Cameesa - The Blog

It’s been quite a bit of time since we embarked on this crowdfunding experiment (2 years… in internet time) and we’ve learned a lot a long the way. I can write a complete separate post on startup lessons so I’ll restrict this post to crowdfunding lessons learned.

1. Don’t call it crowdfunding

Like the term crowdsourcing, crowdfunding is a coined term that we Internet nerds like to use amongst ourselves because it captures the concept in a single word. The media also likes to use them use because they are buzzwords. However, these terms can be confusing to the greater public and potential new site visitors. Anytime I tried to explain the idea to friends or people inquiring about Cameesa and used the term crowdfunding it would take twice as long to explain. Explaining it as the public giving money directly to artists to produce a product understanding the concept became easier.

2. Collect funds after a goal is reached.

Never get people to commit money up front to a project. It causes a lot of friction. People don’t want to commit their money to a project in limbo. Which in the case of Cameesa is a T-Shirt design reaching the goal of $1000.00 in funds to go to print. However, if the commitment is conditional on the goal being reached people are more willing to take the chance. After we made this change we immediately saw an improvement in the number of people supporting designs.

3. Quality control is paramount

The quality of projects is important especially when you are trying to grow a community of artists. It is extremely difficult for an artist to submit their best work when submissions are open to the public. The best way to enforce quality is to have an invite only system for artists and have funding open to the public.

4. Intellectual property and control belong to artists.

I think there are a lot of options out there when it comes to T-shirt competitions. These include Threadless, Tee Fury, Design By Humans and a never ending list of others. I think the biggest mistake we’ve made with Cameesa was printing and branding the shirts. In the context of “crowdfunding” the artist should be empowered to set the funding limit and ultimately produce the shirts with their own branding. The connection is between the artist and their supporters. In this scenario the artist has more control over the quality of the product. Although we do post mocks for the community to provide feedback on I don’t think we have the right to make judgment calls on how the design gets executed or brand the work. The artist should have full control.

I think one of the key things we’ve learned is that people do like to fund and support the endeavors of artists and that it is a viable commerce model. Co-creation and collaboration with consumers is a more meaningful and social commerce experience that benefits both the supporter and artist.

We decided to ask some friends like Demographic, AssaultShirts, as well as ourselves a magical question that may be handy for Tee Printers:

As a t-shirt company, what do you value most?

Speaking with John and Shane from Demographic (wareyoufitin.com) they gladly answered our questions.

Demographic is run and operated by graphic designers, so like most, we have high expectations when it comes to detail and quality. In a printer, first and foremost, we look for someone who is a true craftsman and is willing to push the boundaries on the production end. Collaboration and communication are also very important. If a printer isn’t passionate enough to present some of his/her own ideas to a certain challenge or isn’t willing to involve us in the production process, then they’re probably not going to be the right fit for us. Price is also very important. Being a start-up, we’re always looking for the best way to create quality products as inexpensively as possible. Having said that, quality still comes first. We could cut corners, but we ultimately choose to create superior products and take less of a profit.

Currently, we’re doing most of our printing with Tattooed Tees – a small design/printing company in Wicker Park that happens to have a few graphic-t lines of its own (tattooedtees.com). Since graphic design is also in their background, you could say we speak the same language. They are very passionate about their business and are great to interact with. Their niche is specialty printing techniques like vinyl, foils and oversize prints, so they’re always up for helping us push the design envelope Tattooed Tees is not the most inexpensive printer out there and they’re not really equipped for large print runs (5,000+) that demand a quick turn-around time. That said, depending on your needs, those could be considered negatives. Thus far, it’s been an ideal match for us.

In addition, we spoke with Tim and Craig from AssaultShirts (assaultshirts.com) and they added further to our conversation.

As a Tee company we look for Skills, Reliability, Quality, Availability, Experience, and Price.  We went through about 10 possible candidates for printers and none could print a good portion of our shirts. The ones that could print our shirts quoted us at nearly 11-12 dollars per shirt. The other problem we have run into with other printers was that they weren’t as readily available to us as we had wanted, and sometimes they are completely unreachable which is unacceptable when you have 25 pre-orders out for new shirts.

We still do all of our printing with the same print company, Merchspin.  We believe we have found as close to a perfect match as we can with Merchspin, and we’ve always pimped them whenever we got the chance because they have the best prices, and nine times out of ten they get our product delivered on the date estimated or earlier. They’re not perfect, but they’re as close as you can get in the printing industry.

Finally, Cameesa put our heads together and came up with a few answers ourselves.

