The new Cameesa Vision, getting rid of support section!!!

A) I like this idea. This might also encourage regular traffic to Cameesa to check out "the potential tee of the week."

B) This is a great idea! You put in your credit card info so that if the shirt prints, you will get charged, but if it doesn't, you don't have $20+ sitting there doing nothing for you.

C) The only concern I have here is that you are giving all the control to the artists, who may not understand your business very well. For instance, is the system going to be set up for an artist to be able to play with variables to get the support price where they want it? I totally get the artist wanting to choose how much they get paid, but for them to choose the amount of supporters? That seems like something Cameesa should tweak based on the amount the artist wants plus the cost of printing the shirt (based on colors).

D) I don't have any problem with this either. With the dividends at 2 cents, nobody cared about them. With the dividends at 20 cents, people might care but the prices are just too high to move enough volume to accumulate a dividend. You are also right that with no "risk" it's hardly fair to have to pay out $10/shirt in dividends. You can keep the "support" concept of the site alive and significantly reduce costs (and therefore prices) to get your prices more competitive.

E) I'll address E with G, as I think they share similar points.

F) Up to you, although I don't think there is anything necessarily wrong if the artist is receiving hundreds of dollars to give you the rights to the art. I think every artist would love to "license" all their work and retain ownership, but in the real world, it's not unreasonable for a company investing money into product to not want that design to be sold anywhere else. Again though, that's totally up to you.

G) The only concern I have with this idea is in the short term. To not carry any T-shirts and only have the current weekly shirt would make you more like a weekly Teefury, only there's no guarantee that the "shirt of the week" will actually print. I don't necessarily have any problem with that, but maybe you could gauge popularity and bring back reprints of top tees. That might require some investment on your part to order a few more tees than you actually have support for so as to have some stock, but I like the idea of Cameesa having at least 5 to 10 shirts "available" PLUS the "tee of the week."

My largest concern with all of this, though, is this: What if weeks go by with nothing printing? Especially if you have no stock, this couldn't be good for your bottom line. You put a shirt up, artist wants $1000, you need 200 supporters, and you only get 75. No print. Next week, artist wants $500 and 100 supporters, you get 95. No print. You keep that up even a few weeks, and you think you are going to get steady weekly traffic? Not likely. I love the concepts behind these new ideas, but you are going to need to make sure that at least SOME of your designs each month get all the way to print. And I think that means that artists are going to have be a little reasonable in their expectations until you can build some traffic. Artists that want Woot-style $1000 payouts are going to have to realize that Woot also has hundreds of thousands of customers showing up to view on a regular basis.

Overall, I like your ideas, all except for the very real possibility of weeks going by without anything printing. Which would be kind of like...right now. Which is no better. I think you can make your formula work, if you make sure that you get decent designs with reasonable artists and you can get the majority of the weekly shirts to print. That means you are going to need to maintain strict editorial control over what you think your customers want to see, and work with the artists to tweak those variables to give the shirts the greatest possible chance of getting all the support they need.

- pakrem commented 60 days ago

"4. members don't really care about supporter dividends, they would rather have a lower priced support"

Actually, I do care. Maybe I'm the lone voice in the wilderness, but the idea of the dividends was a major draw to me.

My college accounting teacher bought stock in this tiny company called "Ryan's Steakhouse". She lost count of how many times the stock split. (The price was going sky high and to keep the stock price low enough for people to take a chance on them, Ryan's kept splitting the stock.) She finally got nervous and sold it all, just before the price started to stablize. This professor made several hundred dollars from the sale and the initial investment was very low.

I realize stock and dividends are two different critters. (If you don't know what I mean, you REALLY need to take an accounting class.)

Maybe I was just dreaming, but when I saw Cameesa, I got excited. Was this the next Ryan's Steakhouse? Or the next Google? Once the snowball starts rolling down the hill, it's going to pick up speed. I wanted to be inside the snowball.

The one thing I haven't seen addressed is: who does the printing? Is this done in-house? If not, have you looked into the price of the different kinds of printers? Have you explored the financing options for those printers? Bringing this work home will cut costs a lot.

Who is your "fufillment" company? (Sorry if I botched the word.) Why do you have someone in Florida mailing your shirts? Did the operation move from Chicago and I missed the announcement?

I realize there are only so many hours in a day and only so many people working all the jobs to make the company run. If tasks have to be farmed out, so be it. Everything you do in-house will usually be less expensive than having someone else do it.

Back to the shirt printers for a moment... How are you filling orders for older shirts? An outside printing company probably has a minimum order. If you had your own printer, when an order came in, you'd print the thing. Yes, you'd have to maintain a stack of shirt blanks in all the sizes and all the colors, but filling an order for an out of stock shirt would be mere HOURS. Not days or weeks. Incentives could be given to artists to use standard shirt colors when submitting designs. This would cut down on the shirts needing to be stacked in a store room, taking up space and money while waiting for an order.

I'll quit now. I'd like to see what you say about the printing process itself, so I'll quit burying my question in the middle of a bunch of ideas.

(Can we tell Janie majored in business management in college?)

- Janie commented 60 days ago

Janie, I can't speak for everyone on supporter dividends, but the idea that major money would be made was probably unrealistic. I thought I might get a few free T-shirts over time out of the deal. I've made just over 50 cents in the last year. Clearly, this idea as conceptualized simply isn't working. There's a few of us here, but most people want to BUY t-shirts, not invest in them. They want to put down some money and get a T-shirt mailed, not wait 6 months. 2 cents wasn't working, so we moved to 20 cents! And things have gotten even worse. With reasonable prices, the dividends are meaningless. With meaningful dividends, the price gets too high and there is no volume. I think the past year and 2 different support and pricing schemes are proving that this business model isn't working.

Secondly, have you priced printing equipment for T-shirts? I don't think Cameesa wants to grind out the kind of substandard quality you get from places like Spreadshirt and Zazzle. And quite honestly, I don't want to buy shirts made with cheap iron-on equipment either. To get the kind of equipment to produce quality printing on T-shirts is in the thousands, if not TENS of thousands of dollars, then there is all the ink and other supplies. That simply is not possible for a small T-shirt company, and I imagine why Cameesa uses third party printers.

