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ExploreTee Hunter is a big fan of the community driven commerce that is “ongoing tshirt design contests” and regularly checks out the winning designs from the handful of companies currently using this innovative approach. So when we heard about a brand new tshirt community called “Teextile” launching and found that it has the feel of Design By Humans but the 1 day ethos of Tee Fury we were excited to speak with it’s creator Franco Galvez! Despite being brand new it already has some great tshirts on it, particularly Lick The Neck and I Want To Dance Too. Please read on for the interview!
Teextile.com
TH: Another tshirt community, what freshness are you bringing to the table?
FG: We never really went into this thinking we were being innovative, actually it was kind of the opposite. our slogan use to be “just another tshirt community”… but we got some complaints and took it down. at least there aren’t that many 1 tee a day companies just yet, maybe it will be the next big trend. who knows… all we can do is let our designs speak for themselves, and so far, weve gotten a whole lot of great designers submitting entries, so we should be good as far as that goes.
TH: What made you decide to launch another tshirt competition/store community?
FG: It just seemed like a good idea at the time, we had the resources to do it, so we though “why not?”. cant say we knew what we were getting ourselves into. When we started developing the site, we only knew about the big sites like DBH or Threadless….before we heard about Teefury, the site wasn’t even going to follow the whole 1 shirt a day idea.
"Lick The Neck" Tshirt
TH: What did you learn from established ones and what approaches did you take to carve yourself a niche?
FG: I don’t think we have carved out a niche just yet. that will probably happen once we actually start selling shirts and seeing what direction the community follows…. it will basically all depend on the designs.
TH: Do you think there is room for communities like Teextile or are the main market players still going to dominate?
FG: The main guys are always going to be up top, they’ve already established themselves so their not going anywhere. All we can hope to do is reach half the recognition they’ve got… but there is always room for another tshirt community, because no matter how many exist, there will always be even more designers trying to get this shirts printed, and Threadless can only print so many tees a week.
TH: What do you offer your entrants who submit winning designs?
FG: We are splitting our profits with the designers, paying 4 dollars for every shirt sold. We might offer a minimum price in the future, something like 200 bucks if your design doesn’t sell at all, but for now, we just want to see how things go in the first weeks of sale.
"I Want To Dance Too" Tshirt
TH: What three things are most important to you in how you run your company?
FG: Hmm, I just realized I have never actually put any thought into this… I guess keeping things personal is up there. I try to answer every email I get and give a well thought out response to any question. Not really a fan of huge companies that send out automated responses which are about as useful as talking to a parrot. Hopefully ill be able to find time to keep doing this once Teextile grows. Second would have to be listening to your customer. I’m not going to say the customer is always right, but if someone makes a valid suggestion, we’ll probably follow it…we’re still a pretty small website, so we can easily mould it according to the feedback we get. lastly, have fun with it, because if your not having fun, why are you doing it in the first place? (I think I heard the dudes from Threadless say this once)
TH: What is your personal favorite tshirt brand and designer?
FG: I’ve never really been one for brands, but ill wear anything as long as its comfortable (except for Abercrombie). as for favourite designers, i’m a fan of rob dobi, collision theory, aled lewis, brunomota, draco, and a bunch of others.
Massive thank you to Franco Galvez from Teextile we are sure there will be plenty of Teextile wares appearing on Tee Hunter in the near future!
