The lastest big player in the design your own/mass customisation space is the in closed beta Stagr.com. I’m pretty sure this site is going to make a big splash especially when you consider the credentials of its founder Nick Swinmurn. Nick is the former founder of Zappos.com the big online footwear (amongst other things) e-tailer. Although he stepped aside to run Stagr in Feb this year, Zappo’s is a thriving business with nearly 700 employees and a $600m turnover. Experienced is the probably the word I’d use to him!

This interview will be posted in three parts, firstly about Nick and Stagr, secondly my experiences of using the beta and thirdly the transcripts from an interesting web chat where I introduce Nick to Miles the founder of Innertee (they were previously unaware of each others businesses), Innertee’s model looks the closest to Stagr and we chat about the industry and the future of the two companies.

(Read the Interview in the full post.)

me: tell me about your online background? You’ve had some other high profile projects right?

nick: i started zappos.com in 1999, was there until feb of this year when left to start stagr. zappos sells shoes and handbags online and is now getting into apparel and eyewear.

me: ah, i know zappos, I think frank piller did a post on them. I did my dissertation on MC and the Threadless VC. The title was “do consumer want to design unique products on the internet”

nick: i hope you said yes.

me: I guess you’d answer..?

nick: I think so beyond a doubt.

me: Some people (including me) believe that a unique experience is more important than a unique product, do you agree?

nick: To a certain extent. i think you need both. We’re working very hard to make the stagr experience unique.

me: How important do you think virtual communities are in developing a online brand and loyal customer base? If so, how have you addressed this with stagr?

nick: I think that the experience is the brand, even with the best experience if you get a crappy product the experience is ruined.

nick: we haven’t launched the site yet, so haven’t been able to interact much with a community yet, but we hope that the experience on the site will lead to a strong community, but at the end of the day stagr will be about customizing your own apparel, so as long as each individual customer enjoys it we’ll be happy.

me: how important to stagr is it that customers can learn from the experiences of others who have customised ie like the innertee model?

nick: Sharing will be a big part of stagr. customers will be able to collaborate on designs and invite others to view their item before purchasing. i must admit i’m relatively new to the online tshirt industry and so not completely familiar with what everyone else is doing.

me: how, why did you decide to start stagr then?

nick: i’ve been intrigued by cafepress for years. i also noticed more and more brands we worked with at zappos adding some form of customization over the years. i felt like there was an opportunity to create a customization tool that lived inside a brand. hopefully others will agree.

me: how do you view your competitors like spreadshirt?

nick: i like spreadshirt. spreadshirt, cafepress, threadless, etc all inspired the vision that became stagr.

me: how is stagr different from cafepress and spreadshirt?

nick: we won’t be taking the build your own store angle. we also won’t be allowing users to upload and immediately use their own graphics.

me: so its a sort of half and half, you provide the core, users customise from there?

nick: yes. we are hoping that users will see our graphics as pieces of a puzzle rather than a complete design. I wish i could say “here’s exactly what stagr will be”, but i think a lot of that will depend on where the users take us.

me: I think thats the same for just about every online business these days, you build a userbase then follow its wishes, the old system is dead

nick: i think the key is balancing freedom for consumers with still developing a brand, rather than giving up complete control. Obviously i admire what threadless, spreadshirt, etc have done. they were big inspirations. the creativity of the online tshirt community is also amazing.

Pt. 2 coming in the next few days.