- pakrem commented 60 days ago

I support all of this. You have always been good at listening to the community and are to be commended for that.

Printing equipment is very expensive $10,000+
and printing is hard to do, it takes a skilled printer to be able to make a great print. The print on demand does sound like a good option, but it would take a huge investment.

Would it be possible to offer posters as a way to help raise money for the tee shirts. They are cheaper to produce and more reasonable to print on demand? The ones I got cost .83/each

Would people be interested in posters, or do you just want tee shirts.

- quakerninja commented 60 days ago

I see we're back to "throwing anything against a wall to see what sticks". I also see no consideration of Cameesa's two truly biggest issues: Getting enough people to want to support anything, and making sure quality is top-notch. Quality issues have hurt Cameesa just as much as anything else you've listed here, and no support model is tenable without people here willing to support. Who's going to go to this site to buy a shirt that has one week to be supported that won't come here to buy a shirt that has forever to be supported? why would I bother committing to a tee when it's possible there will be weeks before one shirt is actually sent to print? Cameesa's biggest issue has to be finding a customer base, and you can't do that by changing what you're all about every two months.

On to your specific concepts:
(A) So, do you tell people the shirt they've been supporting for a year is now gone? Do you tell designers who are at the top of the ranks that they're now all the way back at zero, and not even on the site? Do you keep everything in your database and only post one per week to get the final votes they need (IE: if a shirt has 25 supports, you post it at $500 and leave it up all week to get to $1000)? Do you disenfranchise every designer here by simply saying "screw your work" and deleting it? And without some sort of plan to actually bring in customers, what is the chance a design is going to ever hit enough supports? Most designs couldn't bring in 25 supports for $10, so I don't much believe your new plan is going to make designs more likely to print.

(B) I'm ever cautious of any method that requires a card to be charged LATER. But again, this is a moot point, because I doubt if you see more than a handful of weeks where you make shirts. Again, who are these people supporting, and how are there more of them in this scenario of a week than there are in the current scenario of years?

(C) Having a designer set their own support number and reward is dangerous, because it will create user backlash. If someone says "I ONLY WANT FIFTY DOLLAZ," then everyone who wants $250 or more, like a legitimate prize, would be seen as greedy. Allowing people to undersell themselves is harmful to all designers. As for "number of supporters," again, Cameesa at $10 couldn't secure 50 supporters on most shirts. Since the more supporters, the lower the price, any shirt with few enough supports to print will be exorbitantly pricey, and all shirts with low enough prices to support will need too many supporters to ever print. Since you've ignored the fact that Cameesa doesn't have enough users to actually get most shirts to print even over a year, it really won't matter what artists set their prices and numbers to. Though the way you're aiming to totally ditch everything the artists have worked for leads me to wonder if any artists would even submit work to not get printed by not enough users.

(D) I have no issue with removing supporter dividends. Again, I am here for a great shirt. Dividends are a nice bonus, but not vital. Anyone thinking a site as small as Cameesa is some sort of brilliant investing tool is fooling themselves. Still, there are some people who have been pushed over the edge on supporting by the idea of snagging some extra cash. Anything that might lessen your potential supporters is detrimental to your site when most shirts can't get enough support to print.

(E) See C. A greedy artist will get theirs, because a $1000 prize, while certainly fair for some quality of art, and not outlandish from some more financially sound companies, would be untenable here. But an artist underselling themselves WILL hurt the reputations of artists looking for a fairer shake. Consumers don't grasp real-life concerns of what art is worth. They don't even think shirts are art half the time. they are greedy and just want what they put money down for, and they will be just as selfish to any designer who requires at least $250 if other designers undersell themselves. If you keep a flat $250, it might be too low for some people, but it will be an even playing field. People can decide whether that's too low for them, and if it is, they won't submit.

(F) The reason other sites give back the rights to a shirt is because they cannot guarantee a fair return on it. Simple as that. If I put a shirt up at Teefury, I could make a dollar, or I could make a million if it were uber popular. But in one day, for one dollar a shirt, I am not guaranteed anything. The fact that there is no back catalog makes giving rights back make sense for such a place. As far as Cameesa goes, however, you currently keep the shirt in print. Like every other contest site that keeps shirts in print, that means any printing of ones own shirt otherwise is competition to your site. If people don't like that, they shouldn't go through a middleman to start with. However, there's no perk to keeping rights here. Half the designs won't ever print in the first place, so the rights will be retained anyway. The rest, though, given the pre-order scheme, it wouldn't be any different than for the designer to simply hold a pre-order at their own site. At another site, even one sale means one dollar and one shirt. It's not like Cameesa is big enough to guarantee anything an artist can't get themselves through an agressive twittering campaign and a decent fanbase (and likely be able to profit more without a middleman). And also, what happens if support is full on friday? Can people keep pre-ordering until the next support shirt goes up?

(G) Let's say a site says "hey, we're going to option your shirt, and sell it indefinitely, and you can make money off it every time it sells". Sounds good, right? But then, two months later, they decide to cut your shirt from their store. How do you think a newer shirt like Red Balloon or Wires Crossed would feel to be taken out of the catalog so soon after finally printing? Not because they don't sell, oh no... just because you can't get your act together and your new plan is to start from the ground up and kill off all your prior winners, and only sell what is supported week to week. Because that's what it's sounding like you're saying: "screw you guys who made it, and who have kept us remotely afloat while we've had trouble getting new work printed. You don't get to make money anymore." And really, what happens when THIS doesn't work either. You think people are going to want anything to do with you after you kept their art from making them a cent for X amount of time while chasing some flawed new concept?

Be honest with yourselves. You are floundering. That is fine. You can flounder, and you can try new things. But it is VITAL to realize what really IS wrong. Cameesa can work as it is if you get more users. None of what you've laid out here can work without first getting more users. You will lose artists. you will lose supporters. you cannot get by with less when you currently don't have enough. Cameesa has worked at all because of the crowdfunding. That is what makes you unique. But altering it to be little more than a pre-order, and altering it to not guarantee anything, makes you one more site in a bunch of clones, and worse because you don't guarantee anyone can buy anything. Right now, I know that if I plunk $20 down, I WILL get that shirt. Eventually. If enough people support it. But I paid for my copy, and then I just wait. No one wants to pay for probably not getting anything.

