This Indian startup helps you become a designer and make money, for free

A fan of Modern Family would remember the T-shirts Jay Pritchett made for Claire, Haley, and Manny: Claire and Present Danger, Haley’s Comet, and Who Da Manny. Now who would forget the T-shirts Joey made for Ross for his bachelor party on Friends– the one with Ross Geller Bachelor Bash 1998 on the front and Best Man Joey Tribbiani printed on the back.

Talking about custom-designed T-shirts makes me miss my college days when my gang and I got our group T-shirts made. Now imagine being able to design and produce your own T-shirts for a campaign, without worrying about the manufacturing process and distribution channels, and rake in the profits, without spending a single penny. This is exactly what this Indian startup called Jack of all Threads (JoaT) offers.

The Bengaluru-based startup is a crowdfunded platform for custom merchandise. It was started nearly three years ago by Yash Vardhan Kanoi, Apoorvaa Agarwal and Pratibha Nair, while they were still in college. It began as a T-shirt printing service for college students, but the founders wanted to develop the model. Crowdfunding helped them evolve to Jack of all Threads.

Jack of all Threads, master of tees

JoaT couples crowdfunding and social commerce together. “The users (aka Raisers) can log on to jackofallthreads.co and design a tee using the web design studio. Based on their designs and product types, they can immediately see the base cost for estimated numbers of T-shirts sold.  The cost includes production, shipping, and administration. They can then set their own selling price and add in their campaign details like title, description, link, and end date. They launch the campaign and their T-shirt goes live on their campaign link. This campaign page is like a product page of an ecommerce site,” states Kanoi.

Raisers can share the campaign link via social media to attract potential buyers. Interested buyers can purchase the T-shirt like in any typical ecommerce site with online and cash-on-delivery payment options available. The buyers can also choose the size and colour of their choice. Once the campaign ends, orders are processed and the tees are manufactured and shipped. Profits are transferred to raisers, as per total campaign sales. Apart from T-shirts, the company’s product range also includes hoodies, mugs, caps, business cards, and banners.

Crowdfunded customized clothing for a cause

Apart for helping people design and sell T-shirts, the company also believes in doing something socially meaningful. They came up with the concept of Impacthread, whereby college students could choose to donate a few extra bucks per tee, for a cause. JoaT would match that donation and the total amount would go towards a partner cause.

“We’d educate the buyers about the cause and print an Impacthread icon at the corner of their tees. The idea was that a college tee could represent a lot more than just the club one was part of; it could represent social values. The more the Impacthread icon would catch on, the more people would understand the idea that their regular college tees could make a difference,” Kanoi tells Tech in Asia.

L to R: Pratibha Nair, Yash Vardhan Kanoi, and Apoorvaa Agarwal

Jumping Jack

Joat’s revenue generation model is interesting. Based on the raiser’s apparel type and design, he/she is given an estimated base price, which is deducted from final sales. The user pays nothing and he sets his own selling price. The base price accounts for the product type, design complexity, total sales, logistics and a small admin fee.