TeeSpring

[Prosperi-Tees]

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/teespring-eliminates-70-jobs-in-providence-as-company-restructures/

[blue moon]

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

[jvanick]

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...

[ffokazak]

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 

Ill take that GT3 if ya want

[mimosatexas]

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.

[screenprintguy]

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 

Ill take that GT3 if ya want

For the low low price of, 

[GraphicDisorder]

I think you guys are going to see more and more of this type of thing.  Someone will eventually get it right too.

[alan802]

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.   

[IntegrityShirts]

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.

[tonypep]

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.

[ScreenFoo]

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...

[ebscreen]

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.

[IntegrityShirts]

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.

[jsheridan]

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.

[kingscreen]

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.