What worked at the beginning? For a while, there was some serious flow of support and printing. what were you doing in your heyday? Go back to that and work on building a customer base. Stop with all this nonsense of changing your entire business model. Stop with the impatience. Take a deep breath, remember why you're here (to print awesome shirts, not to show pictures that will likely never be products), and go find your customer base. A business can only prosper if they have product. Right now, you do. Sell it. It's better to have something to sell and no one supporting new product than have nothing to sell and no one supporting new product. Find people to buy what you have. Find ways to lessen costs to shrink tee prices, without lessening quality (hint: 20 cents per shirt to "investors" is exorbitant. Halve that, for starters). But people are the most important thing. Advertise. talk up all the unique parts of the site. Recreate the buzz you started with, Don't smash what you have for an option that has no evidence of working out. What you're planning on doing is a low blow to the people who have been waiting so long as well as the artists who have been doing the same. These are people you want to keep. Don't toss out the designs they've supported, the designs they've submit, the designs they've brought to print and now get to profit off (both supporter and artist). Because throwing that away is throwing away what few users you have behind you.

- AdderXYU commented 60 days ago

If this site can't draw traffic and continue to build the cameesa community, any changes made will not make any difference.

If you only have one loaf of bread to feed 60 people, you shouldn't waste your time trying to figure out how to divide and distribute the bread because you have a bigger problem on your hands... you need more bread.

- Dalmatinac commented 59 days ago

How do you choose the design of the week that will be in the front page??

Is there a way of creating a "nostalgia" area where the tees sold
during the "one week period" would go for a second chance. There you
would have 10 tees where the weakest sale would go out as a new recent
tee would arrive. The best sales of each week would manage to stay
online. Hope you got it.

For the rest your new rules  seems interesting but it is almost like making a new site. Maybe you should find a big sponsor to invest money on you or create a new model from scratch. Give back everyone money at least.

- fabiofranca commented 59 days ago

Wow! This is a whirlwind of a change. I really didn't expect this much and can only say, "Wow!".

Reading through, I think it all sounds pretty good. I like most everything except having to choose my own payout. I think choosing my own payout would make me feel greedy either way. Low payout, I just want a print. Large payout, I'm just looking for some cash. :D

One thing that threw me off a bit too was, "F". About artists even keeping design rights to print their own shirts. But that was until I read, "G". As I understand it, you'll probably hold the rights up to when the shirt prints and then, since you're not going to "sell" shirts after the week of the print, release the design back to the artist. That's if I understand it correctly.

Like I said in the beginning though, "Wow!". I'm highly interested to see how all this works out. I'm actually very excited for Cameesa!

- dicom commented 59 days ago

i am in no mood to read through the extreme bloviating above so i will state my thoughts/questions as though its never been said before. if its all repeat information, fogive me.

i am curious as to how previous supports would be dealt with, since i enjoy the pittance i have recieved for edgar's shirt.

i admit i have not been around much lately, and its primarily due to none of my supports getting printed. it seems rational to me that the situation change in order to draw someone like me back. dont get me wrong, i loved the model before, but with such a small customer base somethings gotta give.

there were things i liked and disliked about the LAST change, so i am sure there will be things i both like and dislike with this new change. hopefully, it will draw in a huge new base of customers that like exactly what i do. ;)

- peppersagooddog commented 59 days ago

Though I am a bit sad to see this system, that was so interesting in theory, ultimately fail in practice, I do welcome all of the proposed changes from A) to G).
I hope that this way the designs that i have been supporting for a while will at least finally be printed!

- toxemic commented 59 days ago

I agree with ...
Part G) of parkem, Part A) of AdderXYU, and ...
" Cameesa has worked at all because of the crowdfunding. That is what makes you unique. But altering it to be little more than a pre-order, and altering it to not guarantee anything, makes you one more site in a bunch of clones, and worse because you don't guarantee anyone can buy anything.
...
But people are the most important thing. Advertise. talk up all the unique parts of the site. Recreate the buzz you started with, Don't smash what you have for an option that has no evidence of working out. "
- AdderXYU

Now for a little bit of me.
I thought supporter dividends were cool, though designs I liked weren't necessarily the designs I thought would sell well. I also thought "Wow!" this design is really awesome and I think a lot of people would buy it, but I wouldn't necessarily wear it for myself (... and my friends are sick of receiving shirts as presents from me, since I buy cool shirts that I don't wear sometimes to support the artist).

Anyways, with the new changes, I perceive this site like all the other design-a-week sites, with no connection to the shirt I'm "supporting" versus pre-ordering, even though I know the backend is different, or just more transparent?

I do agree with the problems, but I'm being pretty much a useless citizen by somewhat disagreeing with the proposed solution and not offering anything better. As a supporter in the past, the biggest problem I faced was the length of time to get enough supporters, rather than anything to do with price. Obviously the $$ situation is important to most people including you, this is a business after all. However, if all I wanted was a good design for a cheap price, I know bunch of other sites to go to, and then I could just wait for their sales. Here with the support and dividends I felt more connected with the design and artist, and as a human it's nice to make connections no matter how small rather than falling into the vat of blind consumerism.

- eighnjel commented 59 days ago

This must been a difficult decision to make, changing your business model so drastically, but seems like the right move for cameesa. I hope the experiment goes well.

The only suggestion I have is to vary the duration from the rigid "design of the week" model. I am sure you e-commerce folks are familiar with www.woot.com. Why not borrow their successful WOOT-OFF model by switching to a new design as soon as the shirt hit a maximum support level or a week, whichever comes first?

- primadog commented 59 days ago

While these changes would bring you more business from ME (with the exception of the second half of G), I don't know if it would expand your customer base in general....

- MaryESP commented 59 days ago

Clearly changes to Cameesa are necessary, but this plan, while different, is in almost no way better. It is foolish to assume that merely because the selection of shirts to support is smaller (as in, one shirt), the volume will increase dramatically when the shirt's printing is still not guaranteed.

Please excuse a moment of criticism before I move on to constructive suggestions.

