Analysis on Threadless Chicago Based E-commerce Company

E-business assignment 1
Analysis on Threadless Chicago Based E-commerce Company
Student
Course
Tutor
Institutional Affiliations
State
Date

E-business assignment 2
1. Introduction
Threadless organization is a community-based online platform that got started with
$1000 by Nickell and DeHart in the year 2000. Inspired by their experience and motivated by
their success, the founders launched their own business. Their website platform works like a
never ending design competition. The organization allow community members to submit their
design online which are then voted for by the community. Threadless company select the
winning designs which they print and sell. The winner, in return get rewarded with cash for her
own purchases. This business model has greatly contributed to its success.
2a. Threadless business model in 2008 and in 2018 in light of Osterwald’s Business model
Threadless’ model can get elaborated with the help of the building blocks featured in the
Osterwald’s business model canvas as follows.
The
organization
Partners
Customers,
hosting
providers and
investors
Main activities
Managing
product
development
process,
platform
development and
maintenance
Value
proposition
Community
feeling, get
revenue shares
of the final
product
Customer
relationship
Acquiring
customers
through:
Referral
marketing,
community
Customer
segment
Investors,
entrepreneurs,
marketers,
developers.
Main resources Channels

E-business assignment 3
Support staff,
website
operators, brand,
user stock
Community
profiles,
websites, emails
The cost structure
Production on demand cost
The revenue stream
The special preorder prices
Subscription fees
In the year 2008, customers were mainly graphic designers, there were also consumers
who buy the products. In 2018, there is a wide range of customers including software developers,
consumers, designers, and webmasters to mention a few. According to the model, nearly all users
share the same goal, a strong sense of identity, and enjoyment of task as well as a feeling of
community belonging. When all users feel motivated to continue with the development of the
platform, Threadless will be at a comfortable situation to disperse its shared risks.
2 b. The evolution of Threadless since 2000 to today by comparing the two different stages
in the year 2008 to the year 2018.
Threadless has become one of the most innovative small organization in the United
States. Its history dates back to the year 2000 when it was formed by two college dropouts
namely Jeffrey Kalmikoff and Jake Nickell. Piller (2010, pp.47) tells the story of the Threadless
starting with the episode at MIT meeting where the organization’s staff offered one of their first
public presentations. The author has done a great job in documenting the history of Threadless
organization since it got started.

E-business assignment 4
From 2000 to 2004, the company’s revenue grew by 500 percent every year without any
advertisement. However, by 2006, the Threadless user base grew up to 700,000 members and
their sales reached over $18 million. The organization continued to grow in the year 2007 for an
estimated thirty million dollars in T-shirts sales (Esnaashari, Azimzadeh, Farhoodi, and Solouki,
2018, pp. 144-149). By 2008, Threadless had gotten crowned several times, community
members submitted various T-shirt designs online, which are afterward put into community vote
and the winning design is selected. By 2009 the organization was well on its way to selling over
one million t-shirts.
Currently, many people around the world know and embrace the organization as a
company as well as an online community (Nelson, Mehta, Mikrut, and Shah, Caterpillar, 2012,
pp. 13). The company has attracted over 1500 designs from over 42000 designers having over 80
million votes cast by the community to express their preference more than it did in the year 2008.
This is attributed to the advanced technology that has led to an increase in e-business.
2 c. The business model that would be more successful to Threadless organization
The crowd-sourcing business model has always been and is still the more successful
business model for the Threadless Company. This business model has gotten used for 18 years
now by the organization. The company has been able to sell millions of shirts and still sell up to
now. The Threadless designers are often asked to submit spectacular designs and they compete
against each other doing the same thing (Lakhani, and Kanji 2008, pp. 608-707). It can be noted
that there is a free argument which supports crowd-sourcing, however, the company already have
a number of dynamics that make them stay above critiques as they build multi-billion dollars
business a year.