now that's why I like Rich more and more each day! Straight to the point.
These HUGE shops/businesses seem to run on the, "that's good enough" motto.
I am just curious, so in your eyes the MHMs are "just good enough"?
pierre
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I think he was refering to the 'good enough' quality / alignment / etc.. not the equipment that they're using to get to 'good enough'.
I don't see Teespring as being competition to us... we're nearly always lower cost, and produce far better work.
If anything, it helps to educate our customers a bit...
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everyone seems to be getting scared of this teespring thing, and here we just got notification that our new M&R 14/16 GT3 is ready to ship, our new M&R flashes, and new M&R Sprint 2000. Should I just cancel and shut the doors since so many folks think these guys are going to put us all under. I mean really, am I just dreaming at growing our business at this point :o
Ill take that GT3 if ya want ;)
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I'd be more worried about something like custom ink than teespring based on how they handle orders (campaigns that reach a quantity threshold before production vs on demand custom ordering), but I am not worried about either since at least for my business local production and quick turnaround are king, not to mention word of mouth drives the vast majority of my business.
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everyone seems to be getting scared of this teespring thing, and here we just got notification that our new M&R 14/16 GT3 is ready to ship, our new M&R flashes, and new M&R Sprint 2000. Should I just cancel and shut the doors since so many folks think these guys are going to put us all under. I mean really, am I just dreaming at growing our business at this point :o
Ill take that GT3 if ya want ;)
For the low low price of, :o ;D
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I think you guys are going to see more and more of this type of thing. Someone will eventually get it right too.
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Should we talk about the layoffs, the operation in general, or is there something else we should be discussing concerning this place?
I may be dumb but I'm not worried about operations like this. Just like many other operations, businesses, governments, etc., the bigger they are, the more inefficient they are. I can promise you they would never be able to compete with shops like us in customer service, print quality and turn around time. And if they can't compete in those categories I'll take my chances on the price category and I think we'll be ok. Take the problems we all face on a normal day, and quadruple it, then quadruple it again, then you might have an idea of the issues that that place will deal with daily.
When did they started operating? Wasn't it earlier THIS YEAR? And they are laying off 25% of their workforce? I guess they could be telling the truth about it being a restructuring of sorts, not really a layoff in the sense that most of us think of when we hear the work layoff...or that could be spin to keep investors from cutting their losses and getting out.
I thought someone had told me that there were some pretty sharp production guys in the facility but if they aren't being used properly, or they weren't ready for something of this scale then you have problems. I would imagine that if I were dropped in that operation and depending on the size of the job they wanted me to do I could fall flat on my face. And it could be that the sharp guys aren't being given the tools to do the job or not being listened to by upper/middle management that may or may not have a clue as to what it is they are doing. That's a pretty big operation to just "open up" and start printing shirts. I'm assuming they had some big deals lined up already but I would think that opening up a shop with 15+ autos that wasn't there last week, in any capacity, would be difficult. But without knowing anything about the operation, business plan, customer base, etc., anything that I have to say about any of it is pure speculation and guessing. But it's fun to talk about anyway.
When I'm drooling over those pics like a 18 year-old checking out the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition I can't help but feel old, or at least very strange in that I never would have thought that I'd rather look at these pics versus the other I mentioned.
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I am just curious, so in your eyes the MHMs are "just good enough"?
pierre
Oh no didn't mean that at all. Sorry, my post could have been split into two posts to separate my comments. MHM's are fine presses. Heck I'm running the red(literally)-headed stepchild of presses in my shop so I'm not hating on any manufacturer.
My comment was to the quality of printing these HUGE factories produce without strict supervision. We aren't talking Nike contract-printing where Nike will chargeback if the quality is poor. We're talking Joe-Schmoe down the street ordering shirts online and them coming in with the print crooked and he has no "easy" recourse other than waiting on hold for 30 minutes and then another 2 weeks for replacement garments.
The shirt I ordered from Teespring was just flat out printed WRONG. They cheaped out on two shadows of the primary colors by printing the primary color in a halftone over the black shirt without an underbase. It just looks bad. The online mockup definitely didn't show that. I'd rather have a DTG print than this thing.
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All I can say is that a huge percentage of massive startups with state of the art everything and vast amounts of venture capitol rarely survive past year one. Sweat Equity and Island Screenworks come to mind. Just my personal opinion but I find their business model is severely flawed.