First issue: artists choosing their own payout. If you want artists to add their designs, make it simple and zero-risk to do so. Offer a competitive, standard rate with royalties; keep in mind that since volume is small, you may originally have to offer larger flat payments than some other sites to attract talent; and absolutely allow artists to maintain ownership of their designs. It's fine if the design is also printed somewhere else. That benefit to the artist and to the other site takes away very little from Cameesa and greatly increases the likelihood that quality art will be offered here. In any case, the artist almost certainly knows less about how the business of Cameesa works than you, the founders, with all of the data, do.

Second issue: the shirt-a-week model. The instant you switch to that model, you cease to be remotely interesting. Instead of being a cleverly crowdfunded design site, you are a shop with very limited selection and furthermore no guarantee that your "purchase" will in fact be made. And it doesn't help that you won't be charged unless the shirt is fully supported - the customer has already had to pull out a credit card to support the shirt, so that barrier has already passed. Keep in mind, though, that just because the user has put in a few dollars ahead of time does not mean that you have to pay them dividends; people are completely happy to pay their $10 a few days early if they get a nice shirt and good service out of it.

On to the suggestions.

What you really need in order to both succeed and keep some of the soul of Cameesa is a sort of Shirt.Woot Derby cum Teextile. Shirts should be chosen in two rounds; the first is open and free-for-all, similar to the current support system. Users vote on their favorite designs. The few (say five) shirts with the most votes in the past week are put up on the front page of Cameesa as that week's shirts. Then, in the second round, people support one (or more) of that week's five shirts, cash up front (billing should be the same as currently done in the support section: users stick the shirt cost, say $10, in their account, which they can use to support as many shirts as they like until one they support is printed). The main page shows the current ranking, leader first, and pitches it as a race or competition between the shirts. At the end of the week, whichever of the shirts has the most supports GETS PRINTED, sent to everyone who supported it, and stuck in the store with all the rest of the shirts that have been printed. It is ESSENTIAL that you print a shirt every. single. week. Without that, the site stagnates and nobody uses it because they never, ever get a shirt. This causes great frustration. Perhaps shirts which don't win that week but do achieve some minimum of support go on to contend in the next week's contest. This would ensure that you have a running group of completely printable, profitable shirts to tide you over any dry spells.

Let's see if this proposal addresses your problems.

1. designs take too long to be supported
Solved. One design will be printed weekly. Admittedly, this will early on be a short-term loss for you from time to time, but it is necessary to maintain users.

2. supporters have to pay money up front and they don't know when their favorite designs will become fully supported
They will know exactly when and if their design will print.

3. support prices are too high
Prices will be lower because there will be no dividends. Support prices should, however, be constant instead of artist-selected, as this lets the user know what to expect AND allows you to optimize for the greatest income; artist selection of pricing does no such thing.

4. members don't really care about supporter dividends, they would rather have a lower priced support
Agreed, and solved.

5. artist payout is too low
Raise it. Even if it costs you a few bucks up front, getting good art is key.

6. artists don't have rights to use their designs after a design is printed on Cameesa
Easily solved to everyone's benefit: give them full rights, and Cameesa will merely license the design for printing. Cameesa's previous position on rights completely put me off of submitting artwork to you, not because I would necessarily sell it somewhere else, but because then I would lose the freedom to do what I want with it.

7. t-shirt prices are too high
No dividends mean lower prices.


My apologies for going on so long, but I wanted to be thorough. I hope you will take my suggestions under consideration for the ongoing development of Cameesa, for I know that there is strong potential here as soon as we get a business model up and running which has sufficient throughput.

Oh - and get yourself some press! The changes to the site's model are a great opportunity to get posted around on a wide variety of blogs, perhaps all the way up to BoingBoing. And once you're on a weekly model, get yourself added to teemagnet.com.


Thanks and best of luck,

Will

- brillian commented 59 days ago

To be brutally honest, I think you guys either need to stick with the model you have, and make it work (ie get people to the site), or just call it a day and think of Cameesa as a noble experiment that failed and go on to bigger and better things. The proposed changes would seem to turn the site into a substandard copy of many, many other companies, and offer very little incentive for anyone to offer artwork up for support- going by current figures, it would be very difficult to get a shirt fully supported in a week, even at $50 artist revenue (and no-one is going to give you decentartwork for $50- if they wanted that they could just go and hang around emptees for a while and wait for the offers to come rolling in).

So, my view (and I could be completely wrong) is you either either stick with the great USP that you have and work at it, market it, invest in it until you are awash with new customers (and customers is all you need to make it work, not some radical new build-it-and-they-will-come structure; you've built it already, now you just need to drive them in, with a cattle prod if necessary)... or quit. I'd prefer the former, obviously!

- vonmonkey commented 59 days ago

One of the reasons I like the supporter dividends is:

I have earned enough for a free shirt.

Yes. Ta-da. I began supporting with Listen To The B-Side in late November 2008.

I currently have FIVE support accounts waiting for something to print. It is only mildly irritating that the money is just sitting there. The cost of doing business means sometimes putting your money on the table then WAITING for something to happen.

As I tell my kids "I refuse to make time" for certain things. Having to log into a site on a set schedule doesn't work for "my" schedule. I would still pop by occasionally, but since we moved to the wilderness, I've got no Internet. Typing this on my phone. Cameesa takes a long time to load on this baby, so even cruising the forums is a chore.

I'll try to keep track of how this discussion runs. Kamil, going down the path you've laid out in the initial post will probably mean I'll quit supporting. (Not that it's a threat or anything, just a fact.)

I hope when decisions are finalized, you will disclose them so we will all know where we stand.

- Janie commented 59 days ago

Not that I don't like changes, and the fact that you're willing to go so far with changes shows you really put thought into the system, but I think your new method is doomed. Cameesa is a unique site with a different setup than every other shirt design site out there. If you switch over to weekly support sessions, you are not actually "supporting" anything, and supporting a shirt will be the same as voting for the shirt (which is the base model for almost all other design sites). The only difference is that a vote here will force a purchase, while at other sites you can push designs you like to the top without buying them.

