Cameesa - The Blog

There’s some nice artwork on Tank Theory’s site. They’ve established the Tank Theory Artist Society where they invite premier artists and designers to produce work for their t-shirt line. They’ve also added an artists section that showcases the work of artists who’ve created Tank Theory tees. The one thing I do find odd is that they decided to categorize their t-shirts as: “Artist Society T-Shirts” and “Standard T-Shirts”. After looking at the Artist Society T-Shirts do I really want to see Standard T-Shirts? Anyhow, I think they may want to drop the word Standard. There’s some great artwork on the site. I was thinking of picking up Swordplay as it’s from one of my favorite artists Mike Orduna aka Fatoe.

Many entrepreneurs get their business ideas in the following way : a) find problem, b) think of solution, c) base a business around the solution.

Are there any daily tasks that while undertaking them, you think to yourself “there’s gotta be an easier way of doing this.” If so, then these are perfect startup business opportunities. Next time that thought runs through your mind : 1) write it down, 2) let one day go by, 3) think of a solution.

Here is a recent example in my life :

I was recently folding my laundry and pairing up my 40 different pairs of white socks. I thought to myself, “I HATE pairing socks together, what a brainless, waste-of-time task. There has to be an easier way to do this.” A few days went by and then the ANSWER suddenly popped into my mind. I threw out ALL of my white socks, drove to Wal-Mart, and bought 40 mid-cut, white Hanes socks. I don’t pair my socks anymore because they are all identical so I can just grab two white socks from my dresser.

The business idea you ask? To create a David Allen style Getting Things Done book for the home. It would contain time saving tips for around the house chores like the sock example mentioned previously.

This is just a small example but there are probably hundreds of opportunities you encounter on a daily basis. If you start writing down a couple a day you will have amassed a giant list of ideas that you may be able to convert into an entrepreneurial endeavor.

As time goes by you will find that small problems arise all over the place, you just have to keep your eyes open and be ready.

Rumplo is a platform that let’s people rank and track their favorite T-shirts and T-shirt designers. It was built to be a promotional platform for those whose business is T-shirts to potentially receive a larger following. I haven’t gathered any background information on traffic numbers yet but it does look like they have a fair bit of content on there. About 21 pages worth of T-shirts. I also found our friend Joe from Fantastic Bonanza on the site. The platform seems promising and I’ll need to give it try.

There’s an interesting new community platform and social network for fashion called Fashionspace. Started in the UK by Holly Bellm and Harry Bridgeman it is:

“A place to buy, sell or swap your independently designed, vintage or 2nd hand fashion and network with other designers, creatives and fashion-lovers”.

I think this was a niche just waiting to be filled, a community platform centered around fashion and specifically fashion designers. As VentureBeat reports, the platform launched last October and possesses a community of 22,000 active members and 800,000 monthly unique visits. Holly and Harry built the community by leveraging relationships with an initial group of designers that would provide credible content. Bellm’s hopes Fashionspace will help uncover new fashion design talent as MySpace has done for undiscovered music talent.

The one advantage I see over other community platforms that Fashionspace intelligently built in, is a commerce platform to allow community members to set up their own boutiques. The feature is very relevant for their niche community of independent designers. There are no fees to participate or to set up a shop. Fashionspace generates revenues by taking a 10% cut from sales transacted on their platform.

Out of curiosity I went to see what they had in their T-Shirt section. For the full story visit VentureBeat.

At Cameesa we are always open to innovative ideas especially when it comes to T-shirts. The Swedish T-Post definitely possesses a unique model. It is based on a subscription model that is well known to the magazine world. Instead of a magazine you receive a T-shirt every six weeks based around a news topic. What I like most about T-Post is the idea of tying in narrative to t-shirt artwork. The news item that relates to the design is printed on the inside of the shirt.

I also like the consistent way T-Post presents each new shirt on their site, a couple wearing nothing but the shirt. One thing I dislike about the site the drop-down menu that functions as the main navigation. It’s somewhat cumbersome to use and can definitely be implemented in a different fashion.

Being part of a startup, we are introduced to new people and new companies every day. I was recently introduced to the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center’s fashion program manager, Stephanie Niedospial. From the beginning, Stephanie was very response, enthusiastic, and eager to learn about Cameesa. She was determined to help us succeed in our entrepreneurial experience. Thanks Stephanie.

Moreover, Stephanie described the Stitches Fashion Program (within the CEC) as “a FREE business resource for fashion entrepreneurs.” The Stitches Fashion Program has been beneficial to Cameesa and is an excellent resource for fashion based start-ups in the Chicago area.

If you’re a fashion entrepreneur in Chicago, make sure to check out http://www.stitchesfashionprogram.com/.

If you enjoy reading about fashion and emerging styles read the Stitches blog at http://www.styleexpose.com/

I recently came across the Emptees site and was extremely impressed with not only the community of talented designers but with the elegant execution of the site by Indie Labs. Note: Indie Labs also is behind “Big Cartel”, the easy to use online store application for apparel designers. The interface for Emptees is clean and simple as the site is divided intuitively into 3 sections: Tees, People and Talk. The home page is also well conceived displaying not only the top Tees but the most recent conversations in the talk section as well.

I recently posted the news of our launch on Emptees and received some great feedback (My Post) . Thanks to all who responded. For those who’ve sent emails I will be in touch shortly. An interesting point was made by TAC in terms of creating a point system. I think this is a great idea as the team has discussed this on numerous occasions. I will also post news about particular community features in the near future as we are getting ready “beta” testing.

Again, many thanks to the Emptees community.