We believe that quality is the most important factor when it comes to our printers.  They should provide us with a product that they have mocked out, as to where we are happy and the supporters are happy.  Unfortunately, we have had a few horror stories where the wrong colors have come in on tees.  These are probably the worst scenarios imaginable.

In addition to quality we feel that responsiveness is a huge factor.  We want to hear back from our printers that everything is working out as expected and that we are on schedule.

One tough issue with Cameesa is that Supporters already have to wait a long time to receive their Tees, so responsiveness for our printer is crucial.

Last but not least, as John mentioned, being a start-up, we try to get a great price for the Tees.  We have recently been trying to find the most cost-effective ways to get things done around Cameesa, without suffering in quality.

The biggest lesson learned is that as time goes by, we know that we are progressing because people continue to support us from every angle imaginable.  There are surely mistakes that we have made, but we try our hardest to correct them, and as long as the communication is clear between us and our printers, AND OUR SUPPORTERS, then we are in the clear.

One thing I always look for when interviewing job candidates is strong opinions.  I love hearing passionate responses when I ask, “what is your favorite programming language?” or “what piece of code are you most proud of?”.  To me, it signals that the person has spent the time to think critically and deeply about what they do.

I would much rather have a job candidate tell me why Visual Basic is his favorite programming language, than tell me that he doesn’t have a favorite language.   This carries over from the technical side into everyday life.  I can’t tell you how many times I have met someone, and the conversation goes like this:

Me: “So what are you passions, what interests you?”

Them: “Uhh, I like sports and music”

Me: “That’s cool.  What kind of music?”

Them: “Oh, you know, I like everything”

Me: “What’s your favorite band”

Them: “I really don’t know”

I love surrounding myself with people who have spent the time to develop strong opinions; they are just so much more interesting.  Our opinions often differ, and that is the important part.  That is when you have the chance to really learn something.

I once was at a bar table with a couple of hardcore Libertarians, essentially anarchists.  I loved our conversation and learned an incredible amount, because they had, and were willing to defend, their opinions.  They had obviously spent a lot of time thinking about their position, and truly believed in it.  Such a refreshing departure from the apathy that seems to plague my generation.

I can see why apathy is so popular: apathy is easy.  In contrast, developing strong defensible opinions seems to take time and research.  I think this is where many people get caught up: having opinions shouldn’t mean that you aren’t willing to change them.  People are often afraid of being wrong or appearing unintelligent, and therefore it seems easier to have no strong convictions.  Having an opinion should be the basis for discourse, with the intention that debate can lead to new, more refined opinions.

My advice to you is to spend the time to think deeply about your choices and associations, and start forming opinions.  You have to start somewhere, and realize that you may change your mind later.  You’ll be amazed at what you learn.

Socrates said it best, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

There are a few new features on the Cameesa site.  As of October 20th, for logged-in users:

1) You can post on your friends wall by going to their Profile.  For example, to post on my wall: log into your Cameesa account, and navigate to kamil’s profile, then type some text into the Profile Wall, and click Post.

2) You can follow as many forum posts as you wish, by clicking the ‘Follow This’ check-box on our Forum Page.

3) You can find ‘My Account’ in the header, and can access crucial information more quickly. For instance, click on My Account and you’ll be able to update your avatar, and other information…or check out the designs you are currently supporting.

In addition, we moved our Feedback link to the top header….to get your Feedback. So let us know what you think….anything goes.

Paul Isakson discusses in his Evolution of Brand Building presentation that brands should start committing by defining what they stand for.

Some of Paul’s points outlined below:

The product is the marketing.
Make better products first.

The product should be the focus and better products create their own buzz. They ultimately convert people into evangelists.

Start looking at Marketing as a progressive story.
Create room for agility, flexibility and iteration.

In the internet era brands are no longer fixed and are constantly in flux. Therefore brands should be flexible.

However, in a crowdsourcing (where the community supplies the product) and crowdfunding (where the community decides what gets produced by supporting) paradigm, a shift occurs and the community ultimately has the power to define the brand. Therefore, with Cameesa the community is the brand. Not only does the community focus on making the product but is also involved in evolving the brand the story through their community participation.

Imagine this:  you are a beer enthusiast and can’t stop thinking about beer.  You love the way it smells, tastes, the way it is brewed and the entire process.  The problem is that there are no websites out there that tell you EVERYTHING you want to know about beer.  Once in a while, you go on a rampage researching a specific beer for days.  Last week, you spent four straight days researching how to brew a Guinness Draught, and perfected it.  Your friends tell you that you have a problem, and you agree.  You just can’t get over beer facts, it’s composition, smell and taste….if beer was a woman you would not be single any longer.