Also, letting the artist choose all three values (supporters, payout, and # colors) is just asking for trouble. I'm sure you'll have boundaries for the numbers, but instead you should set the price of the shirt in stone, and let them choose the values from there. For instance, because color will be determined by the picture, you would just need a horizontal slider with "highest payout" on one side and "least # of supporters" on the other. When a design is submitted, have them use the slider to determine payout, but as they raise the payout the supporters required will also rise. This way, the price stays constant, and people will have to weigh their potential for payout vs. how much they want the payout to be.

Supporter dividends is a tough one to fix, because there are some people that like them and some that could care less. One thing that comes to mind that may or may not work is to reduce the price of the shirt slightly for supporters. Instead of a lifetime sales %, just make it a one time coupon. This could save money in the long run because after the supporters get their shirts, all sales from that point will be put towards production.

I hope you don't take this wrong, because I don't intend to come off in a harsh light. I really do like this site, and I know you intend to make changes like this to attract people to the site on a more regular basis, but I really do believe your new system is not the way to go about it.

P.S.- On a side note, this may not be such a bad idea if instead of replacing the current method, you have this weekly support event simultaneously. This way there is something going on that fills the months and months of waiting on long term supports. Perhaps having weekly support sessions with no dividends and lower payouts while long term supports still get dividends and higher payouts. Something like this could give you the best of both worlds...

- fofmock commented 59 days ago

I've had some more time to really think about. On the surface, some of the changes seemed like positive ones, but the more I've had time to think, the less I like them. At first I thought your "shirt of the week" might encourage more support by giving people one option instead of having to dig through 100 entries of varying quality. But seriously, as of late, shirts have been taking months and months. Some of those shirts have been up for over a year and still are sub-500. Somehow I doubt that will magically change and suddenly 1 week will be enough.

I already outlined my basic problem with point G above. There is a huge danger with this plan that you will go WEEKS or MONTHS without printing anything, which would be devastating to a support system that is already too small. If you remove your stock and have nothing to print and your site will be destroyed...and this time perhaps irrecoverably.

Sometimes we are doing something and it doesn't appear to be working...so we change it and it gets even worse. Rather than take the site in a COMPLETELY new direction, and thereby sacrificing the very idea that got you started, use the new information to do one more tweak. Things may have been going slower than you wanted initially, but at least they were going! Shirts were getting printed and shirts were being sold. The more I think about it, the problem is not/was not your business model. It is that you didn't/still don't have a large enough customer base!

First things first, get prices back DOWN. Do what you have to do. I am still advocating halving the dividend to a dime, which will instantly shave $5 off your cost. Or put it to 5 cents. Even getting rid of the dividend would be a better idea than this "shirt of the week" idea. As the site's owners, you might be able to FEATURE a shirt every week, but don't abandon your entire setup!

1) REDUCE COSTS. You have to get that price down. Cut dividends, cut expenses, do what you have to do. When prices were lower, this site was functioning...slowly, yes...but functioning.

2) Court artists. Are you just sitting around hoping that amazing artists will submit amazing designs? There have been some very talented artists who have submitted designs here. I've been able to snag designs by Tgentry and BootsBoots, for instance. By slashing the dividends, perhaps you could up the prize for artists? Are you out actively trying to get good designs? Or just sitting there hoping they will come to you?

3) Keep quality high. I notice Adder mentioned quality issues as well, which I agree were devastating early on. If I had EVER received another shirt like Gamer Mother, I would have left too. But the last few shirts I have received have been beautiful. Advertise that! When you started in the game, you were printing on cheaper shirts and having all kinds of quality control problems. You have resolved this! You are printing on AA and the prints are great! Make it known when you promote!

4) Keep building a customer base and community. And this really is the key. This is your main problem, and you will not solve it by radically changing your formula every 2 months. You will alienate your current community with many of these changes. You will alienate artists. Are you sure you will gain a larger base by making these changes? Because if you don't, you will be left with nothing!

I really feel that the key to this site is getting the dividend to the right place, getting the price to the right place, courting top artists and getting better art. With more art that ends up at the top of the list and less art that belongs at the bottom, more people might check it out. If a new person checks out Cameesa, what do they find? Meh, a few interesting designs? Or MANY designs that may have missed out in other contests, and here they are! Try and get artists to submit designs that were popular in other contests but barely missed out. Maybe it could find a home at Cameesa. Once the price is back down, a supporter base is in place, this site will function VERY well with the business model you envisioned in the beginning. PLEASE don't turn this site into a weekly Teefury without even the benefit of a guaranteed print.

- pakrem commented 59 days ago

Your thought process on what's wrong with the current system is very thorough. Your solutions, however, are very fragmented -- you're finding a single solution for each single problem and making a new mess.

Others have already pointed out some of the flaws in the new system. Like several have mentioned, traffic and customers is the issue. To get people in the door there needs to be something happening here. Your idea to have a weekly contest of some kind is a good idea ONLY if there's a guaranteed print every week. That would mean you'd need to take a hit some weeks -- especially early on.

The way I'd like to see the whole thing work is to keep the existing system mostly as-is. Whatever tweaks in cost and dividends you want to make aren't that important. Every week (every 2 weeks?) choose the top two supported shirts and have them go head-to-head. Ask existing supporters and fan to drum up support for the one they like. The one with higher support gets printed regardless of whether $1000 is hit.

So, the 1st week, "Bad Egg" would go up against "Quicksilver Psycho" and the loser would fight "My Imoto" next week. After a few rounds of this, I think support will be increasing everywhere.

- thatrobert commented 59 days ago

Also, just brainstorming, this site will only gain traffic with community support. Those of us who love Cameesa's concept could help too.

What if along with along with every shirt submission, artists were asked to submit a signature tag sized ad for their shirt? For instance Boots' "The Bad Egg" is very close to print. I guarantee if there were a small tag sized graphic I would add it to my signatures on other shirt site forums, and would increase exposure without being obnoxious. It seems to me artists would be more than willing to create such a small signature sized tag ad to assist their supporters in making their designs more visible everywhere!

- pakrem commented 59 days ago

I think vonmonkey summed it up quite nicely. Either ride this horsey out, or close it down. Because basically, that's what you're proposing to do. Close the site down, restart it, clear out all old tees and all old supports, and change the entire thing to a model which has no logical reason to work based on how things have worked up til now. Really, skip that part. Just close the site if you're going to completely overhaul it. It'll save you a lot of money and time.

