So its been a few months since I checked in with my old mucker Miles at Innertee. I’m a fan of their platform and approach. I chatted with Miles about how things have developed, how scale-able the model is and whats suprised him since the launch.

Adam: miles, how you been? Hows life at Innertee? i guess your not vaporware after all

Innertee: lol, yeah - its going amazingly

Adam: better than you hoped?

Innertee: well, its a long process but I think we’ve turned a corner on some of the issues we were having -  all part of the deal. I’ve learned a TON and we aren’t even 50% of what I want the site to be

Adam: You put the original plans for the concept up extremely early (a good year before launch). Why was this? Would you recommend others do the same?

Innertee: well, we didn’t plan for it to take as long as it did to get out there and of course along the way our expertly laid ‘plans’ changed but I think we are really excited how things have gone so far and we are just getting started

Adam: but do you think it was risky to “show your hand” so to speak, so early on?

Innertee: Not really, it actually helped us a lot and some of the feedback we got on our early prototypes was really invaluable. We did worry a bit about people copying the idea but if its easy to copy then its really not that great of an idea. Not to mention that its all about how you execute the small stuff - shipping, returns, errors, etc - we felt those were the things that would make a difference for us

Adam: Yeah, I think its not something I would recommend but for you, it worked. would you agree?

Innertee: Depends on what you are doing but either way the second you go live people will be there ready to checkout everything you are doing. Its really about the team of people you have and how you push yourself to make it better and make sure the people that are using the site are happy

Adam: What would you do different if you started the project again?

Innertee: As far as what we would do differently - like I said just get the idea in front of as many people as we can. Looking back it would have saved us time if we had done that and gotten more feedback on some of our core ideas. But overall it was a lot of fun and we learned a ton - so it was totally worth it

Adam: what has surprised you most since the launch?

Innertee: I think as far as surprises its really been how quickly we got a really passionate group of people on the site helping us out. They notice every bug and have some great ideas for some of the issues we run into. Its just amazing to see people running with your idea and making it their own.

Tbreak - some innertee mixes for ya:

Boy Bots Club

Robo Ralf $28 

Adam: How do you label yourselves? Can you be everything to everybody, or do you have to pick a niche?

Innertee: I dunno regarding the label stuff, Jamie & I have talked about it a bunch but I think we need to make sure we have a few beers first or something. Just seems kinda goofy and we aren’t trying to do anything other than make cool shirts that we would like and we hope other people like. All the talk about niche this or target market that seems to come from people who don’t want to buy a shirt but want to ‘figure out’ what we are doing. Maybe if they buy a shirt first we will make something up for them!  :0

Adam: do you consider yourselves web 2.0, creative apparel, mass customisation, art? do you care :)?

Innertee: We are custom web art apparel for masses of creative people…. 2.0

We really don’t worry about stuff like that. Actually, we’ve focused on what we aren’t. that seems to be easier for us and helps us stay focused. so if we know we aren’t good at something - we don’t do it. Or if we know we don’t like it - we are pretty sure our community won’t like it

Adam: so what aren’t you good at? i like this total disregard of weaknesses. it seems simpler and less painful

Innertee: really its just about making sure we are making the best quality shirts we can and not get pulled into being able to do 50 other things. Stuff like custom bulk orders, digital transfers, etc

Adam: the question for me is how scalable the model can be. You pre-print your graphics right. so even if they never sell you have prepared a quantity of them in advance?

Innertee: ahh - yeah, that will evolve overtime and already has. We started off small and with tight guidelines really for our benefit. We wanted to make sure we could put out the kind of product we will want to be associated with

Adam: so what about when you have a large number of submissions, doesn’t it get more complicated and expensive them to maintain that portfolio of printed designs.

Innertee: As we grow we know our process can scale and actually becomes a lot more flexible as it gets bigger

Adam: How come? What am i missing

Innertee: lol - the secret sauce? Just like anything else - as your volume increases the cost per item goes down - so its allows us to get more creative. Which is good!

Adam: but you don’t see a problem in having ever larger quantities of printed graphics which might not sell as you get bigger and bigger, with more and more submissions?

Innertee: First of all, I hope we have that problem, I don’t ever assume anything. I think our success depends on how well we do with each new member and each shirt. If we get too caught up in how much bigger or how much more we can do I think you run the risk of losing focus on what matters right now. That and our magical shop monkeys are really good at solving problems for us

Adam: Id say your a fairly open company. do you think there can be such a thing as being too transparent? (I don’t think you are, I’m just asking hypothetically)

Innertee: I dunno, that seems to take a lot of effort to ‘hide’ stuff. And if you are hiding stuff its usually because its not good or doesn’t make people happy.

Innertee: And then you have to be careful when doing interviews w/someone who works for one of the big mega companies!

Adam: we are small, and nice. you have nothing to fear.

Adam: do you think the market is saturated?

Innertee: I don’t know about saturated but I think with so many tools out now that it has shifted where the value is

Adam: and where is the value now for you?

Innertee: I think the value for us is in letting people be a bigger part of the creative process and helping out someone else while they are doing it

Adam: what are are the community doing that you didn’t expect?

Innertee: its a lot of things - layouts w/graphics, features in the site & tool. Basically just breaking our site for us and then telling us about it - I think its the best part of where we are at right now, being able to see that something is broken and make it better. That gets harder to do as you get bigger and have more moving parts.

Innertee: ha - I think its the opposite, we have a zillion badass ideas and just have to make sure we don’t get off track. Our community throws out a lot of ideas as well so its awesome to be a part of that conversation and see what they are thinking.

Innertee: oh - the only other thing is international participation - its been HUGE, esp from the UK

Adam: yeah, why do you think that is? What is the sort of country split of participants and sales? I guess the weak dollar is doing a lot for international sales

Innertee: I think its about 60/40 us vs international - exactly, I think the weak dollar plus the high prices in Europe are a big factor.

Thanks to Innertee for taking the time to answer my questions, expect another update from them in a few months.