How is this related to writing your first web application? Well…..solve your own problems first.

So let’s visualize a little more. 

If your dream beer website existed: how would you want it to look? how would it smell? how would you use it?  why would you need it? how would it scratch your itch? why would you love your website?

My dream beer site:

Would be simple (like Google search) with a tan background (the color of beer), and would smell like a Guinness (it’s my favorite beer).  I would want to go onto the website and type in any beer name in the search and get EVERY detail about that beer.  I would need it because I could learn everything about any beer on one site, instead of spending 4 days researching beer on different sites.  It would scratch my itch by having all the information I ever dreamed of.  I would love my website because it would be simple, informational, and community-driven.

So the solutions mentioned above sound like a beer-wiki if you ask me.  So there are your answers of what your website should do and how it should look.

So, in chronological order, this is how you write your first Web Application:

1. Define your own problem (beer love)
2. Solve your own problem (write a web application that scratches your beer-love itch)
3. Try not to do too much (after defining your dream application, launch with only 3 features, don’t try to take over the world just yet)
4. Write your web application (should take a few months to launch)
5. Find people that are like you (other beer lovers)

In summary, you have to find your own problem, solve it with a web application; then, find people that are like you to use it.  Notice that other people don’t come into the equation until you have written your application (Step 5).  So, you should be focusing on solving your own problem and launching it with a few features, and then getting user feedback.  The main point is that you are not asking “what will people use?” from Day 1.

This advice is slightly based off of Jason Fried’s advice to solve your own problems first.

p.s. I’m not a beer enthusiast, although I do like beer, but here are some cool websites:

Beer Advocate

Real Beer

Rate Beer

The Vinyl Lounge was fully supported today. I was very excited and proud of this design’s success. There is a significant story behind The Vinyl Lounge:

The Vinyl Lounge store, located in Oakville, Ontario, was owned by our best friend, Gino. Gino unfortunately passed away on June 29th, 2008. He was a happy, music-loving individual who was always a team-player and had an endless caring for others. Gino had asked Ryan (aka CAMCALI) to design the original logo for his store, The Vinyl Lounge.

Ryan willfully accepted and designed the first vinyl lounge logo. 

The Vinyl Lounge was your local independent music store that sold new and used vinyl/CDs. In remembrance of our dear friend Gino, Ryan decided to submit the design to Cameesa.

Thank you Ryan, and thank you friends for putting this design into print. A great memory of our friend, G. We love you and miss you very much.

From Left to Right: Ryan (CAMCALI), Gino, Andrew and Erin…..The Killers on Halloween ‘07

Found the mag at my local bookstore. Being the T-Shirt fanatic that I am I had to buy it after I saw it. The Australian based T-World is published bi-annually by Eddie Zammit and is currently on it’s fourth issue. I wish it was printed quarterly. Keep up the great work Eddie, the fourth issue looks awesome.

You can find T-World online at Uniform

Black Rock Collective is a collaborative design team composed of illustrators and apparel designers who are successful on sites such as Threadless and Design By Humans. As I look through the list of team members some familiar names appear. Particularly Priscilla Wilson and Tom Burns. Probably from their work on Threadless. I did take a look a through some of the portfolios and there’s some awesome work there. One I portfolio I was impressed with was Aeiko’s (aka Pete Harrison). Very versatile!

I noticed that one Black Rock Collective member has registered on Cameesa, Luke Wisner. I can’t wait to see a submission.

BRC has an awesome submission over at Design By Humans, Altitude Sickness. It looks like they are creating some awesome work together. BRC is another great example of the power of teams.

A pelican just came and dropped off a baby in my arms…but by pelican I mean mailman and by baby I mean my new Cameesa T-shirt! Take Me To Your Reader is extraordinary. I am so proud of this T! I have to let you in on my analysis: The shirt looks and feels great. The print is HUGE - and that gives it serious character. The ink feels as if it’s not even there. The American Apparel 100% Combined Cotton is so soft and will just get better wash after wash. It’s breathable and I won’t think twice about sporting it in the Austin sun. The inside print is awesome! I’m already hearing the comments I will get when I wear this… Wait, am I bragging too much about how much I like this shirt? Please forgive me Congrats to vonmonkey and to all who supported Take Me To Your Reader! I’ve been watching my support earnings go up and I know pretty soon it’s going to really take off. I hope all of you who have received your T-shirts, are waiting for yours, or are going to purchase one love it as much as I do!