I honestly don't understand how you went from "hey, not enough people come to support shirts quickly" to "hey, let's give them EVEN LESS TIME". That worked for a couple shirts, but it was ALL because of what shirt it was. 1928 and Cheer Up were both fan favorites at woot before coming here, and Miss Monster has a loyal following that nevertheless did not repeat itself on her second entry. I don't consider myself a stellar businessman, but if my business was not bringing in enough people to stay afloat, my first thought would not be "how can I change" but "how can I attract customers." I don't think any of your customers here think this site NEEDS to change. Except in bringing in more customers.

So keep doing that.

You have EVERYTHING to lose by completely changing. Right now, you'll always have shirts to sell, even if nothing new prints. Some of them are excellent. Obviously Listen to the B-Side is a huge seller, for a site this size, if someone was able to score a free shirt off it, with only four cents per support at the time. If nothing else prints for a while who cares, so long as people can and do buy the shirts you have. In the interim, focus less on the site and more on bringing people to it. The site will watch itself. People will support as they come and go. It'll be slow, but it will happen. Some shirts may never be fully supported. That is OK. All you can do is keep making sure people see what you're doing. Show off B-side, or the brilliantly printed Fiction v. Nonfiction, or the diverse boots prints that make up a good chunk of your catalog. Get people in to buy the shirts you have, and while they're here, they'll check out the crowdfunding. Talk up the crowdfunding. I betcha chicago has art fairs. Bum around there with business cards. Hell, set up a table if they'll let you. Take out ads wherever they'll sell 'em to you. You can't go anywhere without advertising. Simple fact. As people browse over, maybe 10% will take the risk. Things will still print slowly. But suddenly, POW, something will cross the threshold. Boots will print, Jaden and JCW will drop again, supporters will re-support, and there will be movement, and people will start flitting back in. Newbies will see something happen and say "hey, it does work" and maybe renew their own excitement. All the while you're making enough money to stay open.

Or, you can put a new shirt up every week and watch it not be supported. How many weeks of zero profit do you think you can go and still keep the site running? How many weeks of nothing printing before people stop coming back? Right now it might take forever, but I have my supports in. I can disappear for a year, and I'll still get the shirt I want when it prints. And then I'll come back and refill my other support group. How long will I commit my same $20 for a week's shirt and never get it, and still keep coming back?

I think people are blinded by the old "if you can't say something nice" chestnut. Right now, there is nothing nice to say. Your plans are thought out, but they're thought out in the sort of way that makes people believe 9/11 was a conspiracy plot. You're trying to force the outcome you want out of events that don't logically correlate. You know damn well there's no proof that a new model will work, especially if it's built off using users who aren't here now. You're simply desperate to get Cameesa back off the ground. What you're missing is that apparel is not a huge money pit. What you're missing is that Cameesa did pretty damn well for itself in its first year, considering the novelty and the risk factor. What happened is you plateaued, and never seemed to keep bringing in new faces. that is your salvation: bringing in new faces, and doing so with what you are, not new, flashy desperation moves. You did a lot of harm with prints like gamer mother and coq music. You did a lot of harm by threatening to change to tultex from AA. You need to bring those people back. To prove you've turned a corner. Instead of changing, show you are the cameesa people were excited about, and people will start buzzing. And make sure you're there to create more buzz. The idea you're bandying about is only going to lose you customers AND artists, as well as all but freeze sales of any sort. If you're seriously thinking the only way is what you're talking about in this thread, you should just quit while you're ahead.

- AdderXYU commented 59 days ago

I joined this site to support 1928 and hung around because I think it's a great concept and has the potential to be huge. I agree with Adder in that I think the site needs definitely more buzz than anything else, and his and pakrem's suggestions for increasing foot traffic to the site are valid and should definitely be considered.

I think previous posters have raised a lot of great points, points I agree with but can't articulate as well. I would like to add that the more you tinker with the site, the more users you're apt to lose. While I have four or five supports out there, I'm hesitant to throw support at any others, simply because I have no idea what the current procedure would be. My previous supports were under a different scheme, I don't even know if it was $10 and two cents, or $20 and four cents. I can't keep track anymore.

In addition, I also agree that you need to find your price point(s), and stick with it/them. Many of the changes you suggest take a lot of the individuality away from this site. I certainly appreciate the fact that you're working so hard to try and find the "right" site, and that you're so open and willing to discuss these changes with your community, but as I've said earlier, too much change causes confusion, and that might be one of the reasons you're not getting the results you want.

- dolphin76 commented 59 days ago

Amazing amazing advice, I am reading all of it...keep it coming...the biggest take away right now without changing the site is: BRING IN MORE CAMEESIANS!!!

I am working on integrating Facebook Connect with Cameesa, this is just the beginning.

- kamil commented 58 days ago

dear cameesa: adder is a gem that is frequently overlooked. he may be a prick sometimes, but it's only because he has a deep compassion for the world of shirts. (everybody has to have something right?) nobody pays more attention to more places and it's my opinion that he is uncannily spot on most of the time.

food for thought, you might want to give his opinions just a bit of consideration. woot ignores the hell out of him because they have a specatularly small ammount of give-a-shit for the art and are all about the consumerism. i have always had the impression that you folks wanted to give the artists and the collectors a haven that was true to the core and not primarily about what you can make. dont get me wrong, i know you gotta pay the bills, but if you really want to be a bastion of hope for the die-hards, you have to keep them happy.

so where do you find the balance between making money and maintaining an awesome site like no other? customers. somehow you have GOT to get a larger base and i think you have plenty of suggestions on that matter. i would only like to add that you have to generate more excitement with the base you already have, make us want to shout it to the rooftops every day that you exist and you will see more people dropping by in no time.

- peppersagooddog commented 58 days ago

As an artist, here are my thoughts.

1. designs take too long to be supported
- Completely agree. I would like to see support numbers lowered, or like I have mentioned to you before, using a support number in place of a dollar amount. I really believe from a psycological standpoint, that it could make a big difference. Seeing '25/100' beneath a design in the support phase instead of '$250/$1000', may play a role in keeping the frugal spenders interested in supporting. It's all a mindtrick, just like the candy for sale by checkout registers, where you wait in line to pay for your groceries. It creates a feeling that printing is more possible than impossible.

