Spreadshirt: The East Coast Answer to CafePress?
Had lunch today with Jana Eggers, the former Intuit exec who is now the CEO of Spreadshirt, a customized apparel company that was founded in Leipzig, Germany in 2002. The company entered the US market in 2005, and Eggers joined as CEO in November 2006.
Spreadshirt will make a jacket, t-shirt, or baseball cap with your design on it -- and they'll also let you sell your product to others in their marketplace. Unlike their California competitors at CafePress (which sells clocks, mugs, and clothing), Spreadshirt is focused only on apparel -- they offer five different kinds of hoodie, for example. But Eggers doesn't think Spreadshirt needs to go head-to-head with CafePress for market share -- at least at this stage.
"According to our research, 70 percent of online shoppers in the US don't know that you can do this," Eggers told me. "So it's less about stealing customers from CafePress than building awareness."
Eggers wears one of the company's products every day; today it was a brown long-sleeve t that said, "Believe it to see it." When she's in Germany, that can raise some eyebrows, since t-shirts aren't usually part of business attire. (One of her favorite shirts says, "I'm recruiting," which usually generates a conversation: "Recruiting for what?")
Eggers is building an office in Cambridge, at Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square, to serve as the US headquarters of the company. It has just five employees so far (plus her) who work in sales, marketing, and finance. But she expects to add more people, in graphics and product management, by the end of the year. And a move to Southie could be in the offing. Spreadshirt's US orders are made at a plant near Pittsburgh; Eggers also says its possible that she could spark up some production in the Boston area.
The company has 250 employees in total, Eggers said.
She has a blog here, and is also a fairly avid Twitterer.
Spreadshirt will make a jacket, t-shirt, or baseball cap with your design on it -- and they'll also let you sell your product to others in their marketplace. Unlike their California competitors at CafePress (which sells clocks, mugs, and clothing), Spreadshirt is focused only on apparel -- they offer five different kinds of hoodie, for example. But Eggers doesn't think Spreadshirt needs to go head-to-head with CafePress for market share -- at least at this stage.
"According to our research, 70 percent of online shoppers in the US don't know that you can do this," Eggers told me. "So it's less about stealing customers from CafePress than building awareness."
Eggers wears one of the company's products every day; today it was a brown long-sleeve t that said, "Believe it to see it." When she's in Germany, that can raise some eyebrows, since t-shirts aren't usually part of business attire. (One of her favorite shirts says, "I'm recruiting," which usually generates a conversation: "Recruiting for what?")
Eggers is building an office in Cambridge, at Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square, to serve as the US headquarters of the company. It has just five employees so far (plus her) who work in sales, marketing, and finance. But she expects to add more people, in graphics and product management, by the end of the year. And a move to Southie could be in the offing. Spreadshirt's US orders are made at a plant near Pittsburgh; Eggers also says its possible that she could spark up some production in the Boston area.
The company has 250 employees in total, Eggers said.
She has a blog here, and is also a fairly avid Twitterer.
Labels: CafePress, Cambridge Innovation Center, Jana Eggers, Spreadshirt, start-ups, t-shirts
posted by Scott Kirsner at
5:33 PM
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