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All I can say is that a huge percentage of massive startups with state of the art everything and vast amounts of venture capitol rarely survive past year one. Sweat Equity and Island Screenworks come to mind. Just my personal opinion but I find their business model is severely flawed.
For most, it is severely flawed.
It's perfect if you're the CEO of the new company, and have negotiated a lucrative contract for yourself...
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All I can say is that a huge percentage of massive startups with state of the art everything and vast amounts of venture capitol rarely survive past year one. Sweat Equity and Island Screenworks come to mind. Just my personal opinion but I find their business model is severely flawed.
A venture capital startup called themselves Sweat Equity? People are ridiculous. You are pretty much guaranteed to fail at that point.
Teespring has got the customer funnel portion down pat. So did/does Spreadshirt/Ooshirts/whatever else they change their
name to when the BBB complaints start stacking up against one entity. They have warehouses full of the other blue equipment,
and apparently pump out late garbage all day long. Just because you can do one does not mean you can do the other. Thing
is they outsourced all their printing before bringing it in house, not unlike Custom Ink. Apparently the transition did not go so well.
I haven't heard anything about CI though, I would wager they've done a better job.
There are very, very, few people that can handle the sheer terror that a high volume shop can be.
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All I can say is that a huge percentage of massive startups with state of the art everything and vast amounts of venture capitol rarely survive past year one. Sweat Equity and Island Screenworks come to mind. Just my personal opinion but I find their business model is severely flawed.
A venture capital startup called themselves Sweat Equity? People are ridiculous. You are pretty much guaranteed to fail at that point.
Teespring has got the customer funnel portion down pat. So did/does Spreadshirt/Ooshirts/whatever else they change their
name to when the BBB complaints start stacking up against one entity. They have warehouses full of the other blue equipment,
and apparently pump out late garbage all day long. Just because you can do one does not mean you can do the other. Thing
is they outsourced all their printing before bringing it in house, not unlike Custom Ink. Apparently the transition did not go so well.
I haven't heard anything about CI though, I would wager they've done a better job.
There are very, very, few people that can handle the sheer terror that a high volume shop can be.
Not to mention the turnover rate for shops that large. You have people dedicated to scraping ink out of screens for 8 hours a day for probably under $10/hr. I mean we all LOVE screen printing, but doing ONE piece of the puzzle all day every day would drive me up a wall.
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Anyone care to comment? I'd love to however I'm obliged to hold back.
I will. Notice there is NOTHING from M&R in the shop. Seems like they really know the industry.
LOL now that's why I like Rich more and more each day! Straight to the point.
These HUGE shops/businesses seem to run on the, "that's good enough" motto.
I am just curious, so in your eyes the MHMs are "just good enough"?
In today's market of pre-registration and setup.. they are not even good enough anymore, rather antiquated.
After spening the last 5 months using a really good tri-loc system, I have zero desire to work with MHM's anymore.
As for this teespring thing.. who cares really. Just sit back with a glass of your favorite cold beverage and watch the show.
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a huge percentage of massive startups with state of the art everything and vast amounts of venture capitol rarely survive past year one.
My thoughts exactly.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. (http://www.bbb.org/greater-san-francisco/business-reviews/shirts-custom-made/ooshirts-in-fremont-ca-439080/complaints) 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.
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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 (http://teeview.phatograph.com/?filter=sn)
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Im not defending teespring btw. Just saying someone will get it right some day and its gonna be a big deal.
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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.
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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/ (http://about.crunchbase.com/news/heres-math-behind-teesprings-painful-recapitalization/)
pierre
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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!
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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
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So, someone who knows all about this venture (and similar ventures) do the "brains" behind it still come out well no matter what happens?
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They usually do frog
I had to scroll down to get past the stupid flashing shirts up top. Whoever approved that should be punched.
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Somehow, this update reminds me of the current season of Fargo...
Steve
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So, someone who knows all about this venture (and similar ventures) do the "brains" behind it still come out well no matter what happens?
the investors will lose a lot of money (they are sort of expecting that though) and the brains get paid a smaller salary for what they are doing running the company. The big cash only happens if there is successful exit. Management might be worth $150K-$200k/year and they potentially worked for half that and stock options. Many smaller VC companies might have management making $50K just to make things happen and conserve cash.
So how well they come out depends on your definition of "well". They got paid something to gamble and potentially make a boatload. But they are making less then if they were working at a regular company.
pierre