2. supporters have to pay money up front and they don't know when their favorite designs will become fully supported
- I like the support method currently in place. I could care less about the divedends. The only problem with it now is that you don't know when your money will produce something tangible because there isn't enough traffic.

3. support prices are too high
- Agreed.

4. members don't really care about supporter dividends, they would rather have a lower priced support
- Agreed. If you want divedends, I would suggest making the supporters and artists work for it. Unfortunately, my only idea for this is a referral or affiliation system.

5. artist payout is too low
- I don't agree with this. I don't think it's too low, but I do think if you want high quality designs then, yes I does need to be raised. However, the higher the payout is, the higher the cost of the shirt probably will be. I would rather take a $250 payout and actually have a shirt print and gain that exposure than to have nothing at all.

6. artists don't have rights to use their designs after a design is printed on Cameesa
- Agreed. I don't mind giving the rights over if there's a guarantee it will be used. I don't like seeing it tied up for months (or longer) with no tangible results. Not knowing if it will or will not print, even if you do have rights until it does, is also discouraging. You could withdraw your design and submit it elsewhere to get it out there faster, or you could submit it somewhere else and take it down by the time it prints here. The first option is probably going to produce a lower quality shirt. The second probably won't happen because if it's already available, there's no reason to support it...and the shirt is still a lower quality shirt. There has to be an incentive for the artist to spend the time on the design and to design more frequently to get something new and fresh in here. With no guarantees, it's hard to say that the current structure is enticing. Exposure alone isn't worth the effort if the artist is promoting the shirt on their own. I can expose my artwork without a middleman. If Cameesa advertises, using our work, then that kind of exposure is motivating. If Cameesa was willing to pay a portion of the payout for the artwork to keep the rights to the design and to encourage artists to submit, that too would be something motivating. Themed events would inspire. The operations are inspiring, but there aren't enough of them.

7. t-shirt prices are too high
- Agreed. The current prices are priced as designer tees.. online, those prices just don't work well.

The following is a bit of a rant and a scolding session:

WHY is this conversation not posted on the Facebook page? I have posted the thread on Cameesa's wall... I believe free advertisement and promotion should be used as much as possible to cut costs. I would really like to see more people at Cameesa. I still think a facebook app is needed. More links to other sites Cameesa uses too. I just now looked up Cameesa on YouTube. I didn't realize that Cameesa had a channel on YouTube. There should be a link to that here though. I'm sad to see that the only posts to the channel were 11 months ago. The T-shirt sale you guys did awhile back so could have been YouTube'd. When I Google'd Cameesa's Myspace: Beneath the link it reads: 3 posts, 3 authors - Last post: Aug 20, 2008. This is part of the problem. There needs to be more links and more social networking and broadcasting. Promotions and events... Maybe you could do a chinese New Year "Year of the Tiger" themed opperation, not affiliated with anyone but Cameesa. The current new year sale could be announced on all of these networks and I believe more traffic would follow. I have the time, I can volunteer to help you with this for free if you really need someone to help.

I'm done with my rant and my thoughts for now. :)

- Everae commented 58 days ago

I dont have time to read alll this but I agree completely with Vonmonkey.

All this craziness is really driving away people from wanting to bother and figure out what is exactly going on here. Just use your current model and actually try new ways to build the momentum of your site, get activity going and do what you can to push designs through faster.....that will make many people happy.

- the_jcw commented 56 days ago

i really like brillian's idea for a no-cost-involved vote on all the week's tees, and then the finalists are the ones who require supports, with one guaranteed print a week. crowdfunding is what makes this site unique, but at the same time i can see it being a turnoff for many, especially with the site being so dead.

i think sites like this benefit SO MUCH from great art. some people keep complaining about prices, but personally, $20-25 for a shirt isn't a big deal to me if it features artwork i really like, and if i know the shirt itself will be high quality. knowing that my money is directly benefitting the artist is a big plus. it's only if the shirt is mediocre quality and/or is pumped out en masse at little cost to the manufacturer that i feel it isn't worth more than $10-15.
maybe cameesa should specifically look into ways to attract more artists to the site, along with any advertising/buzz to bring in more supporters...not saying that the artists here already are crappy, of course! but having a larger selection of amazing work, and focusing on the art in particular would be beneficial to all, i believe.

in direct response to the original post:
(A) - most everyone else has already said that this isn't a good idea, as it takes away cameesa's originality, reduces consumers' choices to practically nothing and dumps previous artists to the curbside
(B) - indifferent to this one. i don't think being charged now or later matters much either way as long as the site is active...the issue right now is that money is sitting around collecting dust in support groups because nothing is moving.
(C) - this probably isn't a good idea either...$20 for a 1-color shirt isn't horrible as long as the art is good.
(D) - i'm fine with this, it was a unique feature of cameesa but i don't think it was really amounting to anything...
(E) - people have already noted how this isn't worth it
(F) - i like this
(G) - already addressed this elsewhere in my post

- bara-chan commented 55 days ago

At least the 2 I've supported are in the top 10.

Some great artwork here.

- Fuzzy4Logic commented 52 days ago

Kamil said: "Amazing amazing advice, I am reading all of it...keep it coming...the biggest take away right now without changing the site is: BRING IN MORE CAMEESIANS!!!"

Well, that's not actually what we said. YES bring in more Cameesians. But you ALSO need to lower prices/support/dividends. That is also a huge part of getting Cameesa where it needs to be. By keeping prices as high as they are right now, you are going to make your work of bringing more Cameesians in twice as hard!

- pakrem commented 51 days ago

50 supporters per shirt is about as low as you can get to afford splitting the money the way it's set up now and still stay in business. Getting 50 people to like anything from the current members and traffic is proving to be really hard. Poor Jaden is 10 people away from a print, it sucks for the 40 people that have already committed to the shirt, and it sucks for Jaden who can't do anything with the shirt yet.
Who knows how long it will take for 10 more people to come along.
Increasing the number of supporters should be priority number one over any other changes.
If that means taking Cameesa on the road and doing craft shows and conventions do it.
If that means buying ad space Do it.
If that means writing to blogs, getting on twitter, giving up some stock for awesome prizes, wearing a dress and dancing like a monkey do it.

Any other alternative I have thought of results in someone in the money chain getting the short end.
People make this work, and people have quirks, likes and dislikes and no model can account for all those great differences in opinion. Keep the site artist friendly to encourage great designs, supporter friendly to encourage sales and everything will be ok.

If I have learned anything from my failure of quakerninja it's the importance of having a continuous authentic non intrusive face. you have to be 100 times more extroverted and outgoing on the internet then in real life. My twitter feed, myspace, facebook is always buzzing, if I blink I miss something and it's gone, and this speed is only going to get more hectic. Get out there and pound the pavement ,show the other players Cameesa has a pulse guys you can do it.

- quakerninja commented 49 days ago

I am going to keep this short. I have not read every post, nor Kamil's entire opening post, because I don't have the time. Therefore I don't know all the details of the new proposal.

I came to Cameesa because with the support system, it was different than other tshirt sites. I hope that the new model will not make Cameesa turn into a clone of whatever else is out there.

- mjc613 commented 48 days ago

A lot of great suggestions have been posted, but I'll throw in my two cents which echos some of what's already been written.

Similar to what AdderXYU was saying, you need customers. Advertising, marketing, promotions focused on getting new (and returning) t-shirt buying customers to the site should be a BIG focus.

Without customers, it doesn't matter what the business model is or how cool the designs are. There will be nobody to buy them.

So to me, step 1 would be a big push should be made to drive retail t-shirt buying traffic to the site.

As mjc613 recently posted, what set Cameesa apart was the crowdfunding/support aspect. With other t-shirt sites/competitions. It's up to the curators, philosophical votes, or a combination of outside factors which decides on which t-shirts get printed. To me, Cameesa stood out because it made folks put their money where their "vote" was. If you like a design, support it.

I don't know if that concept works for all t-shirt buyers, I'm sure some just want to go to a site and buy a cool t-shirt, but I *think* that with enough momentum it could work as long as the designs were getting supported in a timely manner and that when non-supporting type customers came to the site, they had a decent catalog of designs to choose from.

I think majorly changing the main thing that made Cameesa stand out because things are slow may not be a good idea.

Selling t-shirts retail is a challenging market these days. Lots of online and offline outlets are competing for impulse and cool t-shirt buys.

It seems like right now you guys are going through "The Dip".
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/

It's hard to know the future, but I think with some marketing and a renewed focus on your unique place in the t-shirt competition world, you could push past the dip and grow into a great community and ecommerce destination.

Only you guys know the intimate details of the business know, so you know better if it's time to "hold 'em" or "fold 'em" :)

- Rodney commented 39 days ago

To be honest, I just came back to the site to check in on things. The first thing I wanted to check was this thread topic. My thoughts upon seeing it: "posted 27 days ago now? That's too long."

This isn't something you can pull off if you're not all-in. I try to promote myself and my artwork everyday, everywhere and every way that I can. To see that there isn't anything happening here is just sad. I'm left to wonder if you're serious about running a business... Everyone here who has an account is part of Cameesa's community. As part of the community, I have to say that I myself am beginning to lose more interest and I'm concerned that others are feeling the same, or worse, about to walk away from Cameesa. If you don't have the time or energy to put into this it's not going to take off and if you have new plans, I'm sure the community would like to hear them instead of being left in the dark. Right now Cameesa more or less looks like a side project that got put on the bottom of a to-do list, never to reach the top.

So, is anything happening? I think we've all pretty much commented and told you our ideas and thoughts. Have you come up with something else? Are you working on an advertising campaign? Have you given up? =/

- Everae commented 34 days ago

As I was falling asleep last night, I thought that the new functionality will be as a side-functionality, so the current support system will not go away.

In addition, we have all picked up full-time jobs to start paying for the bills again. Doing this full-time and not having a job took a hit on my wallet.

We will also begin by advertising to users of other t-shirt sites via Twitter and Facebook fan pages. I am very curious guys, what is that you advertise? Should we just look around and just tell people, hey check out cameesa? or are there other things we can do?...we are currently have a t-shirt giveaway here

- kamil commented 33 days ago

Think of twitter as the internet nervous system, it's got a pulse to it. but it's not a long winded thing, its little snap shots of peoples day. Promoting is a lot like 100's of little mini interviews. same rules apply, but shorter. Tell me who you are, what you do, and why I should care. Then mix it up, hitting those same points. If you don't have an aggregator, I suggest hootsuite, tweek deck or seesmic, threadsy is invite only but it aggregates all email clients, hotmail, gmail, yahoo, plus twitter and Facebook. This tool just came out, so check mashable, tech crunch and those tech blogs to keep updated on who the other startups are. Cameesa is just about primed for a grand tour of the Where are they now game, so hit up some old contacts and give them an update. Is Cameesa dead? some people have been asking.

Start using searchable hash tags, these can be tracked. #cameesa, #crowdsource


The contest is good but it's in house, you need to do the contest on the mean streets of the internet.
RT (re tweet) message about contest @cameesa #crowdsource #fashion 2 win whatever. (bit.ly) by when

It takes some practice to get it all down, but that's the idea.

Blogs are good, Coty Gonzalez, Assault blog, I am the trend, tee shirt review

Let me ask this:
Would you supporters like to have shorter wait, or greater dividends.
Waiting is already apart of the culture at cameesa so I am used to it by now.

I would like greater rewards, enough to earn, future supports, or shirts
I have 15.91 in my balance sooo close to another support, or shirt.
This may work with a token system, but I don't want to get into all that again.
Just worry about getting out there.


Friending on the internet is not a matter of adding people to networks, it's getting them to care, like what we have here in the forums. Just be yourselves, be honest and let your passion for this place speak for you.

As a user of the internet my favorite experience is face to face deals.
Mostly watching other artist or tee shirt enthusiast on ustream.
I really like the real time chat, and the getting to know you vibe of that kind of show.
So if you could find time in your schedule to do an hr of face to face, I think that would have the most benefits. I like to have a dependable time, so I can add it to my weekly routine. But any face to face would help, with the speed of the internet as it is now, and companies coming and going without a trace it's a big deal.

- quakerninja commented 33 days ago